Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

THE LECTURE

Lecture about how a match is divided into two, maybe three if you count the post-fight conference.

1) The interviews, the meet-and-greets, the spotlights on sparring, method, strategy; the celebrity mingling, etc.

2) The actual fight, the fight that I thought this was really all about but I guess not; more and more these days it seems like this is an afterthought. Who really trains anymore?

3) That post-fight conference where the media grills you on your performance, like anyone really needs that after going twelve rounds.

On and on and on he’ll go and I need to follow him, agreeing at the end of every sentence.

THIS IS HOW IT GOES

KEY ELEMENTS TO A PROFESSIONAL FIGHT

But it goes, and eventually he will stop.

Things settle down and I get to enjoy a brief but lovely period of recuperation.

That is, unless Spencer doesn’t stop and proceeds to tell me:

“And you’re good for it.”

“Huh?” Good for what?

I already know, and I can feel that knot of dread already forming, twisting, coiling up, somewhere deep in my stomach.

“Executioner v. Sugar II. I signed the contract. Word should be reaching the media…” he looks at his wrist, not that he ever wore a watch, “right about now .” Stops, looks around the hospital for the first time, and then asks me, “Excited?”

Excited is not the word.

I let the effects of the painkillers pull me back under in the nonsense of a drug-laced consciousness. Temporary escape.

Last thing I hear before completely letting go, falling into a coma-like sleep, is Spencer saying, “Let’s get you well. Got to get you back on the routine in a week’s time.”

But I am not there.

Partial consciousness. I play with the prospect of never resurfacing.

I will comb the nonspace and turn it into my home.

HOME SWEET HOME

I’ll be right here. Fine.

But loose escapes are little more than lingering.

Ask Spencer and he’d say it’s not far off from loathing.

I just want to sleep.

These days I fail to fend off the hours that used to be mine; I wake when I wake, frantically rising to my feet when I discover that I slept through to beyond the point where the day can be anything more than half of an afternoon. And the routine, it places me to the side of myself, incapable of keeping track of anything else but the pressures of every incoming promotional event. They all ask me:

“What does it mean to be Willem Floures?”

I had a statement prepared, but I must have left it behind, somewhere, maybe resting on a table somewhere.

Yawn and let it take me, for now, the drugged sleep.

I’d like to ask them the same question.

I’d like to reply by saying:

“You tell me.”

All I know is that I’m not the same person I used to be.

EXECUTIONER V. SUGAR II…

I signed the contract…

Word should be reaching the media right about now …

Excited?

Hear gasps, deep breaths.

Familiar, they are my breaths.

Tired, strained.

Let’s get you well…

Got to get you back on the routine in a week’s time…

THE ROUTINE

I can’t get back to myself, much less the day-to-day.

“Sugar, what happened back there? It appeared as though he gassed you by focusing on body shots. Would you say that’s accurate?”

Don’t ask me.

Ask one of them .

They know me better than I know myself.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

Still have the scars on my face, the loose tooth in my mouth, the jitters so I have to hide my hands from the cameras. Anyway, it’s back to the routine.

The talk of every day until it happens is:

EXECUTIONER VS. SUGAR II

It used to be the other way around:

SUGAR VS. EXECUTIONER

What does it feel like to be the challenger?

That’s a question I’ve already been asked.

It’s a knockout of a question, first of many. Good thing Spencer sits at my side, different because most agents stay behind the scenes. Not Spencer.

He’s always been right there.

Field these questions, man. Please. Go right ahead.

I tongue the open laceration on the inside of my cheek. It’s the wound that wouldn’t heal quick enough. The mouth guard fell out of my mouth, Executioner failing to land a shot but no matter because I managed to clench my jaw, grind my teeth into the soft gummy tissue before the referee stopped the fight so that I might replace the mouth guard.

Memory.

Memory I’d rather forget.

Memory, a memory that is not a part of the media junket.

AUDIENCE LAUGHTER

What are they laughing at?

Oh it’s something Spencer said. Good of him to speak for me—

“Well then, last week’s fight is history and if I do say so myself it was a piece of history. The world saw the end of Sugar’s long-running win streak against what the media had called, in the weeks prior to fight night, a prodigy, a new era for Floures.”

Spencer the expert agent and publicist replies, “What’s the question?”

Thing about daytime talk shows is they tend to sensationalize and place opinion on the public. It is whatever their audience wants. Get them laughing, get them interested. As long as you get them , the truth and/or value of the coverage is less important.

The host winks, gloats, gets to the point:

“Will Sugar be ready for X this time?”

See what I mean?

They could care less about the harmful emotional effect of their questions; this is about entertainment.

Spencer ducks the question, retaliating with a bluff, “Every fight counts for something, I assure you. It is not that we aren’t ready for the fight; every professional is ready to exercise his or her craft. Every boxer fights with the sweet science in mind. Sugar is no different.”

“I am not denying that to be the case, Mr. Mullen, but the world wants to know if Sugar will be ready to face himself or will it be another blunder of a match?”

Relentless.

WOULD EXPECT NOTHING LESS

It doesn’t seem to faze Spencer though.

“What do you want to hear? You ask and I speak the truth. In specifics, I am confident enough to tell you that we have examined Executioner’s preferred strategies, where he’s coming from as a strategist, and everyone,” turns to the audience, the cameras, points at random faces, “every one of you should know that Sugar sees the math, the strategy, the one-two-duck-hook-low; Sugar used to fight like this. Let’s not kid ourselves. He’s got more experience than the entire league of them. He’s used to battling himself, be it ‘Ice,’ ‘Breakneck,’ ‘Kid KO,’ or, the ‘Executioner.’ They are just names, aliases; faces in the dirt of each step. Sugar has the record to prove that he knows every strength, knows every weakness. He understands their round-by-round strategy. A decade ago Sugar and I created it from the ground up, working in subtle psychology into the sweet science.”

Weigh in that answer.

See what the host has for us next.

COMMERICAL BREAK

Of course, to distill and strip away the bulk of Spencer’s reply, they cut to commercial. They want to focus on the negative rather than the positive. It’s what the audience wants. Drama, the dish, new shocking information to please.

DISAPPOINTED

They are disappointed in me.

I am disappointed in myself.

The host tells us, “Okay, I understand that it is in your best interest to maintain Sugar’s persona as it once was in a positive light; however, the light is no longer lime and it is no longer looking for you. It is in our best interest to paint the picture of a true loss. We get the audience to believe it and it makes for a better story.”