Becoming Muhammad Ali Read online

  like a boys’ locker room

  with no ventilation

  like a hot, musty day

  after rain

  like cut grass

  in August

  like the sweat

  of a dozen boys

  after hours

  doing pull-ups,

  skipping rope,

  and hammering away

  at heavy bags

  and each other.

  Columbia Boxing Gym

  The plastered floor

  was coming apart,

  the fluorescent lights

  barely hung from the ceiling.

  The grimy, white-brick walls

  were covered

  in Louis and Dempsey posters and

  large red signs

  with gym rules,

  training checklists,

  Tomorrow’s Champion announcements,

  and corny

  but uplifting quotes

  printed on them:

  Winners are not those

  who never fail.

  They are those

  who never quit.

  The place was loud.

  Old men coaching kids—some

  I knew,

  some I didn’t,

  some white,

  most black—guys

  lacing gloves

  and talking trash

  about what they were gonna do

  to each other

  in the ring,

  and, thing was, it felt good,

  real good,

  to be in there.

  In the Middle

  of the gym

  was the square ring

  with the ropes

  I’d only seen

  on TV,

  and two muscly teenagers

  I knew

  from school

  throwing wild punches

  at each other’s heads

  and missing.

  On the punching bag

  was a tall fella

  with a lighting-fast blast

  of a blow

  that looked like

  it could tear a man’s head

  straight off his neck.

  Egging him on,

  occasionally looking

  around the gym

  at the goings on

  was an old white guy

  with two ballpoints in his pocket,

  hair only on the sides

  of his head,

  and cuffed black pants so baggy

  you could barely see his shoes.

  When he saw me,

  he walked my way.

  Conversation with an Old White Guy

  You lost, kid?

  No, sir, but my bike is.

  How’d you lose a bike?

  SOMEBODY STOLE IT, AND I AIM TO FIND OUT WHO!

  Simmer down, now.

  WHEN I FIND HIM, I’M GONNA WHUP HIM GOOD, TOO.

  Not a good idea to tell a policeman you gonna commit assault.

  You the cop?

  Twenty-five years.

  Can I file a report or something?

  You see the culprit? Any witnesses?

  No, sir. But I think I know who did it.

  Come down to the station on Monday.

  Can’t you just help me out now?

  A little busy down here.

  You a boxer, too?

  Do I look like a fighter, kid?

  That don’t mean nothing. Look at those clumsy fellas in the ring.

  Palookas. The both of them. They got will, but no skill, and they don’t listen.

  You their coach?

  I’m coach and uncle. Teacher and counselor. I’m breaking muscles. They’re chasing dreams.

  Oh.

  Most of these boys never gonna box for real, but at least they get to knock out their anger in the ring, instead of getting into trouble on the streets.

  Where’s your badge? You undercover?

  Enough with the questions, I got to get back to work.

  This is a cool place.

  You know how to fight?

  Never been beat up.

  That’s not what I asked you. You a southpaw? How’s your jab? Show me an uppercut.

  …

  If you wanna learn, come down here after school one day.

  My momma won’t allow that.

  Seems to me if you wanna whup somebody, you should learn how to fight first.

  …

  You know where I’ll be.

  But what about my bike?

  You can kiss that bike goodbye, kid, but we’ll file that report on Monday.

  Thanks. Hey, what’s your name?

  The sign on the door says Joe Martin’s Gym, and this is my gym, so you can call me Joe Martin.

  Good to meet you, Joe Martin. I’m Cassius Clay.

  Momma, Please

  let me go

  down to the gym

  to box, I begged.

  I promise

  I’ll do better

  in school,

  even in French class,

  plus I’ll bring Rudy

  and teach him,

  and make sure

  he doesn’t get hurt.

  The old man

  said he would help me

  find my bike, too,

  and train me

  to protect myself.

  I’ve been born again, and

  maybe I can be great

  at something

  besides my looks.

  After Momma Bird finished

  laughing, she agreed,

  then told me

  Cash was gonna buy me

  a motor scooter

  and that I better not

  let that get stolen too.

  I hooped and hollered.

  Merci, I said, then hugged her

  and ran to tell Riney

  and Lucky the big news.

  Cassius Clay is gonna be

  a fighter.

  ROUND SIX

  As you’ve probably picked up by now, Cassius always thought big. Dreamed big. Talked big!

  This one night when we were kids, we sat around his living room with Rudy and Mrs. Clay and listened to President Eisenhower on the radio. But even when a president was talking, Cassius would never shut up. He was too busy picturing himself in that big white mansion in Washington, D.C.

  “I could be president!” he said. “I should be president!”

  President Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. He said that name would look good on money. Mrs. Clay just shook her head and tried to shush him, but Cassius would not quit.

  “He’s right,” Mr. Clay added. “He would be the best president ever!”

  “Not just the best; the most beautiful one!” Cassius said.

  And I think he really, truly believed it.

  I don’t know what made him think that in a million years a black man could ever be president. In most places around where we lived, black people could hardly even vote! After a while, Cassius forgot about being president—but he stayed way too cocky about most other things.

  Once, for about two weeks, all he talked about was the movie in his head where he beat Rocky Marciano—the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world! And in his movie, Cassius didn’t just beat Marciano. He knocked him out! Cassius was the first man in history to KO the Rock from Brockton. In his dreams.

  But sometimes, when it was just me and Cassius, that confidence slipped a little. It would dim and flicker. Call it nerves. Worry. Maybe fear of failing. Fear of not living up to his own movie. I remember when his first big fight was coming up, he acted all tough and flashy around most people. He bragged to Rudy. He shadowboxed rings around his daddy. He rolled up his sleeves, showing off his skinny arms, and pumped his biceps for Mrs. Clay. But sometimes, I could tell he was acting—putting on a show. Not just for them, but for himself, too. I think maybe it was his way of convincing himself of his own greatness.

  I remember Cassius showing up at school in the mor
ning with two raw eggs and a quart of milk. I watched him break the eggs into the milk, shake it all up, and drink the whole mess down in one long gulp.

  “I’m the baaaaaaddest dude in Looville!” he’d shout, making sure that everybody could hear him. I guess he thought if everybody heard him, it kind of made it true.

  Sometimes I saw Cassius get inspired by real movies. Every Saturday, we went to the Lyric, the Grand, or the Palace—the theaters down on Walnut Street. We saw every Western movie ever made. Every pirate movie. Every Tarzan movie. We wondered why the heroes in those movies were always white, even in the African jungle—but Cassius still loved seeing the good guy win in the end. Because that’s how he wanted to see himself—a winner against all odds, no matter what.

  The truth was, Cassius knew that most of the kids in the gym were bigger than he was. Maybe stronger. He knew there probably wouldn’t be any headgear to protect him against those hard jabs and hooks. All around Joe Martin’s gym, we saw old boxers with noses flattened like mashed turnips. Some of them had their ears all crushed and mangled too. Cauliflower ear, they called it.

  “I don’t wanna look like no vegetable, Lucky,” said Cassius. “I gotta stay pretty.”

  And those boxing gloves. They were so dang heavy! Black leather, with “EVERLAST” in big letters around the wrists. When Cassius was starting out, those gloves felt like lead weights at the ends of his skinny arms, especially after a long training session or sparring match. One night when we were walking home, Cassius told me he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep the gloves up in front of his face in a real fight. And if he let them drop, even for a second… POW! Turnip. Cauliflower.

  They say fear is catching—and I admit that I caught a touch of it. I caught it from Cassius. I think deep down we both had the exact same fear—that when he finally did get to fight on TV, he would lose. And that his dream—his own personal movie—would end right then and there.

  Distance

  Me, Riney, and Lucky

  go waaaaay back

  like Cadillac seats,

  since grade school,

  but now Lucky goes

  to a fancy Catholic school

  for smart kids

  on the other side

  of town, so

  I only see him

  on weekends

  or after school

  when he comes by

  the gym

  to see me sparring.

  Conversation with Lucky

  How you like your school?

  The food is nasty, but it’s all right. They might skip me a grade.

  I wish I could skip the rest of ’em.

  I think I might go to Bellarmine College and study journalism.

  To the Olympics is where I’m going. I’m too slick for these tricks, Lucky.

  You got to get past the Golden Gloves first, Gee-Gee.

  To win the Golden Gloves is my goal

  and after that, it’s Olympic Gold.

  These fists of fury will be my claim to fame.

  Kings and queens will know my name.

  Say it loud, what’s my name?

  CASSIUS CLAY! ENOUGH YAPPING.

  Oh, hey, Mr. Martin, I’m just funnin’.

  Do that on your own time. This is my time.

  Hey, Mr. Martin. Uh, I’ll catch up with ya later, Gee-Gee.

  Later, Lucky.

  Cassius, you got a dream?

  Yes, sir, Mr. Martin, I’m gonna be a winner.

  What’s the best way to make a dream come true?

  Only Way

  to make a dream

  come true

  is to wake up.

  You gotta put in

  the work, Cassius,

  Joe Martin growls

  for the hundredth

  or thousandth time

  since the first day

  I stepped foot

  in his gym.

  Cassius, jab jab cross,

  jab jab cross,

  and move your feet,

  not your mouth

  so much.

  I don’t know

  why I can’t

  do both, I say, laughing

  and jabbing.

  Roadwork

  Shuffle, backpedal,

  skip, dash,

  and roll.

  That’s half my training,

  ’cause Joe Martin says,

  Boxers gotta run

  so they don’t get spent.

  A fight is not a sprint,

  it’s like a short marathon, Clay!

  So, I run

  fast and slow,

  alternating,

  simulating

  the rounds

  in a ring,

  to build up

  my endurance,

  keep my heart healthy,

  get my lungs

  and legs

  strong enough

  for the up

  and the down

  of each round

  after round

  after round.

  Chickasaw Park

  Most every day

  we run before school,

  take off quietly

  out the back door

  at 4:30 a.m.—me and Rudy

  in our training gear:

  green plastic trash bags draped

  over us, and

  heavy black paratrooper boots

  that Lucky’s security-guard uncle

  brought us

  from Fort Knox,

  where he works.

  We cut

  straight through

  Greenwood Cemetery,

  zoom under the parkway

  through the white neighborhoods

  that we’re supposed to stay out of

  to get to Chickasaw,

  where we run the park

  three times,

  circling the fishing pond,

  the cluster of oak trees,

  and the three tennis courts

  that I nicknamed

  FREE CLAY,

  since they’re the only clay courts

  in Louisville

  and ANYBODY can play there.

  We race the last block

  back to our house

  as the sky dawns.

  Rudy yawns,

  hugs Momma—who’s on

  her way

  to work—on the

  front lawn,

  then goes inside

  to shower.

  Hey, Bird.

  I done told you I’m not one of your friends.

  Sorry, Momma Bird, I say, still jogging in place.

  I swear you so big, Gee-Gee, you done outgrown your senses.

  Conversation with Bird

  Anybody crazy enough to be up this early ain’t got much sense.

  Suffer now, and live the rest of my life as a champ.

  How long you gonna keep doing this, Gee-Gee?

  Until I’m a beast in the east, and the best in the west.

  …

  Bir—uh, Momma, I’m gonna be heavyweight champion of the WORLD, and the first thing I’m gonna do is buy you a big house up in the Highlands just like the ones you clean for them rich folks every day.

  Son, don’t mind my job, I don’t. It’s decent work.

  My momma shouldn’t be cleanin’ toilets and cooking food for nobody. Not for four dollars a day. Not for nothing.

  I take pride in my work, son. And God bless that four dollars. It bought them trash bags you wasting.

  I’m not wasting them. It’s part of a fighter’s training, helps me sweat off the fat, keep my weight right. Plus, I take pride too… in being the Greatest.

  Boxing doesn’t make you the greatest.

  Boxing’s gonna take us away from all this.

  We got a nice house, a car, food on the table, family.

  The Bible says—

  The Bible didn’t get me and Rudy into

  Fontaine Ferry Park, and it sho’ ain’t—

  Boy, don
’t you dare blaspheme the Good Book.

  I’m just saying, I don’t need church to tell me what I already know.

  What you know and what you think you know is two different things.

  Momma, I know who I am, and whose I am. That’s what Granddaddy Herman told me.

  God rest his soul.

  …

  You gonna have me late to work. Look after your brother, make sure he’s fresh. He likes to run water for thirty seconds and call himself clean.

  Okay, Momma.

  And just promise me you gonna read your Bible, go to school, and at least try not to mess up your face doing that boxing.

  I came in here pretty and I’m gonna leave here pretty.

  Boy, you sillier than a goose.

  Sweeter than juice, and stronger than Zeus, too.

  Bye, boy.

  Hold up, Momma. Been working on a poem for when I win the Olympics. Wanna hear it?

  Hurry up and say it then, boy, ’fore I miss my bus…

  My Victory Speech

  The Olympics gave me quite the scare.

  Fought three rounds with a big ol’ bear.

  Came at me all wild and frantic

  with fists of fury from ’cross the Atlantic.

  Threw a big left, then launched a right.

  Exploded on me like dynamite.

  But Cassius Clay did not retreat.

  I knocked him into the ringside seats.

  Yeah, he was strong, but I was stronger.

  If you thought he’d win, you couldn’t be wronger.

  Who’s the boss that shook up the world?

  Face so pretty, it’s like a pearl.

  I’m the greatest, you have been told.

  Now, hand me my Olympic Gold.

  Craps

  After last period,

  Me, Riney, Rudy,

  and Big Head Paul

  peep some of the older guys

  shooting dice

  behind the school,

  so I pucker my lips