Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

My focus is the ring. I look nowhere else.

Throw a few punches, for effect. Tune into the music being buried by the boos and other rambling noise.

I see the banners hanging from above.

They used an older picture of me for the official fight card. Something in me cracks, wilts, a flutter of the nerves. Everywhere I look I can’t avoid what waits for me.

IF THAT’S HOW IT’S GOING TO BE,

THAT’S HOW IT’S GOING TO BE

I strafe around the ring twice, raising my arms, posing for the cameras. Media afire with various shots, the arena rumbles, the air feels thick, hard to take in. Every inhale takes something out of me. The atmosphere of a fight. I stare at the other side of the ring, where Executioner will soon stare me down, waiting for his chance to send another uppercut right where it’ll end me.

My music stops, replaced by X’s droning hip-hop track.

The audience switches modes, negative to positive, as X runs to the ring alone. His crew about two minutes behind, walking slowly, not at all worried that X will be winded by the audacious sprint to the ring.

I would have done something like that when I was his age.

I didn’t, but I could have.

Easy to say that you “would” or “could” have done something but hey, hey, X has entered the ring. Need to not be in my own head right now.

He stands front and center, flexing his arms, snubbing me entirely.

The music dies down. The referee takes his spot and so too does the announcer.

Time for hyperbole…

TIME FOR INTRODUCTIONS

The announcer shouts into the microphone:

“Tonight, we are going to witness one of the most important matches in the history of professional boxing…

“Are you ready?

“Boxing fans, are you ready…?

“For the thousands in attendance, and the millions watching at home, ladies and gentleman…

“It’s time for fight night!

“Twelve rounds for the proof of being the best of the best!

“Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner, wearing solid black trunks with red trim…‘Executioner’ Willem Floures!”

AUDIENCE UNANIMOUS APPLAUSE

“And in the red corner, wearing the gold trunks with white trim…‘Sugar’ Willem Floures!”

AUDIENCE APPREHENSION

MODERATE APPLAUSE

Tune it out.

We step forward, the referee goes through the usual rules.

“Touch gloves,” to which we both choose to remain focused, gaze digging as deep into X’s eyes as I can.

Back to our own respective corners.

The tragic few seconds before the bell rings.

ROUND ONE

Soon it is here, and I can already see the fight a few actions into the future. I remain on the defensive. X wants me to create opportunities for him, testing me with the jab, which this early into the fight, I can easily absorb. His jabs graze my gloves but do their job at keeping me shelled up.

I look for opportunities.

I find none so I throw out the jab, hoping to create one.

The round progresses the same way:

JAB

JAB

JAB

JAB

Trading jabs, absorbing them; in my case, I maintain my defensive shell. X moves around the ring on the balls of his feet, semi-circling me with his arms down. He teases out an opening, just one opening is all he needs to send me to the ground and we both know it.

I know what he’s thinking.

I know that he’s pissed about what I’ve done.

I’m not sure it was the greatest of ideas, but it’s too late now. What’s done is done. What makes it both good and bad at the same time is the fact that no one can expose the truth to the media without being hurt in the process. If X told the media the truth, that I never killed anyone, that it was a slanderous lie, he would reap the negative effects too.

This is why he wants to level me, send me down to the canvas early in the fight.

But not this round.

We return to our corners.

Spencer says something that I can’t hear because I’m way too focused. I can’t even look away from X. My gaze trained to him in his corner, never once looking away.

ROUND TWO

I remain in my shell, occasional jabs.

He gets his work rate up with a few jabs and some decent hooks to the body that I fail to block. I hear it in my breath, the pain, wheezing from impact.

He quickly notices that if he continues landing a few hooks, I am unable to do anything. I cannot even throw out the jab. With every hook, I become more and more tired, gassed.

I don’t want to do what I know to do.

It is the reason for fights to turn ugly and dull; however, it is the exploitable tactic of the tired fighter in denial.

I clinch, grabbing him, pulling him in, landing a few punches to the kidneys whenever I can get away with it.

X mutters, “You fuck!”

As I land a nice sharp one to his left kidney.

The referee breaks the clinch.

“Fight!”

Shouts in my face, a warning not to keep clinching. We’re all seeing the fight a number of moves ahead. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.

He tries for a combination but I grab his arm, pulling him in for another clinch. Three more like this and it’s the end of round two and you can hear the audience:

AUDIENCE BOOING

Spencer splashes water in my face, “The hell you doing?! Ease off the clinch. Vary it up with combinations! Save your energy!”

Sound advice but I’m still not listening.

Still staring at X, I mouth the words “I…will…kill…you.”

Psychological mind games.

Whether or not it’ll actually work, it’s worth it. It works for me. I feel like I have some control over the fight and as I clinch my way through rounds three and four, much to the audience’s dislike (everyone disgusted with such an anticlimactic fight) I begin to fall into a groove, one that vouches for doing whatever it takes to win.

To remain where I am.

It doesn’t start now. It’s already begun. I will do whatever it takes.

Don’t you get it?

By round five, X is really frustrated.

ROUND FIVE

This is where I get the warning from the referee, “If you clinch again, I will end the fight!”

AUDIENCE APPLAUSE

X with a sly grin. That damn mouth guard that says “DIE” on it.

Taunt me all you want.

In this moment, I am confident.

I break through my shell with the jab.

X blocks, using fanciful footwork to stand just out of reach of my strikes. He turns to the audience, flexing and shouting.

They are all on his side.

For all they care, I’m a “nobody.”

He is Willem Floures.

I’m some article from a different era.

I land a shocking hook to his face. It surprises him.

He switches to the defensive as I continue jabbing, thrilled to have caught him with the sort of punch I no longer knew I had.

Not a signature. Not anymore.

I’m just throwing punches, running on fumes.

ROUND SIX

I am gassed but the experience of so many fights carries me on through the onslaught of this round and the next.

X unloads on me, combination after combination.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

That cuts and stuns me harder than any of his strikes when he lands a straight shot to the body that sends me to the ropes, bouncing back, flying right into another shot.

He hasn’t landed the uppercut yet.

He’s waiting.

I know him.

Not a whole lot of patience unless it’s recognized that everything is on the line. I think of what I might do to psychologically toy with him and give me another nudge in the right direction, the direction of a centered mind.

ROUND SEVEN

There is an idea brewing in this brain of mine.

I go back into my shell.

I think about when it might be the right time.

Not now, next round.