Becoming Muhammad Ali / Путь Мухаммеда Али (by James Patterson, Kwame Alexander, 2021) - аудиокнига на английском

The wonders and woes in this novel are true… or based on truth and real things… that happened to real people… or real people we imagined… to be true… for real. ROUND ONE I remember everything. You probably would have too. That night was a piece of American history. The Clay family phone was dusky black with a rotary dial, and it sat on a wooden table in the neat-as-a-pin living room of the little house on Grand Avenue in Louisville, Kentucky. Some twenty of us were crammed like sardines into the room, waiting for that phone to ring. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting for Cassius to call home. It was a February night in 1958. And I remember it like it was yesterday. My best friend, Cassius, was three hundred miles north in Chicago, and that night he was fighting for a championship in the Golden Gloves boxing tournament. Cassius wasn’t a professional yet, just an amateur. Tall, but a little skinny, and a lot raw. Only sixteen years old, like me. I’m Lucius, by the way. Nice to meet you. You can call me Lucky. All my friends do. Cassius had already won plenty of bouts all over Kentucky. But the Chicago Golden Gloves was the big time. When he won there—and we all knew he would—it would be lights out! From now on, people everywhere would know the name Cassius Clay. And so we waited for the phone to ring. I remember that living room was so packed with family and friends and neighbors that we could hardly move! The smell of roast chicken and sweet potato pie and cheese grits mixed with the smell of paint and turpentine. Mr. Clay, Cassius’s dad, who everybody called Cash, was a sign and billboard painter, and he kept his work supplies right there in the house. “Mrs. Clay!” somebody called out. “When that boy of yours gets famous, he ought to buy you a bigger house!” “Oh, you know he will!” she answered. Then she looked right at me. “Isn’t that right, Lucius?” “Yes, ma’am, you know it is. Cassius promised you a big house!” I remember that Mrs. Clay was too nervous to eat. But she wasn’t too nervous to talk about how proud she was! “My Cassius did everything early!” she was saying to a group of ladies. “He crawled early, talked early, walked early—walked on his toes like a dancer.” The ladies all laughed—as if they hadn’t heard that story a hundred times before. But Mrs. Clay just couldn’t help it. Cassius always told her he was bound to be the greatest—with a capital G—and she believed it with all her heart. So did I. So did everybody in Louisville’s West End. C’mon, phone. Ring, phone, ring-a-ding-ding. The men and boys around the room—including Cassius’s little brother, Rudy—looked at one another with big grins and made punching motions with their fists. The big fight should be over by now. Under those bright lights in the middle of that huge Chicago Stadium, Cassius would be standing tall in the ring with one hand over his head like always—his opponent next to him with head bowed down in defeat. Then the phone rang. It was Cassius with news about the fight. And he told it like only Cassius could tell a story… Before the Fight a reporter asked me if I thought I was as good as Joe Louis or Sugar Ray was at my age and I told him, I don’t think I’m as good, I’M BETTER. Got more FLOW than Joe, more SLAY than Ray. I’m sweeter, stronger, and faster. As a matter of fact, I’m so fast I can’t even catch MYSELF. Cassius Clay vs. Alex Watt FEBRUARY 24, 1958 Here’s how it all went down: The bell rang in Chicago Stadium and I could barely see the lightweight rush me through the rank cigar smoke that filled the arena. In the first round, he threw punches like pitches, fast and straight, striking air and striking out. So, I played peek-a-boo in the second, sending quick jabs to his head. You ain’t ready for Cassius, I whispered. Then I shook him up with a left and took him down hard in the third. He sho’ wasn’t ready. But neither was I, when I found out who I was fighting next. Cassius Clay vs. Francis Turley FEBRUARY 25, 1958 Frank Turley was a cowboy from Montana, meaner-looking than an angry ox, with fists even meaner. They said he broke a guy’s nose with a left jab, then smiled when the joker went tumbling outta the ring, blood spurting everywhichaway. I’ma lick you good, boss, he said, winking at me before the bell rang, and I believed that he believed he would. Knockout We traded punches like baseball cards. Him, a wild mustang. Me, a Louisville slugger. Back and forth, left and right, rough and rugged, till he cornered me with two lucky shots to the jaw that felt like kicks from a mule and sent me tumbling to the mat, wondering if I should just stay there. Long Count One… While I lay there, the referee standing over me, counting to ten to see if I could get up, I wished my father was sitting ringside shouting my name. Two… I thought about home, about 3302 Grand Avenue, and playing football in the backyard with Rudy, and Three… the Montgomery kids next door and who was gonna babysit them now that I was a boxer, Four… and whether Lucky bought the new Superman like he promised. Five… I thought about my granddaddy Herman’s story about Tom the Slave. Six… I thought about how boxing was gonna set me free, set us all free, and Seven… what I’d ask Momma Bird to cook for my celebration dinner after I got up and Eight… whupped this cowboy from Montana and advanced to the semi-finals of the 1958 Golden Gloves Championship. Celebration Dinner Menu Two orders of veal Three slices of white bread A bowl of cornbread dressing One large green salad A bowl of chili Scrambled eggs Cheese grits Baked chicken with baked potato Two pieces of pecan pie Five scoops of strawberry ice cream, and A great big ol’ glass of OJ. I Jumped Up On Nine… and Frank kept swinging like a lumberjack trying to knock down a tree but I kept standing, kept sticking, kept moving like a mighty wind till the final bell rang and the judges unanimously called out my name for the win. Cassius Clay vs. Kent Green FEBRUARY 26, 1958: GOLDEN GLOVES SEMIFINALS I was a little weary from hanging out the night before but that didn’t shake my confidence when I stepped into the ring, gliding like a bomber jet and launching punches like missiles. Thing was, Kent Green was a tank and he just brushed off my attack like you would a pesky fly at a picnic. The evening newspaper read: The sixteen-year-old pugilist from Louisville with his quick feet and a loud mouth showed promise in his first two fights but got outboxed by the older, more seasoned, hard-punching Kent Green. On the Phone with Lucky I might have lost but I’m still boss. I lost my stride but not my pride. I’m still here, and yeah, I’m comin’ home but this dream I got is set in stone: To be the best in the hemisphere. To win the Golden Gloves next year. How do I know? ’Cause Cassius is courageous, tenacious, and one day he’ll be the greatest. You hear that, Lucky? I’m coming home. ROUND TWO Maybe he didn’t win the Golden Gloves championship in Chicago that year—but my friend Cassius was still bound for greatness. He just knew it. And I knew it too. To tell the truth, I think losing that last fight made him work even harder. Made him focus. Nobody could focus like Cassius Clay. He didn’t let anything stand in his way. Not even a bottle of soda. Me, I loved soda—especially ice-cold in frosty bottles on those hot Louisville summer nights. So did most kids. It tasted soooo good! But Cassius never touched it. Not a single sip. “Sugar and acid ain’t good for you, Lucky,” he said. And that was that. Focus. For Cassius, there was no smoking either (“Ain’t gonna put that stuff in my lungs!”). And he always went to bed at ten o’clock, even on Saturday nights. Like he wanted to grow in his sleep. Focus. After school, we went everywhere together, the two of us. And whenever we headed downtown, we stuck together tight. Tight like glue. And we kept our eyes wide open. Because going downtown meant crossing over into the white world. And in that world, four eyes were definitely better than two. All over Louisville, we saw signs that Cassius’s daddy had painted. But the white people who owned the stores under those signs stared at us when we passed by—like they were just waiting for us to do something wrong, or say something fresh, or take something we didn’t pay for. One day, we passed a bicycle store. There was a line of bikes out front, with bright chrome fenders and front wheels all turned to one side. At the end, one bike stood out past the others. It was a brand-new Schwinn Black Phantom, with white sidewall tires, pinstripes, and sparkly paint. It was the coolest bike either of us had ever seen. Cassius gave out a low whistle when he saw it. “Look at that bike, Lucky!” he said. “That’s the kind of bike I should be riding!” Cassius reached out and stroked the handlebars like he was petting a cat. The chrome gleamed between his fingers. Then we heard the bike-shop door open. The owner and his wife stood in the doorway, halfway out, at the top of the cement steps. We froze. “You boys don’t want nothin’ with that bike,” said the man, his face all red and puffy. He started to come down the steps at us, but his wife put a hand on his arm. She seemed a little softer, but still strong enough to stop him. She had reddish-blond hair and a green dress. “Scoot, now,” she said. “You boys get on home.” She knew exactly where home was. Home meant the West End—mostly black Louisville. It was one of the few parts of the city where the Clays and my folks could buy a house. In most parts of town, they couldn’t get a loan to buy a house, couldn’t even walk into most hotels or diners. Whites Only, the signs said. When Mrs. Clay took Cassius downtown as a kid, he got confused because nobody there looked like him. “Momma Bird,” Cassius would ask, “what did they do with all the colored people?” One day when Cassius was little, he stood outside the five-and-dime store crying because he was thirsty. When Mrs. Clay went inside to ask for a drink of water, the store guard made her leave. “If we serve Negroes in here, we lose our jobs,” the guard told her. So Cassius went home thirsty, mad the whole way. Cassius was so young, his momma thought he wouldn’t remember that day. But he did. Granddaddy Herman’s Living Room was always like church to me. I was the congregation. His couch, my pew. The rhythm and blues on his radio was the choir, and Ebony magazine was his bible. His sermons were sometimes poems, other times stories from history—his and America’s. But my granddaddy’s sermons always ended the same way: Know who you are, Cassius. And whose you are. Know where you going and where you from. Amen. Amen. Amen. Where I’m From I am from black Cadillacs, from plastic-covered sofas in tiny pink houses. I am from the one bathroom we all shared and the living room you stayed out of. I am from Friday fried fish and chocolate birthday cakes, from Levy Brothers’ slacks and shiny white shoes, from Cash and Bird, from storytellers and good looks, from don’t say you can’t till you try. I’m from the Kentucky Derby and the land of baseball bats, from the two Cassius Clays before me—one black, one white. I am from slavery to freedom, from the West End to Smoketown, from the unfulfilled dreams of my father to the hallelujah hopes of my momma. My Momma smells like vanilla, is always smiling, loves cooking, and I bet could make a whole Sunday outfit outta needle and thread. Odessa “Bird” Clay may be the smallest of the Clays, but her heart is the biggest, wide as the sea. And when she sings at Mount Zion Baptist, her voice is like water, soft and sweet as a hummingbird. She Says the Day I Was Born my head was too big to come out on its own, so the doctors yanked me with some sharp tongs that left a small, square bruise on my cheek. She says I hurt so much that I cried and hollered most of the night and into the next day, which got the other babies in the ward screaming too, but probably I was sounding a rallying cry to all my little soldiers for all the brown babies in the world to stand up and be counted. After That I vowed to never let anyone put a mark on my pretty face again. Cassius Clay vs. Odessa “Bird” Clay MARCH 14, 1943 My first knockout punch came at the age of one, when I accidentally hit my beautiful momma in the mouth and knocked her front tooth clean out. When Bird Gets Mad at me about something I done wrong, she calls me CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY JR., but mostly I’m just Gee-Gee ’cause she says before I could even crawl I was running my mouth, and the first sound I made was the letter G, twice, but probably I was just dreaming aloud, foreshadowing my fate, trying to voice my future as a Golden Gloves champion. My Brother, Rudy came two years after me, and ever since, we’ve been like two golden stars in the northern skies— inseparable—and our parents’ brightest hope. Now, My Daddy Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., better known around Louisville as Cash, is the opposite of Bird. He’s six feet of bronze and brawn, and when he isn’t singing or scolding or dancing or joking with his Saturday night buddies way into Sunday morning, he’s painting masterpieces—old Bible scenes on church walls, new billboards, and signs on storefront windows—and happy the whole time. Signs My Father Painted Open Lunch and Dinner Dreamland Bar and Soul Food Caf? Our Own Community Delicatessen Best Charcoal Ribs in Louisville Parking Around Back Whiskey by the Drink Serving Fresh Ice Cream Colored Waiting Room This Way for Fun—Fontaine Ferry Park Whites Only Segregation Is Immoral There’s No Way Like the American Way Vote for Progress We Cut Heads Percy’s Barbershop Now Buy Victory Bonds Rock and Roll Sold Here Closed on Sundays Some Sundays when Papa Cash would stumble in after being out all night, Momma would ask him when he was gonna fix the wobbly front porch or the leak in the roof, and he’d ignore her or start fussin’, then leave back out the house with me and Rudy tagging right along, over to Granddaddy Herman’s house, who would give us something sweet, like Black Jack Taffy, show us magic tricks, tell us funny and not-so-funny stories about famous and not-so-famous Negroes, bounce us on his one good knee, all while smoking a cigar and arguing with my daddy till they both fell asleep. Growing Up When Rudy could walk we got a pet chicken, a dog named Rusty, and a new house with a brand-new backyard near the size of a basketball court, where we would play with Rusty, and chase the chicken and each other around. We had a goldfish pond that I watched Daddy build, plus a vegetable garden with snap beans that I loved to peel, and onions that I loved to eat, raw. Everything was easygoing and laid-back on our side in the West End, where we lived, so that’s where we played and prayed and went to school and grew up but every now and then we’d cross a line and wonder why we couldn’t stay and play on the other side of it. The Other Side When Rudy got old enough for Bird to let me take him out and about, we ran, jumped, and played on every inch of Chickasaw Park, ’cause it was in our neighborhood but we’d never been to Fontaine Ferry Park even though it had amusement rides and even though it was right next to our neighborhood. We were gonna go to Fontaine and dare anybody to stop us. We told Momma we were walking over to Granddaddy Herman’s to help him chop some wood, which was true, but first we were gonna cross the line and go have some fun at Fontaine Park. The Whites Only sign met us at the fence outside the park and the two police officers with Colt 45 pistols made sure we stayed there. Later That Day we chopped wood in silence and when we were done Granddaddy Herman preached a sermon that I’ll never forget. Two Louisvilles For a Negro boy in the West End, you know you can play tag in Chickasaw Park but you better not be caught dead in Shawnee Park or Boone Square. And, no matter how many times you hear the crackle of wooden roller-coasters, smell the hot buttered popcorn, and watch thousands of happy white kids eat cotton candy, you know you’re not allowed in Fontaine. Boys, there’s two Louisvilles: One where you go school shopping for clothes and one where you can’t try on the clothes beforehand or bring ’em back if they don’t fit. One where you roller-skate outside your house and one where you’re not allowed inside the local rink. One where you can go to some movie theaters and one where you have to sit in the balcony and barely hear the movie. One where you got a decent job with decent pay and one where you get a raise but your house payment goes up. One where you can go to the amusement park with your friends and one where you stand outside the fence like a caged bird singing the summertime blues, because your skin is like a crow—black and unwelcome. One for whites and one for blacks. Know who you are, boys. And whose you are. Know where you going and where you from. Amen. Amen. Amen. I Want to Be Rich I said to Rudy as we lay in the backyard under the stars talking to the chicken and each other about being famous one day like Chuck Berry, that way they’d have to let us in their amusement park. But, since neither one of us could sing or dance, and we both loved to slap-box, we figured maybe we could be rich like Joe Louis instead, buy the darn park, and build the first American Cadillac roller coaster, candy-apple red, so that any kid could get into Clay Park and ride the rides. Momma Hollered from the kitchen, interrupting our moonlit dreams and big ideas. Gee-Gee, time for you and Rudy to wash up, say your prayers, and go to bed. I liked pranks, so I stood up, told Rudy, DON’T MOVE! There’s a great big ol’ copperhead snake in the grass next to your head, and he jumped up, screaming all the way into next week, forgetting all about Fontaine Ferry Park. But I never did. ROUND THREE Did I mention I always wanted to be a writer? Maybe you guessed, since you’re reading this. Written by Lucky. Or I guess I should say, by Lucius Wakely. Sounds more writerly. But luck definitely played a part in me becoming a writer. Because I was lucky enough to know Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. Cassius would be the first to admit that he didn’t like to write—or study. He showed me his report card once. His average grade was 72, which was just about passing. He got a 93 in metalwork, though. I guess you could say he was good with his hands. I was different. I liked school. In fact, I bawled like a baby if I didn’t get 100 on a test. But Cassius wouldn’t let me cry about stuff like that. “Dry it up, Lucky!” he said. “School ain’t life.” Once I got a B on an English essay, and I knew it wasn’t fair. Cassius made me walk right up to the teacher after class and argue with him. I went back and forth with that teacher for a half-hour—but in the end, I got my A. “You got it ’cause you deserved it,” said Cassius, “and ’cause you didn’t back down.” Cassius didn’t like to read much either, but he really liked being read to. Sometimes we’d sit together in his front yard with his little brother, Rudy, and I’d read from newspapers or magazines or comic books. Especially Superman comics. Cassius loved Superman. Loved him! He loved that Superman was stronger than everybody else. He loved that he was world-famous. He loved that he defeated villains and that people called him a hero. “Truth, justice, and the American way.” That was Superman’s motto. Cassius loved that part the most! There were times, growing up in Louisville, when Cassius was my own personal superman. One day, the three of us—me, Rudy, and Cassius—were walking down the street when a car rolled right up next to us. It was so close, I could hear the radio and smell the cigarette smoke inside. The car was filled with young men. White men. And I guess they thought we were on a street we shouldn’t be on. The man in the front passenger seat leaned out the window. “This ain’t your neighborhood,” he said. “You boys are in the wrong place.” Then he flashed a knife—a switchblade. I was really scared. So was Rudy. Maybe Cassius was, too. But he didn’t show it. He stepped right out in front of me and Rudy. “You dumb enough to try something with that knife?” Cassius said. He looked right at the guy, staring him down. Daring him. It was hot that day. The temperature inside that car must have been triple digits. The guys were getting mad because we weren’t moving. We were just standing there. I saw the guy with the knife say something to the driver. The car engine stopped. Then all four car doors opened at once. Cassius turned to me and Rudy. “Time to go,” he said. Cassius was brave, but he wasn’t stupid. All we heard was “Hey!” as we started running. With his strong legs, Cassius could have been home sitting on his porch before Rudy and I got to the end of the block, but he slowed down so we could keep up. There was no way he was going to leave us behind. My Friends Everybody’s got a nickname on our block. Rudy is sometimes Hollywood on account of Daddy named him after one of his favorite movie stars: Rudy Valentino. My best friend, Ronnie, is Riney, ’cause that’s how his grandmother screams it from her living room window when the streetlights start flickering: RINEYYYYYY!!! Lucius is Lucky, on account of one summer he fell through a plate-glass window and not a scratch was on him, then the next summer he crashed his bike into a parked car and flew over the car into a bed of hay in the back of a passing pickup truck. We call Corky Butler Chalky, but not to his ashy face, ’cause he’s strong as a mountain lion, meaner-looking than a jackal, and he gives out black eyes—to boys and some men, too—like candy on Halloween. We got Jake and his brother, Newboy, who both sing doo-wop in a group called the Blue Tones. There’s two Bubbas—one short, one tall. Big Head Paul’s got a head big as a battleship. Cobb, aka Lil’ Man, is two years older and two feet shorter, but got a real job and new clothes, new shoes, and a bank account to prove it. When they see me coming, it’s always, We should call Gee-Gee the black Superman. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet We shoot marbles, play touch football in the backyard, stickball out front in the street, hide-and-seek with the girls, see who can spit the farthest, pretend we’re Jack Johnson knocking out the Great White Hope, and run races in Chickasaw Park, but my favorite game is when Rudy throws rocks at me and misses ’cause I duck so fast I make him call me Donald, jump so high I can nearly touch the sky and grab a cloud. It’s a bird, it’s a plane… Card Trick You got some speed on you, Cassius, Granddaddy Herman says after we finish pulling weeds from his garden. He shuffles the deck of cards, then tells me to pick one. You remind me of myself running bases. How good were you at baseball? I ask, pulling the king of hearts and sliding it back so he can’t see it. Better than most, he answers, throwing the cards all over his kitchen table. As good as Jackie Robinson? I ask. Coulda been. Really? Coulda been as good as Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and all them other players you ought to know about too. Did they play in the major leagues? You writing a book, or what? he says, shaking his head and telling me to pick the cards up. Conversation with Granddaddy Herman Shouldn’t you head home with your brother? He’s got to do homework. Momma Bird stays on him. What about you in school? Your lesson’s important, ya know. I know. I get by, I say, handing him the cards back. That ain’t enough, Cassius. “Life ain’t no crystal stair.” What’s that mean? It means, you gotta work twice as hard to get half as far as the rest of these folks out here. Can I ask you a question, Granddaddy? I don’t know, can ya? Why’d y’all name me and my daddy after a slave owner? Boy, you got some learning to do, about baseball and your name. … The o-riginal Cassius Marcellus Clay wasn’t no slave owner. In fact, he freed all his slaves on the Clay plantation, including your great-granddaddy, my father. Then he went and fought for the Union in the war. You and your daddy’s named after a man with principles, probably the only white man I ever knew to be good. Know who you are, Cassius, and whose you are, understand? Yes, sir. Now, I know you hungry, ’cause you always eating, so go ahead and get some of my cookies, and leave me three. Thank you, Granddaddy. Get a glass of milk, too, so you can get on home. I can stay a little longer, if you need help around here. I got stuff to do, boy. … Tell you what, while you eating up all my snacks, I’ll tell you the story of Tom the Slave, and then you get on home. Deal? But what about my card? You mean the king of hearts you’re sitting on? he says, smiling. … That Same Night at bedtime I tell Rudy about how Tom the Slave escaped to freedom by hiding in a casket on a ship of dead bodies on its way to London, England, and how when he got there he became a famous bare-knuckle boxer who would’ve won the heavyweight championship of the world if a hundred Brits hadn’t gotten so mad that he was beating their fighter that they rushed the ring in the ninth round, clobbered Tom, and broke six of his fingers. That ain’t true. You calling Granddaddy Herman a liar, Rudy? I’m just saying, you think it’s a real story? Probably, I don’t know. It’s a good one, at least. Why didn’t he fight with gloves on? You writing a book, or what? … Rudy, before we go to sleep, pick a card. Ritual I practiced card tricks every night on Rudy, even stayed up long after he fell asleep, trying to find the right card, trying to prove to myself that I was smart at something. One Friday after school, me and Riney and Rudy were outrunning the city bus heading home, figured we’d save the ten-cent fare for some Finger Snaps at Goldberg’s, when I took a detour and told ’em, Hey, let’s go to that hamburger joint over on Broadway. We sat in Rainbow, splitting two cheeseburgers and fries, me joking about Riney’s bald spots from the terrible haircut his grandmomma gave him, and Rudy winking at every girl that walked by with her momma, when in walked Tall Bubba, who we hadn’t seen since the accident. The Accident We were playing ball on Virginia Avenue, our block against theirs. It was me and Riney, Short Bubba, and Lucky against Cobb, Big Head Paul, Jake, and Tall Bubba. Rudy was still sick with the chickenpox bad, even though our neighbor told us we could cure him by flying a chicken over his head. Cobb’s block always beat us ’cause Big Head Paul was a three-sport legend in the West End. I mean, he could hit a rock with a pencil. And Tall Bubba, from Smoketown, had arms so long he could probably box with God. He caught everything. But then Cobb pitched me a fastball that I cracked so high it went way over Tall Bubba’s outstretched arms and landed inches from the storm drain near the corner of 36th and Virginia, where it slowly rolled in before he could grab it. Tall Bubba was the only one with arms long enough to reach down the drain, so he did, and no sooner than he screamed, I GOT IT, FELLAS, it blew up right in his face. We used to smell gas all the time around there, but none of us ever figured it was anything that mattered. We Never Saw Him After That until we sat in Rainbow, splitting two cheeseburgers and fries, telling jokes, winking at every girl that walked by with her momma. Until today. Conversation with Tall Bubba Hey, Bubba. Hey, Gee-Gee. The fellas are over there. Yeah, I see ’em. … … They fixed the gas leak. That’s good. I heard the City’s gonna pay you for what happened. Naw, they ain’t even calling my daddy back. That ain’t right. … When you coming back to school? I been doing school at home. Teachers come to my house. Don’t wanna be seen looking like this. You still cool as a pool to me, Bubba. I look kinda ragged and old with no hair and a busted-up face. A little mature, maybe. You still Tall Bubba, though, still too slick for tricks. Thanks, Gee-Gee. Hey, what did you get on your report card? How’m I supposed to know that? Report cards don’t come out till next week. Naw, they came out today. They did? Yep! I’ll see ya around. Report Card Friday I GOTTA GO, I hollered to the fellas. Gotta get home and get the mail before my daddy does. Riney sat there laughing at us and finishing the rest of the juicy cheeseburgers with pickles and loads of ketchup by himself. See, he’d been signing his own report cards since first grade ’cause his grandparents couldn’t read so well anymore. But my parents could. C’MON, RUDY, LET’S SPLIT! School Big Head Paul was the smartest of us all. His hand was always the first to go up when a teacher asked a question about trees or bees or oceans and seas. Science was his thing. Riney always brought peaches and pears from his grandmomma’s backyard for our teachers, so whether he studied or not, he always got decent grades and even made the honor roll once. Lucky was what you might call a natural genius. He knew a little bit about everything and loved to talk as much as I did, but his claim to fame was he could spell mostly any word in the English language and he could read real fast, which came in handy, ’cause I couldn’t do either very well. In the Second Grade we were sitting in circle time taking turns reading Fun with Dick and Jane and it was my turn and I swear the F in ?un turned upside down, started floating off the page, and then some of the other letters inside the book started playing ring-around-the-rosy and switching their order—Jane said, “Run” became Rane “said” Jun—and that didn’t sound like it made sense, so I didn’t say it, then the F came back but it was dancing around so much that I started getting dizzy and my stomach hurt and some of the kids started calling me dumb and I almost threw up right there in the middle of second grade circle time, so now I just try to memorize what I hear and make up what I don’t. Failed Plan I ran home so fast I could see my big toe starting to bust out of my shoe like an inmate in a prison. Rudy was two blocks behind me, so when he finally walked up, winded and holding his chest like he was gonna collapse in our front yard from running so fast and far, I was sitting on the porch scared straight ’cause OUR mailbox was empty. Conversation with Momma Bird Gee-Gee, come in here. … I thought you were supposed to be trying harder. I did. I understand everything we’re doing in school, mostly. It’s just sometimes— Don’t make excuses, Cassius. Your father won’t like this at all. You know that! I know. They gonna fail you, you keep getting these kinds of grades. I’m not gonna fail. Grades don’t make the man, the man makes the grade. Double talk not gonna make them stop thinking you dumb, Gee-Gee. You think I’m dumb, Momma? Course not. I’m just hoping you know you not. Momma, I came in this world smart and pretty, and I’m gonna leave it the same way. Well, this weekend we gonna go see Miz Alberta Jones, see if she can help you out with some of your subjects. Yes, ma’am. Now go on and finish your chores before dinner. Momma, I’m too old for chores. Rudy’s the youngest, he should— Gee-Gee, am I too old to cook dinner and wash your dirty drawers? Uh, no, ma’am. Then neither are you. Now, you best stop yappin’ and get your skin thickened up, ’cause your daddy’ll be home soon, and he’s gonna hit the roof when he sees that report card. … Turning Point Daddy came in the house not like he usually did—flirting with Bird and talking all loud—no, this time the storm door shut, and he came in the house, slow like a preacher walking to the pulpit to deliver a funeral eulogy. I heard him drop his art tools at the door, then heard Momma’s footsteps as she made her way to him. Rudy and I sat at the dinner table. Me, not sure how long his hollering was gonna be when he saw my grades, Rudy sneaking a bite of the cornbread from his plate. When we finally saw his head peek around the corner, like he was looking in a coffin afraid to see what was there, he motioned for us to get up, so we did. Boys, a giant tree has fallen, is all he said, hugging us like he’d never done before. I Was Twelve when I was so fast I could dodge rocks and snatch a fly outta midair when Rudy caught chickenpox, and Tall Bubba lost his face chasing a tennis ball when I almost failed outta Madison Junior High and decided I was gonna make a lot of money so my children wouldn’t have to watch the world from behind a fence when I learned how to shuffle a deck of cards with one hand and make the king of hearts appear in the other. I was twelve when my daddy came home and told us that Granddaddy Herman was, God rest his soul, dead. ROUND FOUR We were all just kids, doing the dumb stuff kids do. But Cassius was always different, with those big eyes on some picture show that the rest of us couldn’t quite see. We all dreamed about the future. But I think Cassius really, truly saw it. Like a movie. Starring him. And he always did things his way. I remember mornings when the bus would stop to pick us up for school. Everybody got on except Cassius. He’d hang back and let the bus get a little head start, and then he’d race it all the way to school—twenty blocks down Chestnut Street—with the rest of the kids hanging out the windows and cheering him on. Especially the girls. “Crazy Cassius,” they said. “He’s as nutty as he can be.” Those same girls were the ones who winked and waved at him when they saw him shadowboxing after school, throwing punches at himself against a brick wall. Whatever he did, he seemed to attract attention. Like a star. But there were times when he was silent and thoughtful, too. Some nights, me and Cassius and Rudy would just lie on the grass out in back of their house, looking up at the sky. Cassius would say he was waiting for an angel to appear. Rudy always had his momma’s Kodak Brownie camera handy. He didn’t want to miss a chance at getting the world’s very first angel snapshot. I was never sure what Cassius wanted from that angel. Maybe he wanted the angel to tell him that he really was the greatest, or give him some kind of heavenly blessing. Maybe he was looking for a sign that there was a higher power watching over him. Anyway, it never happened. We never saw a single angel on Grand Avenue. But before too long, Cassius found some inspiration right down the road. At the racetrack. Back then, we all lived pretty close to Churchill Downs, where they hold the Kentucky Derby every year. It was one of the classiest and fanciest places in all of Louisville. Still is. It’s where the best and fastest horses in the world train. Cassius loved the horses—the way they looked, the way they moved, the proud and noble way they held their heads. But he wasn’t content to just watch them. He wanted to race them. So he would go out to the track in the morning, while the dew was still on the grass. When the trainers brought out the horses for their exercise, Cassius would run right alongside them. “They’re the only thing faster than me!” he’d say. One time he actually got in front of a horse on the track. When the horse swerved to get out of his way, the rider fell off and landed hard on the dirt. Bam! That was the end of Cassius’s horseracing career. After that little incident, he got kicked off the track for good. But he still hung around the stables. He couldn’t get enough of those thoroughbreds. Most of all, he loved the shape of their smooth, powerful muscles, and he wanted to get his own body in condition like that—stronger and faster than anybody in the world. During the Summers we went to Camp Sky High, played paddleball with wooden rackets, and pulled pranks on unsuspecting counselors. We shot hoops with a tennis ball, and tried not to get pushed in the pond. When we got home, we played roller-skate hockey on 34th Street, but that got boring, so Rudy and I made scooters out of our skates. On Friday nights, we had fish fries, and on Saturdays, everybody on the block went to Riney’s, sat on his lawn, and watched boxing fights on an old TV that his grandmomma set outside on her front stoop. Tomorrow’s Champion At seven o’clock each Saturday night, fathers, sons, and a few daughters sat in awe for three televised fights, spellbound by the rhythm, by the hustle, by the might of two stroppy boys throwing wild blows till one went down or the bell rang at the end of the third round and the judges decided who was Tomorrow’s Champion. Fifty Cents Bird didn’t like me and Rudy betting on account of God not liking ugly, And all gambling is ugly, Gee-Gee, but I liked taking Riney’s money, so when it was time for the Saturday Night Main Event, I bet him that swift-footed Gorgeous George was gonna knock out Billy Goode, which he did, then I collected my winnings, gave Rudy a quarter, and spent the rest of the night dreaming of being in the ring one day, and trying not to make eyes at this short cutie named Tina Clark, aka Teenie, who all my friends said was in love with me. On the Way Home I Would skip and duck like I saw the boxers do on TV tell Rudy to hold his hands up so I could punch them like I saw the boxers do on TV make up songs that rhymed in my head and dance between the cracks on the sidewalk like I was in a ring, like I was Gorgeous George, like I was a bigtime boxer on TV. Odd Jobs Everybody had a job. We all wanted bikes, shiny, new ones. So we saved our money from birthdays and Christmas and odd jobs. Most of the fellas would skate around white Parkland delivering roses, tulips, and other colorful flowers for Miz Kinslow’s florist shop. Riney used to cut grass, fifty cents for the front, seventy-five for the back, ’cause the back was always larger. Me and Rudy delivered Ebony magazine every month, but my regular pay came from babysitting the Montgomery kids, which was the easiest, ’cause all we did was listen to boxing matches on their big tube radio. Cobb got his bike first, two in fact—one for his cousin—’cause he was shining one of his customers’ wing-tipped mahogany shoes at the horse track down at the Fairgrounds for forty cents, and the guy refused to pay him, tossed him a race ticket instead, for a long-shot horse named Getouttamyway, that ended up winning, paying Cobb a whopping five hundred and sixty spanking dollars. Riney never got a bike, ’cause his lawnmower skills were as bad as his grandmomma’s haircutting skills. I made enough money for a bike, but as it turned out, I never had to spend it on one. And here’s why… The Block Riney and Lucky were shooting marbles on the curb. Jake and Newboy were singing “Under the Boardwalk” on the front porch. Rudy was across the street talking to a girl from the sidewalk ’cause her daddy didn’t let no boys in their yard. I was shadowboxing next to the redbud tree in our yard and Short Bubba was telling everybody that Cobb said that Big Head Paul told him that he saw Chalky pulling a boxcar. With. His. Teeth. The Legend of Corky Butler Chalky was the biggest, strongest, meanest kid in Louisville. He lived on the other side of the railroad tracks, in Smoketown, he had fists the size of grapefruits, and he used them to pummel anybody who stepped into the ring with him, and to terrorize everybody in the neighborhood. He didn’t ride a motorcycle but always had on a biker’s jacket. He was sixteen or twenty-six, nobody really knew, but he looked like a man and was built like a truck, which he would lift to impress the girls. When he wasn’t bullying or knocking out dudes in the ring or on the street, we used to see him hanging out at Dreamland, where all the gangsters hung. So, if Short Bubba said Cobb said Big Head Paul said Chalky pulled a car with his teeth, he probably did. The Story Continues So, while Short Bubba’s telling us the story, Teenie and some of her friends walked by, stopping in front of the Montgomery house next door, posing and posturing in matching yellow skirts, dancing and singing, stealing glimpses at me, and pretending like they weren’t impressed with me stabbing the air like my fists were knives. All the fellas followed behind them like puppy dogs, but not me, I stayed back throwing jabs at the wind till my father drives up in his rusty black pickup, and rolls down the window. Conversation with My Daddy Hop in here, Gee-Gee, he says. Yes, sir. Hey, Rudy, I scream, c’mon! Just me and you, Cassius. Rudy can stay here. Where we going? I ask, climbing in the front seat. We going where we going, that’s where we going. … … Daddy, can I ask you something? Boy, I don’t know, can ya? It’s just— Speak ya mind, boy. For Christmas, can I, uh, get a pair of boxing gloves? … Daddy? You want to be successful, Cassius? Yessir. Education is the bicycle that’ll get you there, Cassius. You keep pedaling, sometimes uphill, sometimes down. Huh? I wanna see you doing better in your schooling, not throwing punches at the wind. Just having fun, Daddy. ’Cause for every one you see in that ring, a hundred been knocked out. Of life. … You gotta work on them grades. I know. Your great-granddaddy was a slave. Your granddaddy was in jail. I ain’t finished high school. You got the chance to be the first Clay to really do something. Not if you include the white Cassius Clay that I was named after. He was a lawyer and a soldier. Granddaddy Herman told me he was a hero who freed all his slaves. He didn’t free all of ’em. What does that tell ya? Maybe he wasn’t a hero. Gee-Gee, I want you to be the first of US to go to college. Do something with yourself. School’s not for me, Daddy. I’m gonna be a star, just don’t know how I’m gonna shine yet. Education is the only way I know how to find your shine, son. You found yours. I would always draw since before I could walk. When I got to paint in grade school, everything changed. A teacher showed me the great Sistine Chapel in a book and I decided that was the kind of art for me. So, you were always gonna be an artist? Until I run up on Jim Crow, who said Negroes can’t be artists. So I did the next best thing and did signs for pawnbrokers and preachers. … All the Clays got natural talents. Your granddaddy, rest in peace, coulda played big leagues, but they didn’t allow no black players. I know. This world is white, Cassius, he says, pulling up to a church. This world is snow white. What we doing here? We going to Bible study or something? Just come on. Something I wanna show you. … Angels We walk into Clifton Street Baptist Church and sit in the third row of the pews like Sunday service is about to start, only it’s Tuesday and church is empty ’cept for me, him, and a whole bunch of flying ladies wrapped in white sheets with green wings holding flowers painted on the ceiling. Whatchu think of my latest masterpiece, Gee-Gee? This is your Sistine Chapel, Daddy? Well, I ain’t no Michelangelo, but it’s decent work. It’s the same as the picture from the Bible, right? Similar. I added my own style to it. It’s real good, Daddy, but I got one question. Say it, then. Where were all the black angels when they took the picture? When We Pull Up in front of our pink house all the neighborhood kids are still outside joking and jump roping and playing tug o’ war with the setting sun. I climb out of the blue-black truck ready to finish sparring till nightfall when Daddy slams his door and hollers, Get that tree and my painting stuff out the back, Gee-Gee. Early Christmas Lying under the tarp that covers our Christmas tree: his vinyl primer his lettering brushes his lettering enamel his cups and pencils his erasers and rulers his stencils his crusty buckets his brush cleaner his chalk powder his ocean-blue glass paint his burnt-umber acrylic paint his mineral oil his wobbly old ladder and MY BRAND-NEW FIRE ENGINE–RED SUPER-JUMBO JET SPEED-RACING SCHWINN BICYCLE. All Hail the King Everybody stood at attention, eyes glued on me and my super bike like I was Commander Cassius, the Leader of Louisville. I let Rudy ride first but all he did was fall and scrape my brand-new chrome, so I promise to teach him later. I let Riney take it for a quick spin, then I hopped on, rode around the block four times, and had Cobb time me, since he was the only one of us with a watch. On my last trip, Teenie strolled over, her lips shooting me a smile big as the sky, her teeth white as clouds, then she took her keys off her purple rabbit-foot key chain, hooked it to the spotlight clamp on my handlebars, and said, For good luck, Gee-Gee, so you don’t fall, so I let her ride on the handlebars up and down the block twice, then I rode the night wind by myself, popping wheelies and showing off my smooth-as-butter fire-engine royal-red Schwinn bike with its shiny spotlight crowning the front. After School Started Back Up in the fall, Teenie didn’t come around as much and when she did her eyes didn’t light up like stars no more, which was okay with me ’cause between runnin’ with Rudy, getting tutored by Miz Alberta, and cruising around town on my Schwinn, I didn’t have time for much else. Mystery One day I was flying home with Rudy on the handlebars trying to outride the dusk and get home before the streetlights came on when I swore I saw Corky Butler running from the alley behind our house. The lights on my bike worked like the hot water in our tub—sometimes. Today, they didn’t, so we hustled in the near dark, hoping we could sneak in the back before Daddy stumbled through the front, when BAM! we hit something and Rudy and I went flying onto the gravel. We got up, bruised, inches from what was not a something but a someone lying stone-cold dead on the gravel. We ran inside, both of us wondering to ourselves who the body belonged to, whether it was really dead, and neither of us saying a single word to each other or anyone else about it ever. ROUND FIVE Growing up, Cassius couldn’t understand why white people had it better than black people. It didn’t make any sense to him. He knew they weren’t any better than black folk, just different. But whenever he asked his momma about it, she’d get real quiet and tell him to be careful. She told us that there were things you could say in the house that you couldn’t say outside. And there were ways we could act around other black folk that we couldn’t act around white people. Even how we walked, how we talked, and who we looked at. It sounds crazy, but it was true. We had to be one way for ourselves and another way for the rest of the world. We couldn’t let white people see what we really thought or how much we really knew. It was the only way to stay safe. Mrs. Clay told us other things, too. She told us that back in the days of slavery, plantation owners would kill the smartest slaves, because they knew they were the most dangerous. I knew I was smart. But maybe deep inside, that’s why I didn’t want to show it. Maybe I didn’t want to look dangerous. Cassius didn’t buy any of it. Said he didn’t care, that he was always gonna be Cassius Clay, no matter where he was, or who he was with. When I got to seventh grade, my momma made me apply for a scholarship to the Catholic school across town. It was where all the smartest kids went. When I got the letter saying that I’d won the scholarship, I cried. Sad tears, not happy. I told my mother I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be one of those kids. Too dangerous. But when Cassius heard about it, he wouldn’t let me cry. He said, “Lucky, don’t you ever be afraid of being smart. Don’t be afraid of anything!” And on the first day I came out of my house in my new Catholic school uniform, Cassius was right there on the sidewalk waiting. He walked me all the way to school to make sure nobody bothered me. Then he ran all the way back to his own school. He was probably late. But he didn’t care. “That’s what friends do,” he said. And Cassius was always a great friend. Looking back, I remember that everybody liked Cassius. Most teachers liked him because he was quiet and polite. “Never gave me any trouble,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, his English teacher. And outside of class, he was really funny—always cracking jokes and breaking us up. Cassius was like a magnet. You wanted to be around him. But I don’t think anybody knew him the way I did. Nobody else really knew what was behind that big smile and loud laugh. I saw the serious part of Cassius—the part of him that was determined to go places, be someone special, and make a mark in the world that would last forever. He was gonna make the world notice him. Back then, in the 1950s, boys didn’t talk about loving their friends—especially guy friends. But Cassius did. One night when we were sitting on his front steps watching fireflies, Cassius told me he loved me because I understood him. Today, he’d probably say, “Lucky, you really get me.” And I did. I was proud of it. I still am. The Day I Was Born Again It was a Friday, hotter than noon on the 4th of July. The one fan we had was blowing on Momma, who was sitting in the living room reading the Bible, probably praying that Daddy would stop galivanting like he did most Friday nights till Saturday morning. Sitting on the porch, showing my latest card trick to Lucky and showing off my new white Chuck Taylors, the heat was punching me in the face, and the sweat dripped like a waterfall. I couldn’t take it no more, so we hopped on our bikes, Rudy got on my handlebars, and we took off chasing the breeze and my destiny. We Stopped In Aunt Coretta’s bakery on Virginia Avenue, split a sweet pecan honey bun. Rode by Percy’s barbershop, saw Cobb through the window in the chair. Passed the downtown YMCA on 10th and Chestnut, heard the loud projector coming from the backyard. Bulleted past two gangsters scrapping, one with a knife, outside of Dreamland nightclub. Rode by Louisville Gardens, home to Cardinals Basketball. Cruised Fourth Street, hollering and laughing to the moon like we owned the world, when the heavens opened up, reminding us that we didn’t. The Thunderstorm emptied so fast, it was like somebody unzipped the sky onto us. Shelter So the three of us drop our bikes outside Columbia Auditorium, then dodge a million raindrops as we run up its fourteen stairs to escape the monsoon. The first two things we see inside are: Thousands of folks checking out the latest home and kitchen gadgets on display at the annual Louisville Defender Expo and Chalky, aka Corky Butler. Crazy Eyes Corky Butler didn’t so much walk as he did lumber in our direction, clearing his path like a grizzly bear on his hairy toes. He was in a dingy, too-tight warm-up suit with tattered black Chuck Taylors covering his paws that he probably bullied some kid half his size for. When he got to us, he stepped on my sneaks, and bumped Lucky with just enough force to make him lose his balance and knock Rudy backwards like a domino into an old couple checking out a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Then he stopped, his dusty-looking face so close to me I could see the gumline of his gigantic gray teeth, could smell the stream of sweat crawling down his dull, bald head. Corky closed his mouth, curled up his crusty lip, lifted his chin like he was studying me, so I balled my fists in my pockets just in case this was a test. Nice sneakers, he said, then, before walking out the front doors, he pointed his two stubby V-sign fingers at his eyes and mine. I got my eyes on you, Cassius. Corky Butler’s watching you. After he left we roamed the Expo tasting samples and not talking about what happened even though we were all thinking the same thing—I might have to fight him someday—when I ran into Teenie Clark again while waiting for Rudy to come out the bathroom. Before That Rudy said he felt like throwing up, so we ran to the toilet. Before that we ate too much Kentucky peanut brittle. Before that we said hello to Miz Alberta, who was teaching people how to vote on a cardboard voting machine that all the kids in our neighborhood helped her build last summer. Before that I told Gorgeous George, You may be gorgeous but I’m pretty, which made him laugh, then come at me with, Kid, you may be pretty but I’m exquisite, resplendent, an ivory knockout. I’m so beautiful I should kiss myself, and then he closed his eyes and poked his lips out, which made EVERYONE laugh. Before that we waited in line for almost thirty minutes to get an autograph from the boxer and sometimes wrestler Gorgeous George. Before that Lucky pretended he was blowing a saxophone while we listened to Billie Holiday sing “Too Marvelous for Words.” Before that we marveled at the mahogany record player spinning “Lady Sings the Blues” at the RCA booth. Before that me, Lucky, and Rudy shared two bags of toffee popcorn. Before that I saw Teenie eating popcorn and talking to Miz Alberta. Before that we stood drenched in the front of the auditorium, patting ourselves dry with paper towels and right before that Corky had just stepped on my sneakers and walked out the front door when Teenie Clark passed by me with her parents and her little brother. Conversation with Teenie Hey, Gee-Gee. Hey. Whatchu doing? Rudy ate too much brittle, I said, pointing toward the bathroom. Oh. … How’s your jet-plane bike? Still good. I can’t wait for school to be over. I’m going to camp. Gonna play tennis and swim and whatnot. What you doing this summer? Nothing, I don’t know. Cassius, you don’t like me. What you mean? What I mean is you never have words for me. Always “Yup” and “I don’t know” and “Oh… Uh”! Oh… Uh. See, I swear you can be so aloof. I don’t know what that means, Teenie, but it doesn’t sound polite to me. Cassius, everybody knows I like you. I like you, I mean, you’re nice and all. Just nice? I don’t know. How about agile? Huh? As in quick. You don’t know, Cassius? I’m the fastest runner in our school. The fastest girl, maybe. I could outrace you. You’re dreaming, Teenie Clark. If I’m dreaming, then bet me. You don’t want no parts of me, Teenie. I’ll run circles around you. I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my bedroom and I got in bed before the room was dark. You may be funny, but won’t be no laughing when I outrace you. Name the date and the time, and meet me on the line. You may be fine, but I’m faster than an airline. How about now? It’s raining now. You scared you might melt? NAW! Then get your buddies, and meet me outside. I’m gonna catch my stride, and you gonna lose your pride. Poor Gee-Gee. It’s on, Teenie Clark. Bet. Bet. Shock When we get to the front door Teenie’s momma comes running up behind us and pulling her by the arm while her daddy shoots us a You all better get ’fore I get you look, so we do, flying out the door, back under the night rain to get our bikes to go home, but MINE ISN’T THERE. Tragedy This year… The last new episode of Rudy’s favorite show, The Lone Ranger, aired on the radio. And he cried. We had to hide under desks with books over our heads because the principal said the Russians had a hydrogen bomb. 80 million locusts swarmed the desert in French Algeria. An earthquake struck Southern California. Hurricane Hazel hit North Carolina. And the University of Kentucky wouldn’t let Cobb’s older brother, Arthur, the best running back in the state of Kentucky, play for their school ’cause of the color of his skin. There’s been natural disasters and wars, all kinds of human failings and tragedies, but right now none of it feels lousier than my royal-red and white Schwinn Cruiser Deluxe with chrome rims not being where I left it. The sixty-dollar bike my daddy bought me isn’t there. It’s GONE like The Lone Ranger and somebody STOLE it. Lucky Said he saw a security guard, so after I ran around in the rain, crying and hunting for the thief, we went back inside Columbia to report the crime but the guard was too busy eating peanut brittle and flirting with every lady that walked by to care about my misfortune, so we just asked him if there was a real cop anywhere around, and that’s when he pointed downstairs. Downstairs was a basement with a gym that smelled 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 morning 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 like I’m ’bout to kiss Teenie or something, then I sing the word New, Stretching it out—NNNEEWWWWW!—so it sounds like a police siren, which makes them jokers scram so fast, they leave all their coins on the ground for us to run over and snatch. We Take the free money, then they head over to Rainbow for cheeseburgers while I make my way to the gym, chomping on my second onion of the day ’cause my father said eating them raw makes your bones stronger and keeps you regular. Regimen Shadowboxing and jogging on Mondays. Speed bags on Tuesdays. Weightlifting on Wednesdays and Fridays. Heavy bag on Thursdays. Jumping rope and sparring on Saturdays every week, but Joe Martin doesn’t think I’m ready, still won’t let me box a proper fight on Tomorrow’s Champions. Conversation with Joe Martin When you gonna let me box on TV? When you’re ready, kid. It’s been almost a year. I’m ready now. How many sit-ups you do today? Four sets of fifteen. When you do five sets of twenty and a hundred lunges and you stop playing pranks, that’s when. You keep moving the finish line, how’m I supposed to cross over? I’m ready. I say when you’re ready. Just put me in the ring, and I’ll show you. I’ll win every time. The fight is won before you get in the ring. What’s that supposed to mean? It means you gotta work harder, and faster, with your body and your mind. How’m I supposed to even get ready when you won’t let nobody hit me, Joe Martin? Soon as you learn to keep your fists up and protect your head. Can’t nobody catch me, so I don’t need my fists up. My feet protect me. That’s all fine, but some bruiser’s gonna catch you upside the head one day and you won’t know what hit you. Not while I’m moving and grooving. I got music in my soul, and rhythm in my sole. By the way, can we get some Chuck Berry or Bo Diddley on in here? You a dancer or a boxer? Maybe I’m both. Cassius Clay, fists strong as iron, feet fast as a lion. Get back to your training… and keep your fists up. So, when you gonna let me box on TV? … The First Time Joe Martin let me box, it was one round with Caden Wilkinson, a short sixteen-year-old from the Highlands, who pounded me so hard he bruised my jaw, nearly broke my nose, and woulda knocked me out cold if Joe Martin hadn’t pulled me out first. Set your feet, Cassius. Angle your body. Move, and— Yeah, I know, keep my fists up. You know it, then do it. Now go get some cotton so we can clean that bloody nose. … Sunday I try to sneak out the back door to hit the gym, but Bird catches me, says, Gee Gee, I told you no boxing on the Sabbath, then sends me and Rudy to Aunt Coretta’s house so she can cut our hair before church. I shadowbox all the way to Mount Zion Baptist, then sit in the back of Sunday school telling jokes and showing off my new card trick until the teacher offers five dollars to whomever can recite the most Bible verses. Love It’s a tie between Teenie and Riney, but he freezes on the last word and can’t remember the end of And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is… Teenie remembers, we all clap for her, and after she goes up to get her five dollars, doesn’t even look in my direction, but blows Riney a kiss that I hate to admit makes me feel some kind of way. Conversation with Rudy We’re gonna be late for dinner. We’re not gonna be late. How long we supposed to jump rope? Till I say we finished, Rudy. I know we supposed to train hard all the time, but it’s Daddy’s birthday. No birthdays or holidays for champions. We not champions, though. Yet. Starts in your mind, Rudy. Believe it, achieve it. Heck, I’m already a champion. Call me king of the swing. How’s about we call your brother the Louisville Lip. Hey, Mr. Martin. Hey there, Rudy. That’s funny. My brother, the Louisville Lip. Y’all don’t faze me. What about Ronnie O’Keefe, he faze you? Who’s Ronnie O’Keefe? The tall white boy in the ring over there. Which one, Mr. Martin? The one with that lightning-fast jab. Nope, never heard of him. Doesn’t look so fast to me. Well, you’ll see for yourself, ’cause you’re fighting him Saturday night. I am? He is? Yup. Where? On TV. Cassius Clay vs. Ronnie O’Keefe NOVEMBER 12, 1954 We both come out throwing blows everywhichaway. His arms long and bony as tree branches. My feet wild like the wind. I blow by him so fast, he can’t lay more than a few fingers on me. That’s all you got? I whisper in his ear when he clinches into me after a straight right punch that misses my cheek by an inch. The ref separates us and we go back at it, mostly missing each other until the end of the second round and most of the third, when I land a series of short pops to his head, one right below his left ear that makes him stumble into the ropes right in front of where Cash and Rudy and Lucky and my uncles are sitting and screaming, KO! KO! KO! but Ronnie gets saved by the bell, so I have to settle for a split decision and a four-dollar prize in my debut fight. Cassius Clay: One win. Zero losses. Promotional Tour To spread the word about my next fight, Cash said he would drive me around Louisville, but he didn’t come home the night before, and anyway his truck was sitting on two flats. So I down a quart of milk, two raw eggs, then take off with Rudy and Riney to knock on doors and announce myself to the world. We walk through black Parkland, laughing and cutting up and telling everybody how I’m gonna demolish my next opponent on TV. Introducing Me The name’s Cassius Clay and I’m gearing to fight. My next foe may bark, but I’m sure gon’ bite! If he comes in grinning like he’s having fun, I’ll wipe off that smile and beat him in one. If he tries to stick me like Elmer’s glue, I’ll turn up the heat and sting him in two. Tell all your friends best bet on me ’cause ain’t no way he’s lasting for three. ROUND SEVEN Want another scene from the movie starring Cassius? Here’s one. At least how I remember it: It was a fall afternoon. We were out back at the Clay house. Me, Cassius, and Rudy. We had borrowed some of Mr. Clay’s paints to make posters to promote Cassius’s next fight. But Cassius wasn’t satisfied with just names and places and dates and times. He had to add a little drama. A little color. A little poetry. Come see Clay go all the way, he wrote on one poster. Another one said, In just one round, his opponent goes down. I helped with the spelling. But the language was all his. For Cassius, it wasn’t enough to be a fighter. He had to be a fighter with flair. Cassius loved music. “Hound Dog” and “Long Tall Sally” were on the radio all the time that year. I think maybe that’s where he got the ideas for his rhymes. He always had songs in his head. But the words came out pure Cassius. By the end of the bout, his lights will be out! Like that. After the paint dried, we hauled them all over the West End, putting up the posters wherever we could find an empty space on a wall or a fence. We were putting up the last poster near a house on Virginia Avenue when we heard a screen door opening. A lady in a bright pink housecoat came out onto her stoop. She was looking straight at the poster—and she got red-hot mad. “Hey! You boys can’t put that poster up there!” she hollered. “It’s public property, ma’am,” said Cassius. Polite as always. He put another tack through the poster. “I know it is,” the lady said, “but that’s my nephew you’re gonna be fighting. I can’t have you bragging over him! Ain’t right!” Cassius looked at the poster. Right below his name (in smaller letters) was the name of his opponent. Jimmy Ellis. “Ma’am?” Cassius asked, pointing at her. “You Jimmy’s aunt?” “That’s right!” she said, pointing right back. “And I know who you are! You’re Cassius Clay! And Jimmy is going to knock you silly!” Cassius just smiled as he put the last tack in the poster. “Sorry, ma’am,” said Cassius. “Jimmy and I are friends, but when we get into that ring, I don’t know him. Nothin’ silly about that.” And at that very moment, I knew Jimmy Ellis was going down. In Louisville, boxing for kids was so popular that they actually put it on television—on the local station WAVE. The show was called Tomorrow’s Champions, and Cassius was the main attraction. In fact, he treated WAVE like his own personal TV empire. For every bout, he was so confident, it was like he’d already won before the fight even started. Cassius was just eighty-nine pounds when he licked his first opponent, Ronnie O’Keefe. And plenty more dropped after that. Big kids. Strong kids. When the bell rang, they came out swinging. Cassius just leaned back and let their punches land in midair. Then he started to jab back with his long arms. Right! Left! Right! Left! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Pretty soon his opponents would be so tired from throwing air punches that they’d be bent over and panting! Cassius was already at another level. He had a way of knowing exactly when a punch was coming and where it was coming from. “My built-in radar,” he told me. Nobody—fans, trainers, sparring partners—had ever seen anything like it. “It can’t be!” one ref said. But it was. Pretty soon, my friend Cassius wasn’t the only one saying he was the greatest. All over Louisville, everybody was saying the same thing. Cassius Clay vs. James Davis FEBRUARY 4, 1955 I won four fights in a row, one with a TKO, so I took it a little easy getting ready for my big fight in the Louisville Golden Gloves tournament against a little funny-looking kid named James Davis. I slept in a lot, skipped running in Chickasaw days at a time, just ran to school and back, didn’t drink much garlic water, goofed around with the fellas at the gym, stayed up late reciting rhymes with Rudy, and ate almost a whole chocolate cake plus three bowls of ice cream for dinner on my 13th birthday all of which is why Joe Martin said I looked sleepy, fought with no killer instinct, got beat like a rented mule, and lost my fifth fight to a short, funny-looking kid named James Davis. Cassius Clay: Four wins. One loss. Cassius Clay vs. John Hampton JULY 22, 1955 Hamp smiled when he landed a few body shots, so when he got close enough to me I whispered, That’s all you got? then threw a left jab and a right hook that sent him tumbling to the mat. Cassius Clay: Nine wins. Two losses. Conversation with Rudy You racking up the wins, Gee-Gee. How do you feel? I feel with my hands. Now let me practice. I saw Teenie and Riney today. I’m trying to concentrate, Rudy. I’m just saying, I think they going together. … You know her cousin Alice? Yeah. She asked me to be her boyfriend. I thought you already had a girlfriend, Rudy. Just ’cause you don’t have time for girls, Gee-Gee, don’t mean I gotta be the same. … You think Riney and Teenie really a thing? I DON’T KNOW, RUDY! You mad? Mad that you won’t let me focus. Ain’t nobody thinking about Riney, Teenie, or her cousin Alice. Now, unless you want a fat lip, you best let me finish my sit-ups. Before When we got home from training at the gym I made Rudy jump rope with me for another fifteen minutes, then do bicycle crunches and sit-ups in the backyard until we both just collapsed under the stars, dreaming about the future until Cash brought us back to the present. We Thought we’d done something wrong when he kept hollering for us to come inside, but when we did and saw him shaking his head, chin trembling, and grief pouring from his eyes, we thought again. And, when he showed us the picture of the dead boy, we cried too. I Was Thirteen when I lost my first fight, and my first girl to my best friend. When Teenie told me that she chose Riney ’cause I was married to my boxing gloves and the ring. When I got real serious about the sweet science, trained and fought like a madman. When I decided that one day I was gonna become the heavyweight champion of the world. When my daddy showed us a gruesome magazine photograph of a twelve-year-old faceless boy who was visiting family in Mississippi for the summer when he was shot in the head, drowned in the river, and killed for maybe whistling at a white woman. When I got to see Emmett Till and the face of America. After Even though I won the next few fights, I felt a devastating loss. I Was Thirteen when I realized that maybe boxing could save us, take me away from all this. The Next Few Years I fought like a gladiator ate like a champ lit up contenders in the ring like a lamp. Sparred on the daily kept my fists high danced on my feet like a black butterfly. Me and Rudy Baker battled two rounds I sent him home crying back to Smoketown. Twice I laid Donnie Hall out flat walked all over him like a doormat. I boxed nonstop and trained insane. One thing on my mind: NO PAIN, NO GAIN. A Guy with a Camera films me dancing around my corner, waiting for the ref to blow his whistle. HEY, KID! another guy in a baseball cap with a pen and pad yells from the folded seats. YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE JIMMY ELLIS? I look right square in the camera lens and yell back… Introduction: Reprise I’ll shake him, break him, then take him out. Who’ll win this fight, there should be no doubt. Cassius Clay is unstoppable and don’t you forget THE MAN TO BEAT ME AIN’T BEEN BORN YET. Cassius Clay vs. Jimmy Ellis AUGUST 30, 1957 He came out smiling and swinging, strong and swift like Duke Ellington on the keys, so I just danced to the rhythm in my head, bobbing and weaving, letting him tag me a few times so I could get a feel for his might for the fight he was bringing, and when I saw he was getting tired in the third and final round I whispered, No offense, Jimmy, then smiled for the cameras and opened up a can of Louisville blues that he wasn’t expecting to hear. I threw a solid punch with my left to his side and while he was distracted with the pain I landed a quick, clean uppercut with my right to his jaw that turned that smile into a frown and shut all his music off. Cassius Clay: Sixteen wins. Two losses. Rematch I saw Jimmy Ellis at Fred Stoner’s gym and we got to talking about the fight, then some guys started talking smack about how the judges did Jimmy wrong and the fight was fixed and whatnot, so yeah, I told him let’s fight again. Cassius Clay vs. Jimmy Ellis, Part 2 OCTOBER 12, 1957 More people in Louisville watched our rematch than I Love Lucy that week, which is good ’cause a million folks saw my pretty face, but bad ’cause they saw it when I took off my headgear after losing in a split decision: one judge for me, and two for him. Cassius Clay: Seventeen wins. Three losses. Conversation with Rudy Sorry, Gee-Gee. For what, Rudy? I mean, ’cause of that last fight. Can’t have delight if you don’t see the dark, Rudy. Sound like something Granddaddy Herman would’ve said. Rudy, I’m still the greatest. In fact, I may be the double greatest. Can I ask you a question, Gee-Gee? I don’t know, can ya? Think we’ll ever get there? Get where? The Golden Gloves? Not if you don’t quit interrupting my flow. The kid who won this year was from Cleveland. I know. He was a light middleweight. Strong, though. Not as strong as the kid a few years ago from St. Louis. Never saw anybody hit that hard. He was a heavyweight, Rudy. Name was Sonny Liston. I swear he hit so hard, Gee-Gee, he could probably turn a human brain into grits. Turn July into June. That’s one joker you don’t wanna get in the ring with. The fight is won before you get in the ring, Rudy. What’s that supposed to mean? Means I ain’t gonna always be there to protect you, so focus, Rudy. I’m bigger than you, won almost as many fights as you. What I need protection for? Keep yapping, little brother, and I’ll show you. Gee-Gee, can I ask you something? You just did. What we gonna do after high school? Same thing we doing now. Knock out whoever’s silly enough to get in the ring with us. But that’s not a job. It was a job for Sugar Ray. And Joe Louis. I hear ya talking, Cassius, but maybe we ought to have a backup. Like the army. I got two words for you and Uncle Sam. What’s that? HECK and NO! Until this country treats boys like me and you as human beings, I ain’t fightin’ for no flag. True. Now, stop bothering me, and let me hit these bags. I gotta be ready. ROUND EIGHT A boxer needs a ton of confidence—way more than normal people. How else could you step into a ring wearing nothing but shorts, shoes, and gloves, knowing the guy in the other corner would try like the devil to knock you out? Without confidence, you’d probably just turn around and run. I know I would! Confidence is hard to understand. Hard to find. Hard to master. There was one thing Cassius was totally confident аbout: He knew that boxing was the fastest way for a kid like him to become famous. So he made boxing his whole focus. Cassius was getting bigger and stronger, enough to play football or baseball or basketball. He probably could have won varsity letters in all three. But he focused on one thing and one thing only. Boxing was his way up and his way out. He just knew it. Month after month, I sat against the wall at the Columbia Gym and did my homework while Cassius worked out. He was learning how to use his long arms and his quick feet—and I could see his confidence growing. Punch and move away. Pull back instead of duck. Stay out of the opponent’s reach. Move fast. Hit hard. Stay pretty. Even with all his skills and practice and focus, sometimes Cassius got knocked down. When it happened, he got madder at himself than at his opponent. But he knew that getting knocked down wasn’t the worst thing. “It’s staying down that’s wrong,” he told me. Cassius knew that to be the best, he had to learn from the best, no matter what it took. When we were in high school, the boxer Willie Pastrano came to town with his trainer, Angelo Dundee. Willie was a pro from New Orleans, and he had one of the most powerful left hands anybody had ever seen. I’ll never know how, but Cassius found out which hotel Willie was staying in. He dragged me and Rudy downtown and led us right through the hotel lobby. Then he picked up a hotel phone and called Willie’s room. I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, only what Cassius said. After all these years, I can still recite it from memory: “My name’s Cassius Marcellus Clay. I’m the Golden Gloves champion of Louisville, Kentucky. I’m gonna win the National Golden Gloves, then the Olympics one day, and I want to talk to you.” It must have sounded like a prank call. I figured whoever was on the other end of the phone would just hang up. Instead, Cassius listened, put down the phone, walked across the lobby, and pressed the elevator button. As the elevator doors closed, he just smiled at us and said, “Wait here.” We waited for three hours. When Cassius came back downstairs, it was like he had been pumped full of boxing juice. All the way home, he wouldn’t stop talking about what Pastrano and Dundee had told him—about how a boxer should train, what to eat, how far to run, how much to hit the bag. It was a crash course in success, and Cassius soaked it up. Every word. “Mr. Dundee said I was a student of boxing,” said Cassius. On that day, I saw his confidence glowing. Some people say the opposite of confidence is fear. Not me. I say it’s humility. And for most people, that’s the last word that comes to mind when they think of Cassius Clay. He was loud. He was proud. He called himself the Greatest. Even when he wasn’t. Yet. But deep down, where it mattered, he could be very humble. It was another part of him that he didn’t let most people see. I could tell that it bothered him that his mother got only four dollars a day for working dawn to dusk. Cassius made that much from just one bout on local TV. He told me that one morning, when his momma was waiting for the bus on her way to her cleaning job, he walked up and stood next to her. “Where you think you’re going?” she asked. “I’m going to work,” said Cassius, “with you.” She tried to shoo Cassius home, but he just stood there. When the bus came, they got on together, moved to the back like always, and rode to a white neighborhood across town—a place where the only black people were the ones carrying mops, buckets, and brooms. For that whole day, Cassius was on his hands and knees with his mother—polishing floors, cleaning toilets, wiping down furniture. When Mrs. Clay paused at the door before they left, she had to admit the house never looked better. Cassius put his big hand on her shoulder as they walked back to the bus. Not many people could make Cassius Clay feel humble. But his mother did. Every day. Birthday For my birthday Rudy gave me the silver dollar Granddaddy Herman had given him for Christmas when we were little. Papa Cash and Momma Bird gave me Elite Everlast boxing gloves with cushions soft as a cloud and my name painted on them. And Lucky gave me a magazine that had a boxing story called “Fifty Grand” by a writer named Ernest Hemingway, who I’d heard about in Mrs. Lauderdale’s class. We read some of it, but I decided I didn’t like it ’cause any white fella who calls a black person by that name don’t deserve to be read. Beat By the time I finally made it to Chicago for the 1958 National Golden Gloves championships, I’d been fighting for almost five years, showed my talents on Tomorrow’s Champions seven times, and won more than thirty fights, ten by knockout. But none of that mattered, since Cash wasn’t screamin’ my name ringside for the first time ever, because he’d gotten into a dustup before I left that ended with the cops on our doorsteps. I won the first two and lost the finals Because you didn’t keep your fists up, and you didn’t get out of the way. You let him hit you too much, Joe Martin told me after the fight, and he was probably right, but also because the few times I had a little rally going I couldn’t get into a rhythm ’cause it seemed like there was nobody in the whole arena singing my name. Cassius Clay vs. Kent Green FEBRUARY 26, 1958 The newspaper article said: The sixteen-year-old pugilist from Louisville with quick feet and a loud mouth showed promise in his first two fights but got outboxed in the semifinals by the older, more seasoned, hard-punching Kent Green, who targeted the younger Clay like a lion stalking a gazelle, then unloaded enough head shots for the ref to stop the fight in round two of the National Golden Gloves semifinals. Cassius Clay: Eighteen wins. Five losses. Lucky Read the article to himself on my front porch while I shadowboxed with Riney and skipped rope on the lawn. Me and Riney hadn’t really hung out much since he and Teenie got serious, but she was visiting relatives in Nashville, so we were yapping and catching up when my momma told us to go pick up her order from Leonard’s grocery store. We were walking home with beaucoup bags of food and stuff, which I didn’t mind ’cause I was working out the muscles in my arms, but they hated ’cause Momma Bird bought the whole store, which was twelve blocks away. I’d rather starve, Gee-Gee, Riney said, than carry all these heavy bags, when someone started screaming my name from behind us. Face-Off The three of us turn around and see some suspicious-looking Smoketown fellas approaching us like they got something bad on their minds. Leading their gang, smack-dab in the front is a meaner and taller-looking Tall Bubba, whose face is still not back to normal, and right beside him is his new best friend, Corky Butler. Conversation with Corky Butler You been dodging me, Cassius? … Fellas, Cassius Clay been avoiding the undisputed champion of the streets, but time done caught up with him. What you want, Chalk—Corky? Riney says, wishing he hadn’t. What I want is y’all off my block, but you here, and you know what that means. Pay the toll! This not your block, Lucky answers, like he got fists to back it up. If I’m on it, it’s my block. … A quarter a head. It’s three of you, so that’s one dollar. Three of us, Lucky says, is seventy-five cents. Interest and tax is a quarter, fool. Pay me my four quarters. We don’t have four quarters, I say. Then you gotta part with one of them bags. I’m not giving you my momma’s groceries. Then I’m gonna lay you out like you got laid out at them Golden Gloves, he says, laughing. … Hey, fellas, who got thumped real bad by big Kent Green? They all start chanting, CASSIUS! CASSIUS! CASSIUS! Oh, I’m just messin’. Can’t fight ya today, we meeting some girls at the movies. I’ll catcha another time. Gimme five on that, he adds, laughing, then holding out his palm for me to slap it. I can’t give you five, ’cause you full of jive… Sometimes My Mouth Moves Faster Than My Mind I’d give you eight, but ya teeth ain’t straight. This makes some of his gang giggle, but it’s the next thing I say that has them all laughing out loud like hyenas and brings me face-to-face with the wrath of Chalky. I would give you thirty but your face too dirty. Can’t give you forty, ’cause— You got a big lip, Clay, Corky says, taking a swing that I dodge, just as a police car creeps by, eyeing us all. How about I make it a big FAT one! How about you try? I say back. I should knock you out right here, but I want the whole world to see these fists upside your head. Name the day and the time, Corky. Me and you in the ring. Then let’s do that. Then let’s do that. You’re Crazy if you get in the ring with him, Riney says, as we pick up the bags and turn to leave. Yeah, Gee-Gee, he doesn’t fight fair, Lucky chimes in. He’s liable to have some rocks in his gloves, and I knew they were both right and for a quick second I was beginning to have second thoughts about boxing him, until I heard Corky Butler yell from halfway down the block, HEY, CASSIUS, IS THIS YOURS? then launch toward me the purple lucky rabbit-foot key chain that Teenie had hooked to the spotlight clamp on the handlebars of my stolen, brand-new red Schwinn bicycle. Cassius Clay vs. Corky Butler JULY 26, 1958 Corky was shorter than me but I swear he looked like what a giant earthquake would look like if it boxed and planned on killing someone. I bounced on my side of the ring, shuffled my feet, smiled for the crowd, recited the Lord’s Prayer, anything to hide my shaky knees and the fact that I was scared to death. Behind my corner was Cash bragging, Bird, with her eyes closed like she did at most of my fights, my brother plus all the cats from the neighborhood, and some classmates standing ringside, cheering me on. The bell rang and I came out throwing jabs, quickly moving out of the way of his mile-a-minute sledgehammer punches ’cause if just one of them landed I’d have been out for the count. In the second round, he musta swung fifty times, but couldn’t connect ’cause he couldn’t catch me, plus he started getting tired, and a little slower. He chased me around the outdoor ring and each time he got close enough I just ducked, tagged him real good, and kept moving. Then, outta nowhere, he quit. That’s right. Before the end of the second round of our showdown, Corky Butler, the baddest bully in Louisville, screamed, This ain’t fair, then ran out of the ring with a black eye and a bloodied ego. ROUND NINE Sometimes, I think I knew Cassius better than I knew myself. I could tell that all the seeds of his greatness were already in him back in Louisville. He was bound for big things. I knew it. A lot of people did. Unless you were around him back then, it’s hard to imagine his dedication to boxing—his preparation, his focus. When he was getting ready for the National Golden Gloves competition, Rudy and I trained with him every single day. We ran with him, jumped rope with him, shadowboxed with him. Naturally, he left us in the dust. And after we were both worn out, Cassius just kept going. But there were times when Cassius wore even himself out. Like the time he fell asleep in the Nazareth College library. I know what you’re thinking—a library is the last place you’d expect to find Cassius. But he wasn’t there to read. It was his night job. For sixty cents an hour, he dusted the shelves and waxed the tables and chairs. No doubt he learned how by watching his mother clean houses. But one night he was so exhausted from training that he just put his head down on one of the tables and drifted off. Funny, there’s a sign in that library, still today, that says, Cassius slept here. As the trip to Chicago got closer and closer, Cassius kept his eye on that Golden Gloves championship. Along the way, he’d gotten knocked to the mat a few times, but you could never keep him down. That’s a lesson I learned from Cassius—and I hold it close to this very day. My idea was always to be a writer. And believe me, I’ve had my share of rejections and failures. But I always got back up—just like Cassius taught me—and kept on writing. In June, I sat with the Clay family when Cassius graduated from Central High School. Some of the teachers had said Cassius shouldn’t get his diploma because he hadn’t passed English. He still owed Mrs. Lauderdale a term paper. But the principal, Mr. Wilson, was in Cassius’s corner. He said to the teachers, “One day our greatest claim to fame is going to be that we knew Cassius Clay, or taught him.” So Mrs. Lauderdale told Cassius he could give an oral presentation instead of writing a paper. It didn’t come as much of a shock that Cassius decided to talk about his adventures as an amateur boxer. He made Rudy and me sit on his front porch while he practiced that speech over and over—and got better each time. We all knew Cassius wasn’t a great writer. But he was a world-class talker. And of course, he passed. When they called his name at graduation, Cassius got a standing ovation. You couldn’t hear yourself with how loud that applause was. That got Mrs. Clay crying. After the ceremony, Cassius hugged her for a solid five minutes. He was always a good son, a good brother, a good friend. Years later, after one of his historic fights, a bigtime sports reporter asked him what he wanted to be remembered for. This is what he said: “I’d like for them to say, he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.” I make my living as a writer. I wish I’d written that. So, what about that Golden Gloves championship fight in Chicago? What do you think happened? Did Cassius get knocked down one more time? I’ll never forget that night. I saw it all, live, from the front row. The way I see it, that’s the night everything really began. The night it all got real. At Central High School I got sent to Mr. Wilson’s office a lot for talking in Miz Raymond’s class while she read Invisible Man for keeping raw onions and garlic in my pockets for trashing the devil’s food cake she brought in for her birthday and asking her why did angel food cake get to be white for drawing a portrait of her without her wig for not doing the homework ’cause I was too busy training at Columbia Gym from four o’clock till eight and sparring at Fred Stoner’s gym from eight till midnight for daydreaming about what combinations I was gonna throw at the Golden Gloves: Jab Step to the left Duck Step to the right for not wanting to be invisible. The Principal Clay, you have a unique set of gifts. I do believe you will one day be a boxing champion, he’d say, but if you’re gonna make it out of high school, I’m gonna need you to get your mind right. Then he’d give me a history lesson, like Granddaddy Herman used to. You know, a lot of people sacrificed for you to be exceptional, Cassius. If you’re gonna be the greatest, best to start acting like it. Then he’d start reading Invisible Man or whatever book we were reading, picking up where Miz Raymond left off. And I’d listen. Talking Trash It’s hotter than a Texas parking lot in this joint, yelled a burly fella who was also training for the ’59 National Golden Gloves. This hot ain’t squat, Mr. Big Shot, I hollered back, still hitting the speed bags. These fists I got are meteors, super-hot, burn you up like kilowatts, knock you outta this world like an astronaut. Cassius, you a lightweight. You don’t want no parts of me, he growled from the ropes. You may have scared that nasty Corky fella, but you don’t scare me. I’m a real monster. I’m King Kong, and I’ll tear ya limbs off, stick ’em in that running mouth of yours. You right about King Kong, I shot back, ’cause you one big, ugly sucker, and I don’t want no parts of that ugly. The place went ape crazy, laughing with me, at him. He came out of the ring, charging like a bull, till one of his trainers cut him off, called him CHAMP, then told me, Loose lips sink ships. I don’t care if he is a heavyweight, I hollered. Tell that CHUMP Cassius Clay don’t panic, I’ll take him down just like the Titanic. After Winning my second Louisville tournament trophy, Joe Martin told me I was ready for Chicago again, for the National Golden Gloves, said I was moving like a mustang, finally keeping my head and my fists up, throwing jabs swift and easy, and that I should take a day off, rest my body, give my mind a workout, before the trip, so he sent me to the YMCA to watch fight films and study the greats. Cassius, immature boxers imitate, mature boxers steal, he said, laughing. So that’s what I did. Jack Johnson vs. Tommy Burns DECEMBER 26, 1908 John Arthur “Jack” Johnson, aka the Galveston Giant, was big and strappy, a hard-as-coal brute who knocked out everybody he fought, except Tommy Burns, the heavyweight champion, who refused to fight him, until Johnson chased and stalked him around the world for nearly two years, buying ringside seats to his fights just to heckle and hound him into the ring. For fourteen rounds, I watched the Goliath Johnson toy with Burns like he was David without a slingshot. In the first couple minutes of each round, Johnson taunted him, laughing at Burns’s blows, sometimes even making jokes to the fans sitting ringside, and at the end of each round he’d punish Burns with a barrage of powerful punches that over time just crushed him. I never got to see round 15, and neither did the 2,000 people standing inside Sydney Stadium in Australia, ’cause Johnson lifted Burns off his feet with an uppercut that demolished him so handily, the local police turned off the film cameras, rushed into the ring, stopped the fight, all so no one ever got to see John Arthur “Jack” Johnson, aka the Galveston Giant, become the first black heavyweight champion of the world. The Brown Bomber Granddaddy Herman and Papa Cash used to argue over everything—from whether it was gonna rain that day to who got to eat the last piece of fried chicken—but the one thing they never disagreed on was the best heavyweight boxer in history. Joe Louis Barrow, aka the Brown Bomber from Detroit, wasn’t flashy, stayed pretty quiet in and out of the ring, but boxed loud, fought with short, powerful counterblows like Jack Johnson, only his were faster, more precise combinations. He let his fists do the talking, and boy did they HOLLER. Louis had a right cross that could probably level Superman. One punch was all he needed but he always threw a flurry, battering each of his 51 opponents in knockouts as heavyweight champion until he met the BROCKTON Bomber. Joe Louis vs. Rocky Marciano OCTOBER 26, 1951 Rocky was four inches shorter, looked up to Joe Louis as a god, but when they got into the ring, it was just two mortals—one young, one aging—going at it. The match was brutal. I only watched it once ’cause who really wants to see their hero get older, get slower, get knocked off their pedestal by the new guy. Rocky was a swarmer, a slugger, and a brawler who liked to crouch and strike from down under, which he did against Louis for eight long rounds, and it wasn’t pretty. The next morning, a sports reporter wrote in the New York Herald Tribune: Rocky hit Joe a left hook and knocked him down. Then Rocky hit him another hook and knocked him out. A third and final blow to the neck followed that knocked him out of the ring. And out of the fight business. That was Joe Louis’s last fight and probably the biggest of Rocky Marciano’s record-breaking 49–0 career as a professional boxer. Sweet as Sugar While I wait for the front-desk clerk at the YMCA to load the Sugar Ray Robinson highlight film, Lucky reads out loud from a biography we checked out of the library. Walker Smith Jr. was fifteen when he changed his name, when he borrowed his older friend Ray Robinson’s birth certificate so he could box in a tournament for boys eighteen and older. When the film starts, we watch in awe as Sugar Ray dances around the ring, destroying fighter after fighter with a sweet, deadly knockout left hook that wipes the mat with his opponents one hundred and seventy-three times, almost half of them before the first round even ends. I’m gonna slay like Sugar Ray, I say, jumping up, mimicking his fancy footwork and sharp jabs. Bon Voyage Momma throws me a party fit for a king, but won’t let me, Rudy, Lucky, Riney, Small Bubba, and Big Head Paul eat till all my aunts, uncles, and cousins show up, and Cash gets back from Aunt Coretta’s with the desserts. Finally, he blows the horn for me to come out and help him bring in the cakes, and when I do I run smack-dab into Teenie Clark. Conversation with Teenie Hey, Teenie. Hey, Gee-Gee. You looking for Riney? I’m looking for you. I’m kinda in the middle of preparing for the Chicago Golden Gloves tournament. I heard. That’s why I came. … Just wanted to say good luck, Cassius Clay. Okay, thank you. Why you acting so weird? I’m not acting weird. You still have that rabbit foot I gave you? Yep. But, I don’t need no luck. The fighter ain’t been born to beat me. Well, you better not lose, then. … … How’s your new school? Every student gets a book, and each class has its own pair of scissors. Sounds decent. Yeah, it is, but the white boys are daft. I don’t know what that means. It means they’re stupid. And sometimes mean. Integration is not so nice. I thought the Supreme Court said integration was gonna solve all the problems. They lied. Going to school with white boys liable to cause more problems. True. You having a party? It’s not really a party. You gonna invite me in, Gee-Gee? … Sure smells good in there. You can come in if you want. Riney’s inside. Why, thank you, Gee-Gee. Don’t mind if I do. Golden Gloves Party Menu Three trays of meatloaf Two bowls of cornbread dressing Two huge buckets of fried chicken A huge pot of collard greens A ham hock A macaroni casserole Dozens of hot buttered rolls Two large strawberry sheet cakes Boatloads of strawberry ice cream And a great big ol’ pitcher of extra-sweet tea. Momma Bird’s Prayer We gather together to send this boy out into the world, and ask that you hold his dreams tight, let them rocket to the stars and beyond. Life is like a sky full of possibility and Gee-Gee is our great golden eagle. In this room full of angels, remember whose you are, Cassius Clay. Hold fast! Together, we can dream a new world. United we stand, divided we fall— GOD BLESS US, Cash interrupts. NOW, LET’S EAT, Y’ALL! After Dinner Cash is drinking, laughing, and hugging on Bird. Lucky’s reading Lord of the Flies, not saying a word. Riney and Teenie on the couch eating cake, and Rudy ate so much he’s got a bellyache. All my cousins congratulate me. Aunts and uncles celebrate me. Bird says, Show ’em your appreciation, so I put on a magical demonstration. Pick a Card and remember it, then place it back in the deck, I say to Riney, winking at Teenie, while shuffling the cards and recounting the story about that time Cobb and Jake were walking to school in the blizzard and they slid down the hill on Virginia Avenue, got trapped beneath the snow, and how I was running by and heard them screaming, then dug ’em out with my big paratrooper boot. When I finish, I spread the whole deck face-up on the table, but one card is face-down. Turn it over, I say, and he does. How’d You Do That? Riney asks, on my front porch waiting for Teenie to say goodbye to everybody in my family. It’s just science, y’all, Big Head Paul says. Ya know Gee-Gee got a memory like a hawk, Rudy chimes in. All y’all wrong. It’s misdirection. I get you to commit to believing in me before I even show you the card trick. Your expectations and my reality all mixed up together. I knew your card before you knew it. That ain’t even possible, Gee-Gee. Plus, you shuffled them all out of order, Lucky says. Or, I shuffled them IN order and created chaos in your mind. Huh? Rudy asks, scratching his head. What did the story about digging Cobb out of the snow have to do with it, though? Riney asks. I told you, it’s misdirection. I get you thinking what I want you to think, then I can get you to do what I want you to do. Y’all talking about boxing again? Teenie asks, coming out the front door. Yep, I think. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I sure hope you knock some cans off at the Golden Gloves, Gee-Gee, Lucky says, giving me five before he leaves. Yeah, win it for the West End, for Louisville, Big Head Paul says, waving goodbye. Good luck at the tournament, Gee-Gee, Riney says, shaking his head as he and Teenie leave hand in hand. He doesn’t need luck, right, Cassius? Teenie hollers back. Sure don’t, I yell. Fight is won way before you get in the ring. The Night Before I leave for the finals of the 1959 Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions in Chicago I sprint through Chickasaw Park, then down by the Ohio River, shadowbox the frigid nighttime air, get my head right, think about my future. On the way back I jog through Bellarmine College in the Highlands, where Lucky says he’s gonna go, pass by Columbia Auditorium and Gym, then decide to run through Greenwood Cemetery and visit with my past. Amen. Amen. Amen. Granddaddy Herman Because of you I know who I am I know whose I am and I know where I’m going I hope you can see that Your words changed me And I remembered You told me I am the greatest Not because I am better than anybody I am the greatest Because nobody is greater than me I’m going to win the Golden Gloves Even though I’m the underdog I been training my body and my mind and Tomorrow’s the real beginning for me I guess I just wanted to say thank you and that Even though I haven’t been back here since the funeral, I think about you all the time and I love you, Granddaddy Herman. The Day Of I slip on my white Everlast shorts lace up my black boxing boots get taped up, my hands placed firmly inside the gloves, then walk out into the loud and massive Chicago Stadium holding my history in one hand and my cool in the other. Cassius Clay vs. Tony Madigan MARCH 25, 1959 Tony was an Aussie with wild, stringy hair sitting on top of a block head that housed a chin made of brick, which didn’t even flinch at the jabs I landed, but by the middle of the third round I could tell he was getting tired of chasing me around the ring, of me dodging his punches, so I moved quicker punched harder and even though he got me into the corner, pummeled me with body shots, I was too slick for tricks, had a swift uppercut with his name on it that made him wince. And I talked trash the whole time, told him if he even dreamed he was gonna beat me, he better wake up and apologize. Tony Madigan didn’t stand a chance ’cause I was fighting for my name for my life for Papa Cash and Momma Bird for my granddaddy and his granddaddy for Miz Alberta for Riney and Teenie for Big Head Paul for Rudy even for Corky Butler for Louisville for America for my chance for my children and their children for a chance at something better at something way greater. FINAL ROUND Knowing Cassius Clay made me feel like I was a little part of history. We all felt that way. Of course, Cassius felt like he was a much bigger part of history. And he was so right! After losing in Chicago in 1958 to Kent Green, Cassius went on to win not just one, but two Golden Gloves championships, then the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics. After that, he turned pro—which meant he started to make a lot more than four dollars a fight! His first professional bout was right in our hometown of Louisville. I was there—along with Rudy and a bunch of the guys we grew up with. Cassius won that fight, just like he won his next nineteen fights. For the next three years, he never lost in the ring. Not once. In 1964, when he was just twenty-two, Cassius fought the heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, the Big Bear. People said Liston was unbeatable. But Cassius had a plan, and he made sure everybody knew it before he stepped into the ring. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” he said. And that’s exactly what he did. Sonny Liston was older and more experienced—but he’d never experienced anything like Cassius Clay! When the seventh-round bell rang, Liston just sat there. He was done. And Cassius was king. The heavyweight champion of the world. Just like he’d predicted. Just like we’d all believed. With all his success, Cassius never stopped thinking about unfairness and injustice—the way black people were looked down on in Louisville and everywhere he traveled. The day after the Liston fight, Cassius announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam—a movement that was founded to give black people a new sense of pride. A week later, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He said that he now thought of Cassius Clay as his “slave name.” From that day on, I never called him Cassius again. (He still called me Lucky, though.) In 1965, Ali beat Sonny Liston again. First-round knockout. Six months later, he beat Floyd Patterson. Ali was on top of the world and at the top of his game. Nothing could stop him—except a single sheet of paper. In early 1967, Ali received a draft notice that ordered him to go into the army. That meant he would have to put on a uniform, carry a gun, and probably go to war. But Ali did not believe in war. It was one thing to fight another man in a boxing ring—but the idea of killing people in a far-off country was not in Ali’s nature. He didn’t consider those people his enemies. He had no quarrel with them, he said. So when the day came for Ali to step forward and enlist, he just refused. To this day, some people say it was a brave thing to do, and some say it was the wrong thing to do. But, knowing Ali, I realized that it was the only thing to do—even though we both understood that it might be the end of his boxing career. It almost was. Officials took away Ali’s heavyweight boxing title and his boxing license. He didn’t box again for over three years—a time when he could have defeated more opponents and made millions of dollars. But his beliefs were what mattered most to him. He took those years to focus on black pride and racial justice. And he began to realize that there were more important things in life than boxing. In 1970, after a long legal battle, Ali won his license back, which meant he could finally box again. His first opponent was Jerry Quarry, one of the toughest pros in the world. We all worried that Ali might be rusty after not boxing for so long. And he was—a little. But even a rusty Ali was better than most fighters in their prime—and definitely better than Jerry Quarry. Ali won the fight in under three rounds. Five months later, Ali took on “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier. And lost! It was his first defeat as a pro. But Ali wasn’t ready to give up—not by a long shot. In fact, he wanted a rematch with Frazier. Which he got. Which he won, and regained the heavyweight championship title. In 1974, Ali fought the reigning champ George Foreman, who had never lost in forty-three pro fights. The bout was held in Africa, so they called it the Rumble in the Jungle! For this fight, Ali came up with a new strategy he called rope-a-dope. He cushioned his body against the elastic ropes around the ring so Foreman’s punches wouldn’t land as hard. By that time, I was writing for a big newspaper, so I was right there ringside for the fight. I’ll never forget it! Ali won by a knockout in the eighth round. In 1975, Ali fought Joe Frazier for a third time—this time in the Philippines. It was called the Thrilla in Manila. The fight went on for fourteen rounds, and at the end, Ali was the winner. A billion people around the world watched that fight on TV. A billion! Pretty cool. I knew Ali couldn’t go on winning forever, but the end came sooner than I thought it would. He lost his next two fights, in 1980 and 1981. They turned out to be the last fights of his career. Outside the ring, I had started to notice a little trembling in his hands, and sometimes he couldn’t form sentences clearly. We both knew something was wrong. Doctors told Ali he had Parkinson’s disease, which affects muscles and body movement—and it was only going to get worse. That news would have stopped most men. But not Ali. He never boxed again, but he kept on fighting. He fought to raise money for famine victims all over the world. He fought to get fifteen American hostages released from Iraq. He became friends with Michael J. Fox, a popular young actor who had Parkinson’s disease too. Together, they raised millions of dollars for medical research. Ali worked with the United Nations and became a messenger for peace. In 2005, President Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ali told me that was one of his proudest days. Muhammad Ali died in Arizona in 2016. I wasn’t there. And in a way, I’m glad. Because I wouldn’t want to remember him that way—still and quiet. I want to remember him as the funniest kid in the West End of Louisville—the kid who never stopped running and never stopped talking. Muhammad Ali was a three-time heavyweight champion of the world, and one of the most famous and respected men who ever lived. He was also a true and loyal friend. That’s what I’ll remember most.