Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

INTRODUCTION

READ: I AM TRYING

The cabbie doesn’t give a name and there’s nothing left to say.

Spencer gives the cabbie directions.

The rest is silence, and I am still staring into the rearview mirror, watching the disinterest hang over the cabbie’s face, gloom of a near-frown, stench of long hours sitting and smoking, wrinkles forming where it counts most, reminding me of my own age.

And how old I have become…

I am a fighter. Edit : I am an old fighter.

I am a fighter that doesn’t know when to quit.

EDIT: I AM STILL TRYING

I think I am, anyway.

Got to be something worth fighting for, right?

Just now I remembered this one training exercise that I created, without anyone else’s help, not even Spencer, who is the king of coming up with creative forms of punishment; it was this simple little stunt where you merge between five to eight rounds of sparring with a jog around the ring. Each round is split down the middle so that the first minute of the first round, you spar; the last minute of the first round, you jog around the ring. You reverse it for round two, jogging in the first minute and sparring in the last, back and forth until you are gassed. When you are gassed, you spar one last round, but not before chugging straight vodka from the bottle right before manning the gloves.

I did this not because it helped me physically (maybe it did, don’t know) but because it helped so much mentally, just being able to compress all of it into one forty-five minute training session.

Time is “of the essence” and even back then I knew that I only had so much of it reserved for the gym. Over the course of my entire career, I got the sense that very little of training consisted of conditioning the body.

Mostly we went to public places and made sure people, fans, haters, whoever it might have been, were there to watch.

I get the sense that I can measure time not in hours but in media junkets. Like this one, Bedside Chat, where I lie down on one bed facing away from the other bed where X will lay, we compete against each other in rehearsed sketches facilitated by a central computer programmer.

The world watches our words type out on a screen that we cannot see.

Via an earpiece in our right ear, we hear the producers telling us what to type next. What I love the most about this is how we receive notice from the listeners, the viewers, the audience, the world.

Not a sound.

Never a sound.

Instead we see their commentaries as a trickle of type, just like ours only smaller, set in italics, running across the bottom of the screen only they can see.

We see it later, after the event is over.

Post-criticism, it feels so much better, easier to handle; Bedside Chat started as a feature on a blog and has now become a celebrity mainstay.

CANDID

That’s the word used in the Chat tagline.

Not far from the truth. If only the world knew that everything was rehearsed, prewritten, and really what X and I do is attempt to be ourselves.

Be me.

I worry that I’ll get that part wrong.

I think I’m confident but I can’t be sure.

Maybe I’m self-conscious. Have I always been self-conscious?

CHAT PROMPT

The way this looks, both beds are cast in synthetic moonlight. X might as well not even be here; I don’t see him walk in just as he doesn’t see me. I type out what I’m supposed to type out:

HELLO

But that’s not enough, the producer voice speaks into my ear via the provided earpiece, so I opt for:

HI WILLEM FLOURES HERE,

THANKS FOR HAVING ME

X types out:

GREETINGS WILLEM FLOURES HERE SWINGING HAYMAKERS AND HAVING A HELL OF A TIME

I quickly get the sense of competition, what sort of competition this is going to be. My word against his, his word against mine. Who will they believe? What will they have us do? I’m kind of glad that Spencer was forced to stay back. Everything that happens now is:

CANDID

And by that I am certain.

I THINK SO

Please let that die.

Producer voice in my ear tells me that I’m going to say something about the last fight. I say something about the last fight, just that it was a good one, and that I know we can both do better next time. The producer whines, wanting more from me than that, so he offers a prompt for both of us. The audience can see the prompt:

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF: HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE “ONE-TWO SOUTHPAW SLIP?”

A signature punch of mine. I’m happy to talk about it extensively. So what exactly do they want?

I explain as clearly as I can how it consists of leading in orthodox, standard positioning, leading with a left jab, jab, jab, jab, wait and feel it out for the switch-footing to southpaw, throwing a right hook to the body, another jab to the face, as I do; the meat of the move is in the left straight to the body, sometimes I aim for the face, which, when landed, provides enough power to stun. I know because that’s probably how I was KOed last fight.

Right?

Wrong it seems.

I get this wrong.

That is not the “One-Two Southpaw Slip.”

The producer voice speaks into my ear, curious about what the hell I’m talking about when X is evidently the one that’s correct.

I know what I know which alarms me when, considering my position here, I am prone to questions about my life, my boxing style.

If I get it wrong, what does that mean for me?

Does it make me any less than I already am?

DID YOU REALLY VISIT MOLLY JEND’S SPACE SERVER ONGOING PRIVATE PARTY?

Molly Jend, now there’s a name that used to be synonymous with Willem Floures. She was always a good friend until we had a falling out of sorts. I said some things, she said some things and we kind of never apologized. But that place, “Space Server,” is this exclusive VIP party central that never dies. The music can be heard for miles (not really, that just sounds cooler than saying “music is really loud”) and she has successfully turned the house into a business and the business into a success.

People pay in hourly blocks to be a part of the exclusivity.

Yeah…

You could say Jend and I were an item.

The idea for Space Server, more or less, began as a joke during those few summer months when we were the opposite of productivity, wasting every day and night on leisure spillover and sinful commodities.

Producer voice speaks to me instead of speaking to ‘X’ but clearly what I hear is not meant for my ears.

“I didn’t tell him to smear the chat. Have you heard anything about Sugar smearing this broadcast?!”

Smearing as in crashing, as in intentionally going against the script.

I don’t know what’s wrong.

Producer voice says what I don’t want to hear:

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

My reply should be:

I AM TALKING ABOUT MYSELF

WHO ELSE?

What if I’m not?

The point is I’m talking.

I am being honest. I mean, right? I didn’t do this to smear the show. I actually enjoy these chats. The audience actually has a voice, even if it’s italicized and withheld until the end of the broadcast.

If you ask me a question, I can’t help but answer honestly.

Producer voice goes back to the script I believed I had been following:

WHAT PART OF YOU DIED ON DECEMBER 3 RD?

Sensitive question but this is a “tell-all” kind of event.

I find it effortless to type out my reply rather than form it in mouth, tone, hanging there, the sound of my voice, which always sounds uncertain, unconfident of what I might say.

December 3 rdwas a day I had forgotten.

It was a day when part of me died.

Guess we want to go there.