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.
X unloads throughout round seven and at one point I start tasting copper, blood now oozing from my mouth.
Unpleasant but not unexpected.
Shell, condensed, losing on the cards.
For now…
ROUND EIGHT
I settle on the idea and take a knee.
The referee jumps between us, holding X back.
I expect the whole world to be in shock, wondering what did it. What stunned Sugar?
I have the one knee down, gaze to the canvas, waiting until I reach the six count to stand back up. The referee grabs me by the gloves, holds them, looks into my eyes, “You okay?” is what he’s saying but not really meaning. This is just another day at the office. For him, he’d rather I stay down.
Why waste any more time?
I wait until the end of round eight to fake a low blow.
I do my best to act like I’ve been hooked to the groin. X shrugs his shoulders, shaking his head, shouting, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
This is so unlike me.
Well, how about that—
I can change too.
I do what needs to be done. I have my values but winning is everything. If I don’t win this I won’t be myself anymore.
Distantly I recognize that I have already let that one go:
Being true to oneself.
I would never fight dirty.
ROUND NINE
It’s not over yet. I start with the jab again. X is irritated and annoyed which helps me win on the cards during this round.
This works:
JAB
JAB
JAB
STRAIGHT TO THE FACE
My shots might not be as quick or as punishing as his but X has lost his strategy. I’ve successfully derailed his linear path towards knockout.
Forty seconds left in the round I fake another low blow.
I keel over, mocking him even more as he turns to the audience, shouting “WHAT FUCKING BULLSHIT!”
But I’m not so sure the audience is on his side anymore.
AUDIENCE SUSPICION
WHERE IS IT AIMED?
AT ME?
AT HIM?
I’m okay and the referee makes sure that I’m okay before letting the clock run out on the round.
Spencer in the corner asking me curiously, “You know what you’re doing right?”
He’s calm, an indication that he sees that something working.
The fight isn’t a pretty one.
BUT IT’LL DO
Water splashed over my face as the bell sounds.
ROUND TEN
The fight can stand to look a little dirtier. When I clinch I make it look like X is doing all the clinching.
X goes silent, slows down, pressure placed on the act of fighting rather than the true expression of the fight, renders him confused.
He has never fought like this before. He has never experienced a fight where it isn’t just the cards but rather the weight of each intended block that might turn the fight.
The fight is more or less directionless and yet there will be a winner.
There will be a winner.
I clinch throughout the round, throwing some punches right before to make it look like X is doing the grabbing.
The referee pulls him aside.
A WARNING
Think about what the commentators must be discussing.
I glance over at their table situated at ringside.
They wear straight faces. Very little is being said.
ROUND ELEVEN
This round will go down as the turning point in the fight.
I punch him low enough to hit his groin but high enough so that it doesn’t appear to be an illegal shot. The referee doesn’t see it. The audience doesn’t see it. The cameras don’t capture it and therefore it didn’t happen.
It is legal.
And X falls to the ground.
AUDIENCE SHOCK
I get a nine count.
You get punched in the groin hard enough and it’s stunning, really, to see a man make it in time to keep fighting. I nearly had it won.
Confidence boost.
The rest of the round he isn’t very active. What can he do other than rely upon recently obtained anger?
I toy with him. A clinch whenever he tries anything more than a jab.
The round ends and it’s mine.
Spencer laughs, “Wow, just wow. I don’t recognize you out there. You are fighting as someone else.”
His would-be compliment comes off as a threat.
What does he mean I’m fighting as someone else?
Who am I if not someone familiar?
ROUND TWELVE
X goes all out, flurries of punches and more than a few stun me.
I shell up, mind elsewhere, focus fractured, preoccupied with Spencer’s comment. The round doesn’t end well. Stunned, he gains a knockdown.
I take my time getting back up, eight count.
I stand there, glaring at him, and it’s captured on camera. The look on my face reads: “Not impressed.”
With a minute left I do my best to send a hook low enough to land another shot.
X applies pressure using a traditionally effective combination:
JAB
JAB
HOOK
JAB
HOOK
UPPERCUT
He doesn’t land the uppercut.
When I see the opening coming, I lean in, letting the jab hit me, and I say to him, “Hey…I know you…”
And this time, I send the uppercut, but not before landing a low blow.
The cameras only see the uppercut, the one that sends him to the canvas.
Saved by the bell?
Not in this league.
The referee starts the count.
THE AUDIENCE IN APPLAUSE
In this moment, I feel content.
I forget what I had to do in order to remain in contention. I feel like myself. I repeat it over and over, “I’m Willem Floures,” while watching part of me stumble around the ring, legs knocked out from under him.
But he stands up.
The referee looks into his eyes.
And that’s the end of the fight.
Not a knockout.
THE VERDICT
We wait for the judges’ scores but already I see it all falling back in on me. I feel a great numbing pain in the back of my throat, unaware that I am biting into my tongue, my molars shredding it, all too consumed with what I know to be the conclusion.
WINNER BY SPLIT DECISION
The name given, it isn’t mine.
“Sugar.”
Figure the X on the marquee paid handsomely for the betting crowd, the warm wads of green bribery handed under the table, passing hands between one opportunist to another, bookie to judge and vice versa.
Who am I to judge the already judged?
What isn’t dirty, what hasn’t been lowered in order to leap higher?
UNDERBELLY
And in this moment, I no longer have any standards.
It has always been personal.
But now—
I will create the laughter.
I will create the momentum.
I will become the exact opposite of everything they know about themselves. I will change what it means to be Willem Floures so much that they will be fighting in a league entirely their undoing.
Not just you X, but every single one of you.
Every part of me will be confused.
I will infuse a new identity, one that is about winning.
For so long, I have taken the personal as professional.
For so long, I looked at myself as a leader, best of the best because there was always something left to reinforce, to further understand and define.
Challenge myself.
Understand myself.
For so long, that wa
s how I treated my career.
I looked for the true identity, unaware of the fact that the identity of Willem Floures was always shifting and changing.
They were applying their own textures.
Well now I change us.
I turn us into everything the world cannot help but watch.
I TAKE IT PERSONALLY
And Executioner, I know you…
Do you know me?
Because if you did, you would see what’s happening next.
THE LAUGHTER I LOVE
This is worth a laugh. Spencer hugs Sarah, kneels down and, at eye-level, he tries to calm her down, “Why don’t you go back upstairs? Isn’t James supposed to be reading you a bedtime story?”
Sarah looks up at me, “Why is he laughing?”
Spencer tilts his head to one side, “Sometimes people laugh when they are nervous or worried.”
“Why is he nervous?”
Sarah pleads with Spencer, hoping for a sincere explanation, one that he will not give. Try this instead, “He’s nervous about society.”
Sarah, typical inquisitive child, with her rejoinder, “Why is he nervous about society?”
Spencer holds back a sigh, “Society needs a reason, but do you sweetie?”
“Yes,” Sarah whines.
“Oh, go on upstairs. Be a good girl. I can tell that you’re tired. Look at those dark spots under your eyes…”
Sarah frowns but concedes; each step is an exaggerated stop up the staircase. “He’s just nervous?”
“Yes, he’s nervous.”
“Why is he nervous?”
Looking at me, Spencer shouts to Sarah at the top of the stairs, “You know, I’m not so sure.”
The Laughter of Strangers Page 10