AUDIENCE
SILENCE
The camera flash lights up the room.
It’s blinding from where I stand in the back, slowly removing myself from the scene with each step I take.
Spencer mouths the words:
WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?
I know but still.
And yet…
Umm…
Wait!
You see I want to—
Umm…
Someone take me out of this.
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER
X said something that must have been funny, amusing.
At my expense?
Spencer beckons me to join him.
“Get the hell back here!”
I don’t like this part of the weigh-in. This is where I pay my dues. This is where I do what needs to be done to generate buzz.
I walk up to X wearing that face.
Walk right up until we are close enough, our faces an inch apart.
Stare down.
AUDIENCE SUSPENSE
What did you say to me?
What did you say to me?
Those are the words that need to come out of my mouth with certainty, with the volition of a madman wanting his title back.
“What did you say to me?”
Spencer whispers into my ear, “Either you set the tone or you don’t make it to fight night. Your choice.”
He’s right.
This is not the time to be so hesitant and confused. I might not have control over myself but at the very least I can play the basic role of “fighter.” I can pretend to care. I can wear that face.
I can gamble away whatever cards I have yet to play.
Fine.
“Say it,” I shout.
“Fucking say it!”
AUDIENCE SUSPENSE
And I am the cause of the suspense.
X grins, doing his best not to be intimidated. Truth is he probably isn’t and finds this charade to be predictable, but he plays along too.
The weigh-in is a popularity contest.
Who lights up the room the brightest?
X with his reply:
YOU
CAN’T
BEAT
ME
OLD
MAN
Still wearing that scowl, I whisper so that only X can hear:
“You’ll have to do better than that. Set the stage you shit.”
I lob another line, this time louder:
YOU HAVEN’T BEEN IN AS MANY WARS AS I’VE BEEN, KID
YOU HAVEN’T A CLUE HOW HARD THIS SKULL OF MINE IS
YOU WILL HAVE TO CRACK IT TO SEND ME TO THE CANVAS
I want him to push me.
I want him to take a step back.
I want this confrontation to cause him discomfort. He is already annoyed, already bothered by the MURDER. Being this close, right in his face, naturally encroaches upon that feeling that you’re losing your cool.
I know him.
I know enough about him to know that this is one of the worst feelings in the world:
Being called out in front of such a large crowd.
Spencer brings me a cinderblock that has been treated to collapse to pieces with a swift strike.
Do you know what I’m about to do?
I have to break from the stare down in order to take the cinderblock but the inclusion of something like this at a weigh-in is unusual and as a result they light up the room brighter than I could have imagined.
I get high off the attention.
The fact that it is working gives me enough confidence to send my head careening against the cinderblock.
It breaks but not without breaking the skin.
Tearing it open right where I had been torn open in the last fight.
I scream, I shout, I choose to gamble…
YOU
CAN’T
HURT
ME
And it looks like I win.
It is caught on camera and it will be played back on all major venues.
A little alarming though to find it so easy, so one-sided. X didn’t choose to fight back. When I’m afraid, I tend to make excuses. He didn’t make any. His silence alarms me. Did I really intimidate him?
I cared more about the reaction from the audience.
This old fighter can still break some faces.
That’s all I hoped to get across.
Seems the gamble paid off. And then some.
The fact that I killed a man warmed them up. The fact that I don’t care about my health sends them over the edge.
AUDIENCE SILENCE
IS AUDIENCE SUSPENSE
IS AUDIENCE APPEASED
Executioner looks over his shoulder right before leaving the stage.
It’s a look that kicks over the house-of-cards charade I had built all along. It’s a look that says:
You’re running on fumes.
It’s a look that says:
Nice try.
It’s a look that says:
You are going to lose and everyone knows it.
And he’s right.
THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE MUCH OF A FIGHT
I want to fast-forward through the fight, all twelve rounds, just so that I can find out how bad I’m hurt when it’s over. The cinderblock breaks into clumps, loose, like chalk; Executioner’s signature strike to my old and busted cranium will do far more damage. I want to skip forward and somehow find out that I won. Everything will be okay. Executioner knocked out cold. Somehow I knock out a younger version of me.
Me: ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures with his oh-so-impressive twelve wins by KO.
Knock X out.
Who has won most of his fights by knockout.
How can that be?
It’s because he’s changing things. He’s learned how to correctly sit down on his punches and maximize the precision of every landed punch.
DON’T LAUGH
A person can change every part of himself.
At any given point in time we can take a picture and capture the person you were at that very moment; however, a dozen blinks later, the picture might no longer be accurate.
You might gain weight, gain insight; lose weight, lose a whole lot.
People change. You will change too.
You got to wonder what must it take to remain precisely the same, in the image wanted and expected.
DON’T LAUGH
Because I’ve tried my best to remain the same.
I can’t say that I like who I am but at the very least I’ve gotten this far. One of my biggest worries is “losing it.” Whatever that means. I don’t know how it happens but I’ve seen it happen.
It is happening to me.
Shh.
It’s okay.
I admit it.
It is happening to me.
Losing whatever it is that made things bearable.
Give it enough time and your grip on that shade of reality will loosen.
Of course, I’m saying this mostly because I need to say it. No one needs to hear it more than me. I admit it and I say that I admit it but that’s not actually true. All hot air…more bullshit, just like the lies I’ve used.
Just like that cinderblock.
Just like the fact that the murder is a fake.
It’s bullshit. Treated to be spectacle, made to generate enough light to wash out every part of me that might be in contention.
Wash them all out.
Leave only the basic fact:
That I am ‘me.’
I made this all possible.
This league wouldn’t be as popular as it is if it weren’t for me.
WATCH ME
Everyone used to look forward to watching me.
Sure I basically just beat the shit out of myself but that was entertainment for the masses. They liked seeing my skills put to the test. Fight after fight, I wasted away my youth and my health but at the very least I sold out arenas, I moved products, I gained a number of endorsements.
I was at the peak of popularity.
Willem Floures.
Household name.
Solid gold, certified celebrity.
People would bow down if I dabbled in egocentricism and forced them to treat me like a god.
But you see I never got comfortable.
LOOK AWAY
I always worried and never enjoyed my success.