The Laughter of Strangers (14 page)

Spencer looks down at my hand gripping his wrist.

I see it in his eyes.

“Hurts huh?”

Spencer sighs, “What if it did?”

“Out with it.”

“What?”

“You are trying to blackmail me.”

LAUGHTER

I let go of his wrist.

I push him against the ropes and punch him lightly in the face.

He falls to the canvas, laughing harder than before.

“What’s so fucking funny?!”

He gags on the sting of the punch.

“Huh?!”

“Don’t you love it?”

I breathe heavily, watching Spencer climb back up to his feet.

“Don’t you love it?” He laughs right in my face. “Don’t you
love
the laughter?!”

THE LAUGHTER

Tears run down my face.

At the sight of them, he points and laughs, “Don’t you trust me?!”

I manage to say, after wiping away the tears, “If this is about the last fight, I did what I had to do. Sorry if I didn’t follow your strategy.”

Suddenly his face straightens and in clear monotone, Spencer says, “It has and always will be your story. I am merely a part of it.”

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?

“You love the laughter,” Spencer chuckles, the laughter starting up again. He walks to the other side of the ring and points to the opposite corner.

“Let me guess, you want me to stand there.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Oh Jesus, what the hell is this?

Whatever, fine.

I stand in the corner.

LOOKING FOR SOME ANSWERS

“The answers are right in front of you, Sugar.”

“I expect you to help me find them,” I warn him. “Otherwise, why else would I keep you around?!”

I instantly regret what I said.

But that’s too late.

THIS IS A CONVERSATION THAT’S A LONG TIME COMING

THIS IS A CONVERSATION THAT CHANGES A FRIENDSHIP

It doesn’t seem to affect Spencer. But I know him. I know how he thinks more so than I know myself.

“You don’t trust me,” Spencer announces.

He falls into a fighting stance. Approaches the middle of the ring and waits for me there, perfect posture, balled-up fists ready for a bareknuckle fight.

“I’m not going to fight you.”

“Course not,” Spencer chuckles, “you are too busy fighting yourself.”

FUCK YOU

The anger, he knows how to draw it out in long streaks of blood. It drips down the side of my still-raw, bruised face. I wipe it away, the blood drawn from punctured tongue.

I walk up to the middle of the ring.

Standing up straight, I stare him down.

Right before the first jab hits me in the left eye, he tells me, “You are only confused because you aren’t willing to accept what waits for you. Everything that happens is a joke, a big fucking joke that’s funny to no one but you. Why don’t you laugh? Why don’t you laugh, Sugar? Let loose and laugh. You are wound-up too tight! You can’t hold onto the spotlight forever!”

THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK

I look over at X, a set of eyes watching.

He throws a punch. I take it in stride.

“Why don’t you laugh?”

Another punch to the face.

“I’m laughing!”

JAB

LEFT HOOK

LEFT HOOK

JAB

I stand there, arms crossed behind my back.

Spencer reopens wounds, worsens the numbness of this battle-torn body, but I might as well feel nothing. The placebos I take are enough to trick my manic mind into thinking that I’m not feeling anything at all.

“Why don’t you laugh?”

UPPERCUT

That one almost severs my tongue, teeth digging in deep, the stitches coming loose. Mild annoyance—

I will have to return to the hospital after this.

“Huh? Why don’t you find this funny?”

Spencer punches me in the shoulder by accident.

This is where I would laugh.

I DON’T FIND IT FUNNY

He shakes his hand, wincing in pain. Checks his knuckles.

They aren’t boxer’s knuckles.

“You don’t find this funny, huh?”

This is the truth:

NO

“I don’t.”

Spencer balls up his fists, back into a fighting stance, as he sends a combination:

JAB

JAB

LEFT HOOK TO THE BODY

RIGHT HOOK TO THE FACE

I cough, can’t help it. The blood collects in my mouth from the torn gums and torn tongue.

“It’s only funny when you fight yourself!”

Spencer shouts and I dodge the haymaker he aims right for the temple.

I push him back to the canvas.

Fists clenched, I stand there, bloody and out of breath:

He looks up at me, upset, “What are you waiting for?!”

But I don’t. I refuse to fight a friend.

Back to his feet, he launches into a succession of jabs and hooks.

He beats it out of me, the truth.

He gets me to admit it.

Spencer shouts:

WHY?!

“I don’t trust you.”

That last one really hurt.

After I say it as sincerely as I can, Spencer drops his fists, steps out of the ring and marches up the staircase.

Right before leaving my sight he pokes his head back down into view and says, “Everything that happens is part of the story you’ve written to be the person you want to be. I used to believe that it was just a fiction, a part of the identity you want to preserve. Now…I’m not so sure. Maybe you think they are switching places with you. No…they are all the same. You are all the same. Beating the ever-loving-shit out of yourself expecting something grand out of the finale. Here’s your finale. Well here it is. Your finale! Can’t see it?”

I look around the basement, unsure of what he’s talking about.

“That’s what I thought.”

I hear laughter until it is muted by the closing of the basement door.

SILENCE, NEAR SILENCE

The house creaks and moans to the mood of sheer confusion.

I look over at X.

“The fuck you looking at?”

He shuts his eyes, an indication of fear.

What must this look like to him? Am I really fighting someone other than myself?

I hear Spencer walking around upstairs and something about the pace of his footsteps upsets me. I pull up a chair to the TV in the corner of the basement. I turn it on and turn up the volume loud, anything to tune out what I hear, what seems to only be augmented in my mind.

The media has picked up on Executioner’s disappearance.

I flip channels, turning it up louder as I look over my shoulder at X.

YOU HEARING THIS?

Of course he is.

I relay what I see onscreen.

“Seems they are all concerned that you have been killed!”

LOOK IN HIS DIRECTION

“Oh don’t be that way, that’s just one channel.”

I see the formulas, how the media picks up a lead and lets it build, mounting until it sprouts the perfect version, the one that can be sensationalized to the fullest possible financial recompense.

“Here’s another—seems they think that you cheated. I wonder where they heard that?”

YEAH

I WONDER…

“They think that you are exerting media silence. Good one.”

I flip to yet another channel, “Seems the league officials are vacating the title since you’ve been unresponsive for more then seventy-two hours. Hmm. Well that’s interesting. So Spencer got around to nabbing you days ago? What was he doing with you while I was bedridden in the hospital? Kissing your ass?”

Next channel—

I look over my shoulder, just to check to see if he’s listening.

He’s looking therefore I assume he’s listening.

I just want to say something:

I think I’m a nice guy. If I sound like a bastard, it’s because of what I’m going through right now. It’s my mood. That’s all. It’s easy to treat X like a peon because I hate the man. He’s everything I was and will probably go on to make better choices than I did.

Wow, that really does sound bad.

It makes me look like a douchebag.

But I didn’t kidnap X. Spencer did.

His own choice.

NOT MY FAULT

Even if he says that he’s only doing what I told him to do or whatever.

I didn’t tell him to take it too far. He operated on an assumption. Now, by the way the media is beginning to turn X into another case of title-dodging, it looks like everything is steamrolling forward.

One moment I want to take credit for the kidnapping.

Next moment I want to get the hell away from this.

Moment after next I worry about how the media portrays the disappearance; they don’t have much of an imagination.

A series of moments, an aftermath, I forget all of the above and I am still flipping channels, collecting details about the disappearance.

I hear laughter.

For a long time, I fail to comprehend that the laughter that annoys is the laughter coming from me.

Those words quoted on television are mine.

The laughter that annoys is also the laughter that I love.

I look over my shoulder, and I say to X:

YOU DON’T TRUST ME, DO YOU?

THE LAUGHTER I LANGUISH

Vacated title means there’s a whole lot of politics between all sorts of imperfect parties seeking the top contenders, the fighters that’ll generate the most profit and attention for both league and all those invested. Vacated title means another fight. Vacated title means I am in the running but who knows if I’m the best I can be. Someone else is sure enough to be a better fit.

And yet my name ends up on the card alongside ‘Black Mamba,’ who didn’t seem to exist until it appeared that I needed another challenge.

Willem Floures vies for the title he held for over a decade.

Willem Floures faces his toughest opponent yet
:

HIMSELF

And by that I mean, I’m not quite sure about my corner. I can pay for a cutman and all the other crewmembers, no problem, but there’s the issue with Spencer, how he refuses to be in the same room as me. If I walk into a room, he is on his way out; if I need to speak to him, I only get my messages, my texts, my words, repeated back to me.

It seems I have to go at everything alone.

It seems I can, I will, I have already begun.

I CAN SEE YOU FROM WHERE I’M SITTING

That’s the first text message I get from what I hoped would be just another anonymous hater or fan—there tends to be one or two as long as you are worth talking about—but I quickly found out that the fight for the vacated title had already begun and Black Mamba got the first attack.

I text back, “Who is this?” like an idiot.

I know who it is.

YES, LIKE AN IDIOT

And then a phone call which I ignore, not recognizing the number, but I listen to the voicemail moments after the prompt reads:

ONE MISSED CALL

NEW VOICEMAIL

Black Mamba calmly stating, “Hello, Willem. It’s Willem. Been awhile hasn’t it? It’s getting a bit weird, hmm? Seems you can’t help but step on your own toes, retracing your steps from one event to the next. What was the deal with the tattoos? Aren’t you too old for body modification?” There’s a pause and then, “Anyway, I’m always just around the corner. Don’t you make too many mistakes. We have to make this fight interesting.”

End of message. End of common sense.

Questionable if I ever had any.

After listening to the voicemail for a second time, I wander into the basement bathroom. I look at my face, “This is my face, I guess.”

I check my arms, “What does he mean by ‘modification?’”

I take off my shirt and I discover designer scarring combined with a multiple color tattoo wrapping around my chest and back. When did I get this?

But I guess even Black Mamba is unsure.

THAT’S ODD

Shirt back on, noticing that the tattoo isn’t sore, it has healed over, the scarring looks to have been something done long enough ago to be complete. The scarring, I can’t imagine when I could have gotten the work done.

Hasn’t it only been a few days?

IT HAS BEEN A FEW MONTHS

It has? Who said that?

IT’S WILLEM. YOU ARE READING

TEXT MESSAGES RECEIVED

I look around the basement. I see that X isn’t looking well. I wander over to him and notice that although he looks malnourished, someone has been cleaning him. There is no smell. New clothes, the chaffing against wrist and ankle have been treated. Executioner is being slowly executed, tortured by deprivation of food and nutrition.

I mutter, “But even he isn’t alone…”

There are three more of me, tied up, taped up, and watching, judging, worrying about what will become of me. They all have nametags:

We already know about X.

WHO ARE THE OTHERS?

That’s what I want to know.

‘Rattlesnake.’

‘Breakneck.’

‘Big Boy.’

With everyone tied up and left side by side, the sight of them hurts my head. I get dizzy, the kind of reaction and altered vision that comes from a particularly bad concussion.

A “BEAT UP THE CHAMPION” MEDIA EVENT

WILL DO THAT

I’m again searching for not only a response but also a reason. What the hell happened? No answer. But I check for any soreness; I find a particularly alarming bump on the right side of my head. With a single touch, I feel something that is probably pain.

I get another phone call.