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| Floats like a butterfly.. |
(From an article in ActionPact Magazine, August 1994)
If one summer afternoon you were to drive through the back roads of Berrien
Springs, Michigan, you might find yourself riding past a pleasant looking non
descript neighborhood with black and white children happily playing on lush
lawns in front of their homes, middle aged men watering their front yards and
women serenely reading the latest paperback novels on their front porches.
You may not detect anything unusual along your way, unless
you were to take a turn down a certain dead end street. At the end of that
street, you would find an imposing stone and wrought iron gate. If you were to
get out of your car, approach the gate and look beyond the No Trespassing Sign,
you would see a beautiful, peaceful looking farm, parted by a tree-lined
driveway leading towards several houses in the distance.
This is where the Champ lives, The beautiful one. The Poet
Of The Ring. The most Famous Man In The World. The Greatest. MUHAMMAD ALI.
These thoughts buzz through my mind as I and my colleagues
Allen Stroud and John Roach are
announced on the intercom and wait at the electronic gates to swing open so
that we can drive up to Ali’s office to meet with him, We had just gotten word
at the ActionPACT offices that the champ would have time to see us before
embarking on one of his frequent trips (he had just returned from
Vietnam). I had scrambled to the
local libraries trying to prepare myself as best I could. Though I had loved
Ali all my life, I was surprised how little I really knew about the man.
We drive past what appear to be bunkhouses from the days when Ali used to train
here. The main houses that earlier seemed so far in the distance now loom
large, all painted a conservative white. Pretty flowers line up the side of the
driveway, making one feel at ease, welcome. We pass a children’s play yard,
complete with swings and a slide. Finally, we pull in front of the houses.
Lonnie Ali is standing by the garage, waiting to greet us. As I come up to her,
I see she is even more attractive in person, her oval face peppered with
freckles. Glancing around, I
recognize portions of the grounds I had seen in photographs, especially the
pond where Howard Bingham, Ali’s long time photographer once shot a beautiful
picture of Lonnie and Muhammad in a loving embrace.
“He’s up in the office, you can go on up”, Lonnie tells us.
The tone of her voice suggests she knows what it means to be meeting the
champ.—it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, and she sees how excited I
am despite my efforts to look cool. Ali’s office is located above a garage that
has a couple of vintage cars parked inside. We walk up the narrow set of stairs
past a life size portrait and down a short hallway. We finally end up in a small, well-kept office. Strewn
around the room are a few mementos, and a bronze statue of the champ in a
fighting pose laid at the floor at my feet.
I look to my left and standing there behind the desk is the Champ. He glances
at me as we file by and throws a couple of fake punches, turns, and directs his
attention back to what he was doing. The desk was covered with what look like
handwritten documents, letters, bills and correspondence. The Champ is standing
beside his personal secretary, Kim, looking intently past his shoulder at a
computer screen. Kim greets us and motions for us to sit down. Ali says
nothing, takes a seat himself and continues to stare at the screen. He’ll be
with you in a minute…” Kim says, ”We’re working on Muhammad’s book”. John Roach
responds, “You’re writing a book, Champ?” Ali finally turns to us and waves.
”Been working on it for twelve years. It’ll shake up the Pope. It will change
the world.”
Ali asks us to wait a few more minutes as I pull out a pad
and begin to take notes. I was
told by John Roach, who arranged this meeting with the Champ, that I could not
bring a recording device to the interview. I assumed this was because of his
well-known speech problems. But I soon found out that if one listened enough,
one could understand his every word and that his mind was as sharp as ever. I write in my notes: “Huge. Powerful
looking. Still exceedingly handsome.” I stare at his hands for a while. Hands
that when balled into fists, had shattered lesser boxers’ jaws.
His skin has a reddish–copper color and his arms are thick
and strong-looking. He carries a barrel chest. But most of all, that face. That
pretty rounded, face he had bragged about many times. Yes, it had aged a bit,
it is still intact. The man is awesome.
Kim gets up from the monitor, walks past Ali and announces,
“We’re done for now. He’s all yours,” Ali rises and motions for us to follow
him to the sunlit porch behind his office. There, lined up along its entire
length are several mail bags filled to the brim with hundreds of letters. There
are also drawings here and there that people had done of Ali.
“People write me wherever I go." Ali tells me. He points to a letter. I read
the return address. It’s from Mecca. After awhile, we head back to the office
and Ali tells us all to have a seat. There aren’t enough chairs so John Roach
sits on the floor. As he settles on the carpet, Ali stares at him for a moment
and says “Look at that, a roach on the floor!” We all laugh, and feel a little
more at ease. The Champ has Kim pass around bibles to each of us, and takes a
stack of handwritten pages from the desk and holds them in his lap. “This is
his research..” Kim goes on. “He works on the book all the time, on planes in
hotels..” “What’s it about, Champ?” I ask. Without looking up from his paper,
Ali says, “How the bible is full of inconsistencies. Millions of people, all
over the world believe its every word. The bible is the most powerful thing in
the world. Now, turn to John 5:31." I clumsily search till I find the passage.
It reads: “Even If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true”. He then
instructs Allen Stroud to read John 8:14. “Even if I bear witness of myself, my
witness is true.” Allen reads. We all look at each other. There does seem to be
a contradiction. He smiles and says, “You see this stack of papers? We just got
started.” For the next twenty minutes or so, Ali puts us through the same
procedure, and every time, we are amazed at what seems to be complete
contradictions. “See, I believe this
is my true calling. Boxing was just to make me famous. I’m gonna tell the whole
world about this. See, in the Qur’an, there are no contradictions. That’s why
the Muslim religion is the right way. “’Muslim” means “One who surrenders.” It
means submission to God, to Allah.” The Champ rises from his chair. “Let me
show you how easily you can be deceived.”
He walks to a corner of the room near a doorway and says “Watch me
levitate off the floor.” He makes a forward leaning motion, and in seconds he
seems to rise several inches off the carpet.
At that moment, Lonnie sticks her head into the room. “Kim
and I are going, honey. Feed the cat.”
As I begin to ponder the irony of anyone telling the
greatest fighter that ever lived to feed the cat, I look down and see an
enormous golden –haired cat at me feet. I was so enchanted by the Champ I
hadn’t noticed it. Ali seems to have taken his wife’s exit as an invitation to
play and goes off to find his box of magic tricks. As he disappears down the
hall, I noticed how he still moved with uncanny fluidity and grace for a man
his age, despite his ailments.
He return seconds later with a broad grin on his face that
seems to be saying, “That was business before. Now for some fun.” As he unpacks
some things I decide to fire a few questions at him.
“Champ, what do you think of having a street named after you?”
Without looking up from the preparations for his next trick he rather casually
answers, “Number one! Of all things, all the presents, awards…getting that
street in my hometown meant the most to me.” He then asks Allen Stroud to pick
a card. I get the feeling that the Champ was used to this type of questioning,
but I was determined to keep asking.
“Whom have you personally admired?”
“Sugar Ray Robinson, Nat Turner”.
Who are your favorite musicians?”
“Jackie Wilson, Little Richard”.
“What do you think of young boxers like Mike Tyson?”
A pause.
“Some young guys have no class.”
Ali seems bored with this type of questioning, so I decide
to try another tactic. I watch as he performs a marvelous trick where a scarf
seems to disappear from his massive hands. We are so impressed he shows us again,
slower. We just can’t figure out how he does it. “See? See how easily you can
be deceived? All the intelligence in this room, and you three babble like
children.”
I decide to personalize my questions a bit. I tell him that
when I was a kid growing up in Staten Island, we would sometimes play “Boxers”.
And we would fight over who would get to be Muhammad Ali. Because I was a
smaller kid, I would always lose. “You and me both”, the Champ smiled.
“Do you remember a comic book they did in the seventies?
Muhammad Ali vs. Superman? “Yeah. I loved that. A nigger beat Superman.”
Before I go on, I let the Champ perform another levitation
trick. This time with a coin. At the climax of his trick, the Champ’s eyes
brighten and he adds a loud “Bam!” for emphasis. “I heard this place used to
owned by the gangster Al Capone.”
“Yeah”. Ali was setting up another trick. Allen Stroud
chimes in. “Did you ever find anything strange here? A body, or something?”
“Well, we found a machine gun out in the woods last week”.
We all look at each other in shock.
“April fool!” You see? You see?”
We smile. The Champ had made his point.
My eyes drift toward the open window, and I look out an
marvel at the beauty of Ali’s spread. “How many acres have you got here,
Champ?”
“About 88. The Red River runs by it.” He starts to put his
toys away. My next question seems to be out before I realize it.
“Are you afraid of anything?”
“Not really. I’m not afraid of death. If a bear or some wild
animal came after me, I’d be afraid of the first bite.”
We all laugh uneasily.
“You know, like on a plane, I sometimes get scared of
turbulence. Not ‘cause I’m scared of dyin’, just the getting there.” He
gestures with his arm. “You know, I’d be afraid if the engines stopped and the
plane nosed down, down, down…knowing it was headed for a collision.”
Looking back out the window, I decide to change the subject.
“I’m sure a lot of people know you live here. Do people call you on the
intercom out front and ask to meet you?”
“Sure,” the Champ says rising, smiling again. “Sometimes they’re coming from
far away, all over. If I got the time, I’m glad to see ‘em.”
John Roach asks Ali if he has any photographs we may use to
illustrate the article. The Champ picks up the case of magic tricks (which
looks to weigh a ton) and we follow him to the main house. As we cross the
driveway, I realize all the cars except ours are gone. We are alone with Ali. I
recall reading that Ali employs no bodyguards on his travels. He trusts Allah
to protect him.
We pass through a small kitchen, and into appears to be a
family room, with a large screen TV and comfortable, lived-in looking
furniture. The room is modest, reminding me of the den in my parent’s house.
Not exactly what you’d expect from a man who has made over 32 million dollars
in his career.
Ali brings us a large, heavy box of photographs. “I got more
like this in the back.” He proclaims.
He sits with the box on his knees and proceeds to go through
the pictures, making comments on many of them. There must be hundreds. There
are pictures of Ali with baseball great Ted Williams; with Richard Pryor; with
Dustin Hoffman, Jim Brown, Wesley Snipes. Anybody and everyone you could
possibly imagine.
My favorite one is one with Wilma Rudolph at the airport arriving
from the 1960 Olympics held in Rome. Rudolph looks so young and pretty. Ali
(who of course was Cassius Clay at the time) was so handsome. The photo seems
to have a strange fantasy like quality.
I watch the Champ going through the box. He is obviously
touched by some of the memories the photographs recalled. Particularly the ones
that remind him of friends who have passed away like his long-time idol, Joe
Louis.
I ask him what he thinks of all the violence going on in the
black communities. The drugs, the apparent breakdown of the African American
family.
“Pilots can’t fly without learning to fly a plane. Cooks
can’t make a meal without following a recipe. Carpenters can’t build without a
plan. We have to follow the rules that Allah has set out for us. They are his
law. In this chaos, things will always turn out bad.
It’s getting late. Allen Stroud recommends that we take some
photos of our own outside before it gets too dark. But not before Ali presents
each of us with souvenirs. He hands John Roach an original ticket from one of
his fights with Larry Holmes. Allen Stroud, a vintage collector’s card, and
myself an autographed picture.
We take some pictures against the backdrop of Ali’s farm, the Champ clowning
and mugging for the camera.
It’s time to go. I give the champ a T-Shirt I had printed
for this year’s Kentucky Derby, commemorating black jockeys. The Champ holds it
up and looks at it. John Roach tells him that I designed the shirt myself. “You
did this?” he asked. You’re not as stupid as you look.”
We all shake hands, and I resist the overwhelming urge to
hug him.
I slip in one last queston. “You know this is one of the
greatest moments of my life, don’t you?”
To that Muhammad Ali softly replies, “Yeah, I know.”
