that fight.
I swear I could smell the sweat of it. I could feel the thud of blows landing, and in my mind’s eye I could see the younger, faster Clay wheeling around the ring taunting Liston, hitting him at will. I began to cheer for him when Clay was blinded by something and Liston started to win.
Clay recovered, and as I rocked in my bunk, arms wrapped around my knees, I clenched my fists and willed him on. In the end, a battered Liston refused to come out and fight again. The crowd cheered and booed and raged, and Bill and I celebrated the new heavyweight champion of the world. My foster mother had to come in and tell us to get to sleep.
Cassius Clay changed his name about the same time I did. In my new adopted home I got to see some of his fights on television. He was beautiful. He was outrageous. He was a warrior poet, and when he crashed over refusal to fight in Vietnam I hurt for him. In my mind he was a giant.
But my adopted home was a fiasco from day one. No one had told my new family about the history of abuse I came from. No one had told them about the terror I’d faced as a kid and the horrific physical abuse I’d suffered. No one knew then that post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t just a soldier’s pain; it could happen to a kid, too.
Physical punishment was the rule in that home, and it was the last thing I needed. When I was strapped and beaten, it only exacerbated the trauma in me. When I was banished to my room, it only embedded the isolation I felt. I found it difficult to fit in and become the kid they wanted me to be, and there were always clashes.
I ran away a few times and then, when I was fifteen, I emptied my bank account of paper-route money and found my way to Miami Beach. It was February and I wanted to be somewhere warm. More than anything I just wanted to be away.
I got a job in a cafeteria as a busboy and moved in with a pair of old hippies I met. We smoked weed and hung out on the beach, hitting up tourists and swiping drinks from tables. But when I couldn’t produce a social security number, the cafeteria let me go. I wandered Miami Beach lost and hurt and hopeless.
One day I went into a lunch counter at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue. They served lemon meringue pie, and I ordered a piece in hopes that a childhood favourite might make me feel better. It was marvellous. When a man came and sat beside me, I bent my head out of shyness. He ordered a piece of pie like mine, and the waitress asked him if he was allowed to have it. He laughed and said he could eat whatever he wanted; he was the Champ, after all. I looked up and saw Muhammad Ali beside me. His training gym was right above that lunch counter, it turned out, and he came in often.
He bought me a piece of pie when he ordered another, along with a chocolate shake. We ate together and he smiled at me and rubbed my head like a brother. When he was leaving, I asked him for an autograph and he signed my napkin. Muhammad Ali. A giant. A warrior poet. I was honoured. Watching him walk away I felt healed, like I could bear up. When the police found me eventually and shipped me back to my adopted home, I held onto the sight of him.
I left for good soon after, and my life became the road. Thirty-seven years later, I still remember the feel of his big hand on my head and the taste of that lemon pie. Finding Ali saved me, gave me the strength to carry on. I guess that’s what heroes do—imbue us with the gold dust of their courage. Ali made me a fighter, and I’ve come out for every round since then.
Up from the Pavement
. . .
MOUNTAIN RAIN is healing. Walking in it in the slate grey of morning you get the sense of what my people say—that rain is the tears of Mother Earth crying down a blessing. There’s a freshness to things then, a radiance, a sweeping rush of energy that means Great Spirit when you allow it to touch you. You feel the places you inhabit when you open yourself to them. They cease to become places then,
I swear I could smell the sweat of it. I could feel the thud of blows landing, and in my mind’s eye I could see the younger, faster Clay wheeling around the ring taunting Liston, hitting him at will. I began to cheer for him when Clay was blinded by something and Liston started to win.
Clay recovered, and as I rocked in my bunk, arms wrapped around my knees, I clenched my fists and willed him on. In the end, a battered Liston refused to come out and fight again. The crowd cheered and booed and raged, and Bill and I celebrated the new heavyweight champion of the world. My foster mother had to come in and tell us to get to sleep.
Cassius Clay changed his name about the same time I did. In my new adopted home I got to see some of his fights on television. He was beautiful. He was outrageous. He was a warrior poet, and when he crashed over refusal to fight in Vietnam I hurt for him. In my mind he was a giant.
But my adopted home was a fiasco from day one. No one had told my new family about the history of abuse I came from. No one had told them about the terror I’d faced as a kid and the horrific physical abuse I’d suffered. No one knew then that post-traumatic stress disorder wasn’t just a soldier’s pain; it could happen to a kid, too.
Physical punishment was the rule in that home, and it was the last thing I needed. When I was strapped and beaten, it only exacerbated the trauma in me. When I was banished to my room, it only embedded the isolation I felt. I found it difficult to fit in and become the kid they wanted me to be, and there were always clashes.
I ran away a few times and then, when I was fifteen, I emptied my bank account of paper-route money and found my way to Miami Beach. It was February and I wanted to be somewhere warm. More than anything I just wanted to be away.
I got a job in a cafeteria as a busboy and moved in with a pair of old hippies I met. We smoked weed and hung out on the beach, hitting up tourists and swiping drinks from tables. But when I couldn’t produce a social security number, the cafeteria let me go. I wandered Miami Beach lost and hurt and hopeless.
One day I went into a lunch counter at Fifth Street and Washington Avenue. They served lemon meringue pie, and I ordered a piece in hopes that a childhood favourite might make me feel better. It was marvellous. When a man came and sat beside me, I bent my head out of shyness. He ordered a piece of pie like mine, and the waitress asked him if he was allowed to have it. He laughed and said he could eat whatever he wanted; he was the Champ, after all. I looked up and saw Muhammad Ali beside me. His training gym was right above that lunch counter, it turned out, and he came in often.
He bought me a piece of pie when he ordered another, along with a chocolate shake. We ate together and he smiled at me and rubbed my head like a brother. When he was leaving, I asked him for an autograph and he signed my napkin. Muhammad Ali. A giant. A warrior poet. I was honoured. Watching him walk away I felt healed, like I could bear up. When the police found me eventually and shipped me back to my adopted home, I held onto the sight of him.
I left for good soon after, and my life became the road. Thirty-seven years later, I still remember the feel of his big hand on my head and the taste of that lemon pie. Finding Ali saved me, gave me the strength to carry on. I guess that’s what heroes do—imbue us with the gold dust of their courage. Ali made me a fighter, and I’ve come out for every round since then.
Up from the Pavement
. . .
MOUNTAIN RAIN is healing. Walking in it in the slate grey of morning you get the sense of what my people say—that rain is the tears of Mother Earth crying down a blessing. There’s a freshness to things then, a radiance, a sweeping rush of energy that means Great Spirit when you allow it to touch you. You feel the places you inhabit when you open yourself to them. They cease to become places then,
Similar Books
