Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

Before I am gassed. This isn’t even an actual fight. I’m merely working in some shadowboxing exercises while Sarah watches and pretends to be her father, shouting commands at me.

Think: Cliché of boxer trainer, “LEAD WITH THE JAB!”

Of course I lead.

It all comes from the jab.

I used to like doing this. Fighting.

Right?

Yeah.

Ask any of them and they’ll all say yes.

DO YOU LOVE BOXING?

NOTE: And all its variations such as “Do you like to fight?” and “Did you want to be a boxer?” and “Do you enjoy taking a punch?”

EXECUTIONER: Absolutely.

ICE: Wouldn’t want to do anything else.

BUSTER: I guess so. I am a fighter aren’t I?

ONE-TWO: That’s a stupid question given that you’re asking a professional boxer…

Yeah so I guess my answer would be an absolute, one hundred percent confident:

SUGAR: Yes!

Maybe drop the exclamation point…

YES

Yeah that’s better.

I can agree to disagree with myself. By the looks of it, I’m a bit of a hypocrite. You turn the page you see a different side of me. Maybe more of the same, but the subtleties (if I can be considered subtle) take on poor, imprecise shifts like someone that is constantly aching to be in the limelight…

But doesn’t know why.

I’m afraid of the dark.

I am drawn to the brightest lights. Nothing is brighter than the lights shining on the ring on fight night.

Imagine the warmth of everyone’s gaze.

Imagine that you are standing facing the only person that matters:

Yourself.

And you are prepared…

Prepared to go twelve rounds if need be. You will defeat that part of you that fights back. You will fight yourself, JAB JAB POWER SHOT if it takes all the blood and guts spilled to the canvas to get you to stay down.

Imagine that and you might begin to understand why fighting is all I can do. It’s all I’m made to do. I understand the fight. Everything else, well that’s sort of the issue here. I started fighting in hopes of finding myself; big surprise fighting only created more of a rift between each emotion, each resurrected feeling, I might have.

There are no easy identities, only more interesting proximities.

CAN I GO ANOTHER ROUND?

Sarah seems to think so.

From upstairs I can hear Spencer laughing.

Things must be going well. But that’s not my fight. Well, it is, but at this very moment, I want to be as far removed from the version of me they are sculpting. I will see myself imposed upon every possible mode-of-delivery.

A good rumor makes for great spikes in site-hits, subscription purchases, and so forth. I don’t blame the media. They are the blood.

They carved out the veins.

No one exists without blood flowing.

The media makes sure the people that want to, need to, desire to be alive are still there, being viewed.

Read: Alive.

YOU ARE ALIVE

Right now, I am because they say that ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures is a murderer. Right now, I am because I am lead subject on over a dozen media outlets’ front pages. Right now…

I AM ALIVE because I lied.

Therefore, I am living a lie.

And not just one.

As many as needed.

Sarah asks me, “Do you want to win this?”

Words right from her father’s mouth. Spencer always barked the question in raspy, throaty calls during my training sessions.

Motivation mostly, but you know what…

I have been so busy thinking about my chances of winning that I have failed to think about whether or not I want to win.

What is in it for me if I win except a rematch, another one that fights on their toes, quick to strike, ready to replace me?

I WANT TO WIN

I know that I do but these days I worry that I don’t have any other motivation, nothing else to claim as purpose, besides the victory. I want to win because I want to win.

“Yes,” I shout back.

Sarah giggles, “JAB!”

Just like her father, she does her best to pretend that we have it all under control. But really, I’m in the basement, gassed, tired, achy, only a few days away from the rematch, and I haven’t even begun to train.

I have become someone people can’t stop talking about, not because I am still in their minds a great fighter but rather because I might be convicted. I might be that person that killed some person . When it involves murder, everyone gets at least moderately interested.

I lean back against the turnbuckle, corner of the ring my place to calm down, check my heartrate, and most importantly, listen for Spencer.

What is happening?

I tell Sarah, “Go get your father. Tell him we need an update.”

She salutes me like a soldier, “Yessir!”

Carefree and not at all concerned with identity and placement in this society, Sarah might end up disappearing on her eighteenth birthday like so many others. Without a visible and brand-worthy identity (and unless you fix yourself to one) you disappear from society. You become brandless. You are just another person, faceless and making do.

I have always feared that sort of scenario.

However, when I see the anonymous so quick, so carefree, I often wonder if it was their choice. Their decision to be private. Their identity solely theirs, no one else’s.

There might only ever be one Sarah Mullen.

Maybe she wants it to be that way.

That’s a lot of pressure, being in full control of yourself.

How anyone can do that…I can’t even begin to fathom.

Spencer has his own past. There are other Spencer Mullens out there. I know that a few of them have a Spencer as their trainer. They just don’t let Spencer treat them the way he treats me.

I never got over my social anxiety.

I never got over the fact that people are watching me and they care and yet I still need to say something interesting, something poignant.

I settle for silence.

SILENCE

It beats saying something you regret, something people won’t forget.

Spencer with daughter descends the stairs.

“My, my,” Spencer sounds chipper.

“You wouldn’t believe…” he starts but then stops when he notices that I have boxing gloves on and I am noticeably sweaty.

“I didn’t say you could start training.”

“I needed something to keep my mind off the hysteria.”

Spencer rolls his eyes, “This is the sort of spectacle that increases your brand.” Sarah wanders over to the left corner of the ring and hangs on the ropes.

“Sarah quit that!”

I add, “Yeah you don’t want to sprain your ankle.”

Out of breath. This is bad.

“Look at you, you wasted all that energy.”

“I have to train, Spencer.”

“What did I say? Huh?”

I know what he said.

I know, I know. But a fighter trains before a big fight.

“It’s hopeless. Every punch you throw is one less you can throw in the ring on fight night. Your training days are over. Now it’s about fight psychology, staying attuned to your fighter instincts, and most of all: Eat healthy.”

I throw a few jabs.

“Three down the shitter, right there.”

“Only jabs, Spencer. This is helping me. It helps center me.”

He sighs, “Wait until you hear about what they’ve done to you. You’ll be brimming with confidence!”

I BECOME THE PERSON VIEWED

IN THE HEADLINES

Happy I have the boxing gloves and hands taped up otherwise I’d be compelled to scratch at my face. The media took the rumor and took on the remainder of Spencer’s plan. It has reached the authorities and media consultant experts have been quoted saying things like “inconclusive” and “it is quite possible” while the story as a whole is shrouded in mystery.

It’s because there is no data.