Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

They want to forget that we are all aging, squirming in our shells.

Try and forget that as you age so too does your personality.

You are not the same person you were when you walked into this fight.

This is what they really want.

I land my first.

JAB

Round one starts slow, feeling out X, waiting for his strategy to present itself. I know it can only be one of four possible plans. When I was his age, I didn’t have a whole lot of patience. I had to outbox everyone.

Spencer scowls, “What is this passive bullshit?”

And:

“That’s not you!”

Actually, it is.

Who else would I be?

JAB

ATTEMPTED HOOK TO THE BODY

Not my best. I lead with the right not quite sure of what I’m thinking. It’s because X had me down for the ten count long before this fight. I had psyched myself out of the dance long before sole met canvas.

Spencer cups his hands, “My god, why didn’t you block any of those jabs?”

JAB

JAB

JAB

JAB

STRAIGHT TO THE CHIN

I didn’t see them coming.

But don’t tell him that.

“I was buying an opportunity.”

My excuse.

Spencer rubs his eyes, “You can’t afford to do that any more, you understand?”

Again, this time louder, writing on the dry-erase board:

CONSERVATIVE

BOXER-PUNCHER

“This is what you need to be!”

He circles it once, twice…four, five times.

“This is what you need to be!”

Louder this time.

Back to the fight.

Round two is about to start.

ROUND TWO

As he said, round two is where I got it all wrong and I’ll admit that it’s true.

“My fucking god, what the hell were you thinking?!”

Spencer is starting to sweat. I played right into X’s plan and what hurts the most is that I came up with this tactic. It’s mine, all mine, and yet he uses it and worst of all, I let it happen. I fell into line and blocked the jabs.

BLOCK

SUDDEN IMPACT

Problem is the jabs were ploys for the cutting shot right to the body.

He lands three well-formed punches, all of them straight shots, to the body where I hadn’t been prepared to take a three-punch flurry.

I narrowly block the uppercut X continued to use throughout the fight. The uppercut that would eventually end the fight in round eight, sending me to the ground where for a brief moment I lost sight of where I was and all I wanted to do was sleep. Take a nap. The ring might as well have been a queen-sized bed.

I was out cold.

But round two, I was a little more active.

JAB

JAB

STRAIGHT

JAB

STRAIGHT

JAB

JAB

STRAIGHT

BLOCK

DUCK

TO THE BODY

JAB

JAB

HOLD

“Why are you holding?”

Spencer widens his eyes, “Explain that to me because I’m dumbfounded.”

“Explain why…”

“Why would you hold? You should have used the goddamn left hook!”

I watch the footage. I avoid scrutiny with a yawn.

“If you weren’t that lax in the ring, you might have won this!”

Another combination, attempted, alongside with notice of which punches actually landed:

JAB (miss)

JAB (miss)

HOOK TO BODY (miss)

HOOK TO THE FACE (miss)

BACKPEDAL (to avoid X’s own jab)

BLOCK (wait for it)

JAB OUT OF POSITION (fight out of it)

JAB (miss)

JAB (impact)

STRAIGHT TO FACE (impact)

I tell Spencer, “That wasn’t so bad, right?”

He watches, silent for a moment, as X follows it up with a combination that turns into the first flurry that stuns me. I am able to fight out of it, holding once or twice, not that anyone noticed.

Spencer sighs.

Except for Spencer.

“It’s bad.”

Solemnly, he returns to the dry-erase board and writes down a phrase to be further explored later, “Footwork & energy management.”

I think my footwork is fine.

Not that I say anything.

Round three is about to start.

ROUND THREE

I do better this round but what the audience doesn’t realize is that it’s not because I stunned X or even managed to hurt him.

It’s because he took the round off. I should have identified that he was merely resting, saving it up (much to his dismay, because I know how little patience I have for that kind of thing) in order to send me down to the canvas in round four, five, and for good in round eight.

Spencer writes on the dry-erase board, “Round management.”

Management.

He might as well just write that on the board and save some time.

Manage this old, confused fighter. Help me figure out why the moment I step into the ring, I feel gassed, completely absent, detached from my body.

Seeing this should make me feel better. I land a classic combination, not that it does anything to X. He takes it in stride, trading shots with me until I reach out and clinch, because truth is I’m winded, I’m hurt, I’m tired, and most of all, I’m confused.

The combination:

JAB

JAB

NOTICE AN OPENING TO THE BODY

JAB TO BODY

HOOK TO LEFT SIDE OF FACE

HOOK TO BODY

STRAIGHT

STRAIGHT

JAB

SHORT CROSS TO THE BODY

LEFT POWER SHOT (MY BEST)

I give him my best combination, finishing it off with a clean power shot to the body, something that should have at least registered but X, as I had said earlier, follows up with a combination of his own.

I shut my eyes, not wanting to see it.

I hear Spencer breathing heavily, “Unacceptable! You are falling into your own traps!”

I am.

Yes.

I know that I am.

How can I avoid the past’s snares and spikes if I forget where I had left them, and moreover, what can you do if every time I look in the mirror I see someone new, someone older, someone that I’m not at all familiar with?

This is me, I say.

But I don’t believe it.

ROUND FOUR

X uses this round to catch up on the cards.

The round is a mess. I am stunned early and I hold.

Much of round four looks like this:

BLOCK

X LANDS A COMBINATION

COMBINATION CONSISTS OF:

JAB

LEFT HOOK

JAB

LEFT HOOK

RIGHT HOOK

JAB

STRAIGHT

TO THE BODY:

JAB

JAB

POWER SHOT STRAIGHT

POWER SHOT STRAIGHT

UPPERCUT (impact, stun)

My best bet is, of course:

BLOCK

HOLD

BLOCK

BRACE FOR IMPACT

HOLD

BLOCK

HOLD

Spencer’s head is in his hands, not even watching.

I can hear him say, “You don’t need me to tell you. I’m sure you’re still feeling the impact of that left hook.”

I tell him that I am.

The left hook heard around the world.

“That should have been your left hook.”

It used to be mine.

Now all I do is hold.

HOLD

HOLD

HOLD

HOLD

Even though he doesn’t knock me down, the judges score round four an “eight,” two points that hit right at the heart. The round goes to Executioner.

It’s because I performed little more than the role of the punching bag.

I took the punches and grabbed for dear life.

X mumbled about thirty seconds from the end of the round:

What is wrong with you?

You tell me.

I’m kind of finding it difficult to say much of anything.

ROUND FIVE

No comment.

That’s the official statement.

Spencer stares at the dry-erase board, baffled at the scribble.

“You need a lot of work…”

You can say that again.

He stuns me this round with something that doesn’t quite register but it definitely stung. Much like a bee sting, it tingled and then shot right to the back of my brain, a numbing pain.

It’s the uppercut.

The same damn uppercut.