down. I bounce back upon reaching for the top rope, stumbling in two directions, one of them happens to be X.
As if coming back for more, he hits me again.
UPPERCUT
And I hear laughter.
I look like a ragdoll being tossed around.
To the ground I go and Spencer stops the footage.
I fill in the rest.
Their laughter.
Laughing at me.
For a moment, the way the video is paused, each of my arms going a different direction from my legs, which are floating, on my face the expression of sinister confusion: I feel the tickle of a giggle rising from the base of my throat. I burst out into laughter.
Spencer says, “You think this shit is funny?”
Fact of the matter is, I don’t.
I find it all frightening.
I will never sleep well again.
At night I hear that laughter, the lacerating kind that feels like another fight in and of itself, twelve rounds of ridicule, the roast of ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures by all the others that know more about him than he knows himself.
The receiving end of all jokes.
It’s as bad as an inside joke that I’m not in on…
And it’s about me.
WHAT NOW?
SILENCE
I stop laughing and I’m only a cough away from crying.
Spencer sighs, he rewinds the footage and replays the KO again.
THAT PERFECT UPPERCUT
THE UPPERCUT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
Are they satisfied?
Spencer makes a face, “It is you when you were twenty-two.”
Shakes his head, “Right down to the penchant for combinations.”
He shuts off the footage, looks at the dry-erase board.
SILENCE
Everything he had written is now a smear.
“‘Sugar’…you are no longer sweet with the science.”
I feel the side of my face. This would be sore if I were sober.
He turns to me, “Well?”
I raise my eyebrows, “Well what?”
“Got any bright ideas?”
SILENCE
But I only hear laughter.
We sit here for a time, drifting between caustic thoughts and, at least for me, a deepening fear that is borderline indescribable.
I say, “You shouldn’t have signed us up for the rematch.”
Spencer sighs, “We have no choice. You take the rematch or you no longer exist. ‘Fade out on a sorry sack of shit.’ You want that? Because I don’t. I’ve spent the last three decades building you into the definition of Willem Floures. ‘Sugar’ as in sweet; ‘sweet’ as in the sweetest display of the science that is boxing. And look at you now…”
SILENCE
I have nothing to say.
Thankfully, I am not left with the laughter for long, the laughter exclusively for me. Spencer still speaks for me, and what he says next is about as succinct and on-point as anything I could have hoped to hear:
You either win or you wither away.
This is it. In terms of chances, I’m on my last and I’m lucky to have one more. Very discouraging when you look in the mirror, you look at any form of identification, and you are no clearer in your comprehension of what it means to be THIS person than you were ten, twenty, thirty years ago.
Follow that up by something a trainer and agent should never ask their client, their fighter, their friend:
“Got any ideas? Because I’m done.”
As a matter of fact, I do.
Remember what I had said earlier, about that little flicker that became something full-featured and, at least during this era of desperation, became a fantastic idea? Yeah well when Spencer Mullen seems to get behind it and approve of such an idea, what would you do?
You go along with it.
You even get a little excited.
Maybe, just maybe, you think that you might have a chance.
I MIGHT WIN
Old age does not bring wisdom.
Old age turns smart minds into fools.
THE SILENCE I SEEK
A lot of what I don’t like might follow me wherever I go, but there is one place that saves me from the shame, the swarming of scrutiny and shit talking. It really doesn’t look like much, older two story house just outside the city, slightly neglected lawn, paint job on the place
As if coming back for more, he hits me again.
UPPERCUT
And I hear laughter.
I look like a ragdoll being tossed around.
To the ground I go and Spencer stops the footage.
I fill in the rest.
Their laughter.
Laughing at me.
For a moment, the way the video is paused, each of my arms going a different direction from my legs, which are floating, on my face the expression of sinister confusion: I feel the tickle of a giggle rising from the base of my throat. I burst out into laughter.
Spencer says, “You think this shit is funny?”
Fact of the matter is, I don’t.
I find it all frightening.
I will never sleep well again.
At night I hear that laughter, the lacerating kind that feels like another fight in and of itself, twelve rounds of ridicule, the roast of ‘Sugar’ Willem Floures by all the others that know more about him than he knows himself.
The receiving end of all jokes.
It’s as bad as an inside joke that I’m not in on…
And it’s about me.
WHAT NOW?
SILENCE
I stop laughing and I’m only a cough away from crying.
Spencer sighs, he rewinds the footage and replays the KO again.
THAT PERFECT UPPERCUT
THE UPPERCUT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
Are they satisfied?
Spencer makes a face, “It is you when you were twenty-two.”
Shakes his head, “Right down to the penchant for combinations.”
He shuts off the footage, looks at the dry-erase board.
SILENCE
Everything he had written is now a smear.
“‘Sugar’…you are no longer sweet with the science.”
I feel the side of my face. This would be sore if I were sober.
He turns to me, “Well?”
I raise my eyebrows, “Well what?”
“Got any bright ideas?”
SILENCE
But I only hear laughter.
We sit here for a time, drifting between caustic thoughts and, at least for me, a deepening fear that is borderline indescribable.
I say, “You shouldn’t have signed us up for the rematch.”
Spencer sighs, “We have no choice. You take the rematch or you no longer exist. ‘Fade out on a sorry sack of shit.’ You want that? Because I don’t. I’ve spent the last three decades building you into the definition of Willem Floures. ‘Sugar’ as in sweet; ‘sweet’ as in the sweetest display of the science that is boxing. And look at you now…”
SILENCE
I have nothing to say.
Thankfully, I am not left with the laughter for long, the laughter exclusively for me. Spencer still speaks for me, and what he says next is about as succinct and on-point as anything I could have hoped to hear:
You either win or you wither away.
This is it. In terms of chances, I’m on my last and I’m lucky to have one more. Very discouraging when you look in the mirror, you look at any form of identification, and you are no clearer in your comprehension of what it means to be THIS person than you were ten, twenty, thirty years ago.
Follow that up by something a trainer and agent should never ask their client, their fighter, their friend:
“Got any ideas? Because I’m done.”
As a matter of fact, I do.
Remember what I had said earlier, about that little flicker that became something full-featured and, at least during this era of desperation, became a fantastic idea? Yeah well when Spencer Mullen seems to get behind it and approve of such an idea, what would you do?
You go along with it.
You even get a little excited.
Maybe, just maybe, you think that you might have a chance.
I MIGHT WIN
Old age does not bring wisdom.
Old age turns smart minds into fools.
THE SILENCE I SEEK
A lot of what I don’t like might follow me wherever I go, but there is one place that saves me from the shame, the swarming of scrutiny and shit talking. It really doesn’t look like much, older two story house just outside the city, slightly neglected lawn, paint job on the place
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