Ali

by Jonathan Eig

  On the flight to Zaire, it was pointed out to Ali that some of his attacks on Foreman might not work as well in Africa as they did in the United States. The majority of Zairians were Christian (with no special aversion to pork chops), and few would understand the term Uncle Tom.

  Ali thought about that for a little while and then asked, “Who do these people hate?”

  “The Belgians,” Gene Kilroy said.

  That was all Ali needed to know.

  Huge crowds greeted Ali and Belinda, both dressed in blue, as they stepped off the plane in Kinshasa. A bare-chested Zairian man wearing a beaded headdress and carrying a small wooden shield in one hand and a spear in the other led Ali through the airport.

  Immediately, Ali began working the audience. Africa did not play a central part in the story of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam talked about black Americans returning to their Asiatic roots, not their African roots. But Ali had always had a brilliant instinct for shaping his own biography. He had long ago discarded his American name and challenged the American government’s right to tell him what to do. “I’m the king of the world!” he had shouted after beating Sonny Liston in 1964. He had not said king of America. King of the World! Most men and women invent their identities by the time they reach adulthood. In the story of Ali’s invention — shaped by his Jim Crow childhood, his rambunctious father, Elijah Muhammad’s religious vision, and Ali’s own grandiose appetite for attention — he was the African American King, and he had come to Zaire to please his people and retake the crown that obviously belonged to him. Most men and women don’t know they’re making history until after they’ve made it, but Ali worked on the simple and liberating assumption that he was always making history.

  He asked a reporter how many people lived in Zaire. When the reporter told him 22 million, Ali asked how many of the 22 million were pulling for Ali and how many for Foreman. The reporter said he didn’t know. But Ali was taking no chances; he went to work from the moment he stepped foot in Africa campaigning for the support of the Zairian people.

  “I am the greatest!” he shouted. Then he added, “George Foreman is a Belgian!”

  First Ali had labeled Foreman white. Now he was calling him a colonialist oppressor of the Congolese. At one point, he went even further, calling Foreman “the oppressor of all black nations.”

  It might have been laughable, except that no one laughed. Foreman, unintentionally, made matters worse by bringing his German shepherd to Zaire. The Zairian people were not fond of dogs, and particularly not fond of German shepherds, a breed the Belgian colonials had used to control the Congolese.

  Soon the crowds began to chant in Lingala: “Ali boma ye! Ali boma ye!”

  Translation: Ali, kill him!

  When Ali learned what they were saying, he led the cheers everywhere he went, waving his arms like the conductor of a marching band: “Ali boma ye! Ali boma ye!”

  Ali and his entourage stayed at one of Mobutu’s presidential compounds in N’Sele, about twenty-five miles from Kinshasa, on the banks of the Congo River. The compound included a handsomely furnished riverside house, a swimming pool, a grocery store, and a restaurant. Foreman was assigned to a military encampment. Unhappy with both the accommodations and food, Foreman soon moved to the presidential suite at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kinshasa.

  While Ali played the part of cheerleader everywhere he went, Foreman would not be bothered with unnecessary displays of charisma. His demeanor suggested he had no interest in Ali’s games. He had traveled many miles to knock out Ali, and he wanted to get it done and go home.

  “He did not look like a man so much as a lion standing just as erectly as a man,” Norman Mailer wrote of Foreman.

  When Mailer stuck out a hand and introduced himself, the champion merely nodded. “Excuse me for not shaking hands with you,” Foreman said, “but you see I am keeping my hands in my pockets.” Mailer found it difficult to argue with that logic. Every time Foreman refused to shake hands or refused to give an interview or refused to smile for a photograph, he gave the impression of a thundercloud holding back a great storm, storing every drop of energy until the time came to pound down upon the earth.

  The sight of Foreman hitting the heavy bag at the compound in N’Sele provoked fear in Ali’s camp. Foreman’s manager, Dick Sadler, wrapped his arms around the bag, trying to hold it steady, but Foreman’s blows were so powerful they lifted Sadler in the air. By the time Foreman finished, the bag had a dent the size of a man’s head. The sportswriters worried: What would become of Ali’s internal organs when they received that sort of beating? What would happen to his head? Even Ali’s most trusted confidantes fretted. They knew Ali was a smart, resourceful fighter. They knew he always had a chance. But smarts and resourcefulness only got a fighter so far. Boxing is two human bodies in combat, “a stylized mimicry of a fight to the death,” as Joyce Carol Oates put it, and Foreman in almost every way appeared to be the more destructive force of the two. Ali’s talent for taking a punch offered little consolation.

  Years later, Ali would admit he was worried, too. How hard did Foreman hit? Would he be able to take it? But, at least publicly, he showed no signs of concern. He acted as if the heavyweight championship were already his, that it had always been his. He acted as if Zaire were his, too. He went on long walks, marveling every time he met a black doctor or a black lawyer or a black politician, marveling that he was recognized even by people who had no televisions. He seemed just as excited in Kinshasa as he had been in 1960 at the Olympics in Rome — perhaps more, because he had the sense in Zaire that these were his people, and that they were expecting something from him.

  “You could actually see and feel him drawing strength from the exuberant love of his people,” said Stokely Carmichael, the head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who had traveled to Zaire at Ali’s expense. “It was unbelievable. Wherever we went. I mean, even when he ran — no matter what time — it was as if the youth of the entire city ran with him. All around him, trailing behind, a joyous procession of ragged black youth, eyes shining with pride and excitement.”

  Don King and Hank Schwartz had hoped to find seven thousand European and American customers willing to pay thousands of dollars to travel to Zaire. In the end, they found about thirty-five. Not thirty-five thousand, just thirty-five. Thirty-five people. Thirty-five high-priced boxing tourists.

  The American promoters had promised that Zaire’s government would receive a share of the money made from sponsorships — things like Foreman-Ali bubble gum, Foreman-Ali candy bars, Foreman-Ali T-shirts, Foreman-Ali programs, Foreman-Ali postcards. None of those deals came to pass. In addition, Zaire was supposed to receive all the money from ticket sales for the live event in Kinshasa, but only Zairians were buying tickets, and they were paying such low prices that their contributions would not begin to offset the government’s costs in putting on the fight. Zaire’s leader advertised the bout as a “Gift from President Mobutu to the people of Zaire.” Pale-green road signs with yellow lettering in French and English were posted around the country with messages reading:

  A fight between two Blacks in Black nation, organized by Blacks and seen by the whole world; that is a victory of Mobutism.

  The country of Zaire which has been bled because of pillage and systematic exploitation must become a fortress against imperialism and a spearhead for the liberation of the African continent.

  The Foreman-Ali fight is not a war between two enemies, but a sport between two brothers.

  Given the great public-relations value of the event, and given the way he had been pillaging billions of dollars from his own country, it’s unlikely Mobutu was fretting about the fight’s finances.

  With plenty of plane tickets and hotel rooms unsold, not to mention thousands of servings of quiche Lorraine and chicken Kiev stored in Zairian freezers in anticipation of the American visitors, Don King decided to invite a few guests to join his African expedition free of charge, includin
g the four beautiful women from Los Angeles who had been hired to help promote the travel packages. Veronica Porche initially declined the invitation, saying she didn’t want to miss her classes at USC. But she changed her mind and agreed to go, mostly because she had never traveled outside the United States and didn’t know when or if she would ever have such a chance again. One day in Kinshasa, she was approached by C. B. Atkins, a member of Ali’s entourage, who asked Veronica if she wanted to visit Ali’s training camp. She said yes, and asked if Trina, one of the other women selected by Don King for the trip, might come along, too.

  Trina, who was four or five years older than Veronica, wore a white sleeveless T-shirt and no bra. Veronica dressed more conservatively, in a long-sleeved pink blouse and matching pink slacks. When they met Ali, the boxer ignored Porche and flirted with Trina. But later, when the young women boarded a bus to go back to Kinshasa, Ali offered to ride with them, and he settled into the seat next to Veronica. The two chatted nonstop for the forty-minute ride, speaking mostly about their childhoods and their families.

  When they reached Kinshasa, Ali said goodbye. There were no kisses, no invitations to extend the evening. But Porche had the feeling Ali liked her, and she was surprised at how much she liked him. It was a wonder, really, that someone so gloriously handsome and so famous could seem so simple and so charming — “like a country boy,” she said.

  Soon she was seeing Ali every day. They timed their get-togethers to avoid Belinda. “He just overwhelmed Veronica,” recalled Rose Jennings. “He wouldn’t leave her alone.”

  When reporters began to notice Ali’s new companion and asked about her, he laughed it off. “My babysitter,” he said. He didn’t care, and neither did Veronica. She was young. They were in Africa. The most handsome man she had ever seen turned out to be sweet and kind and definitely, definitely attracted to her. It was overpoweringly romantic.

  “I remember the moment I fell in love with him, the exact moment,” she said years later. They were in his villa in N’Sele. Ali wore a black, short-sleeved shirt and slacks. “He had these lectures he had written out on cards, and they were really beautiful, on friendship, love. He was saying his lecture on love and . . . I fell in love with him. I felt there was sort of a palpable feeling . . . a certain energy that I felt hit me at a certain point in the lecture. And I knew.”

  Later, she learned the words were not Ali’s. They were tracts he had copied from religious books. But it didn’t matter. She was in love for the first time in her life.

  On September 16, nine days before the scheduled fight, George Foreman suffered a cut over his right eye during a sparring session. The cut was bad enough that the bout had to be postponed — for how long, no one knew. Initial reports said it would be a week, at least. Soon, there were indications that it would be a month or more.

  For everyone involved, this was a disaster. Mobutu feared that Ali, Foreman, and the reporters covering them would flee Zaire and never return. To prevent that from occurring, he ordered the fighters and their managers to turn over their passports.

  Ali was despondent, describing the postponement as “the worst thing that could have happened.” First he suggested that the fight should go on as scheduled, adding that if the cut over Foreman’s eye opened up during the fight, he would agree to a rematch in six months. Then he suggested flying Joe Frazier to Kinshasa to take Foreman’s place.

  Foreman declined stitches, saying he didn’t trust local doctors. With a butterfly bandage over his eye, Foreman had to avoid sparring, but he continued to train. Ali continued training, too. He also persuaded Veronica Porche to take time off from college and stay with him in Zaire. Belinda — apparently still unaware of her husband’s new relationship — had returned to the United States.

  Beginning September 22, a three-day music festival kicked off in Zaire, with performances by James Brown, B. B. King, Miriam Makeba, Celia Cruz, the Spinners, and Bill Withers. The music was electric, in no small part because the marijuana in Zaire — which the Americans called binji — was heavy-duty and sold by the handful at third-world prices. One night, Ali asked Veronica to join him at the stadium for the concert. She didn’t want to go, but she waited in N’Sele for Ali to return, and that night they had their first kiss. Soon she was spending most of her days and nights with Ali at N’Sele.

  When Belinda returned to Africa, she and Ali clashed violently — but not because Belinda caught Ali with Veronica. The fight started when Ali accused Belinda of sleeping with another man.

  “Ali comes in the room,” Belinda said, “he comes and hits me in my face like this, Bam! — and my face swells . . . My whole face swole up. It was a black eye underneath . . . He hit real hard.”

  Belinda lashed out, scratching Ali’s face and leaving a gash running down the left side of his face from his hairline to his temple, one that would be visible in photos for days to come. Later, he cried and apologized.

  “I could’ve had him arrested,” she said, adding that she decided to hide her injury because she didn’t want the fight stopped. She wore sunglasses and stayed out of sight until the swelling went down.

  Veronica said she didn’t know whether Ali hit Belinda, but she confirmed Belinda was hiding two black eyes beneath her sunglasses the day after the incident. Kilroy said he did not believe Ali struck his wife.

  In the weeks leading up to the fight, Belinda could be seen wearing a George Foreman button. Ali and Porche continued their romance, with Porche falling more deeply in love by the day. She assumed Ali was going to lose to Foreman, as everyone predicted, but she didn’t care. Although they had known each other only a matter of weeks, when Ali proposed marriage, Veronica answered yes without hesitation. She had the impression, she said, that Ali’s marriage to Belinda was all but officially over. That’s what Ali told her. A Zairian minister was summoned to N’Sele, and a wedding ceremony was performed in Ali’s villa. “I can’t say how legal it was,” she said years later. “I know it’s crazy, but we got married.”

  Ali promised that a proper American wedding would follow as soon as he divorced Belinda.

  More than six hundred reporters had arrived in Zaire, and, with the possible exception of Rolling Stone’s Hunter S. Thompson, who spent much of his time shopping for elephant tusks, smoking marijuana, and getting drunk, most of the journalists were miserable. Hotel-room phones were mere ornaments. The government provided only a handful of telex machines for reporters to transmit stories, and when officials did finally deliver more of the point-to-point printing machines, they forgot to provide sockets for connecting them. Everywhere they went, visitors were expected to lay out a matabiche, a tip or bribe. Clothes had to be regularly laundered and ironed to kill the michango, a parasite that bored under the skin, settled in the soft pouches under the eyes, and required surgery to remove. Worst of all, perhaps: Zairian bartenders were inept. “They didn’t understand ‘screwdriver,’ ” Rose Jennings recalled. “You had to say vodka and orange juice. If you asked for iced tea, they’d bring you ice cream.” When Jennings griped about one particularly incompetent bartender, the American seated next to her said, “Rose, you don’t understand. A month ago this guy didn’t know how to flush a toilet.”

  The most miserable American of all may have been George Foreman. When the boxer asked Dick Sadler to arrange a flight to Belgium or France so he could have a qualified doctor look at his wound, Mobutu wouldn’t let him go. The Zairian dictator feared that Foreman would never return, and he was probably right. Mobutu made it clear that Foreman and Ali would stay in Zaire as long as necessary; nothing was going to stop this fight.

  With Foreman moping, reporters turned for amusement and good copy to Don King, who had taken to wearing brightly colored dashikis and who seemed to have grown his afro to new and previously unexplored heights, inspiring Norman Mailer to write that King looked like a man falling down an elevator shaft, “whoosh went the hair up from his head.” King paraphrased Shakespeare in commenting on the postponement of the f
ight, saying, “Adversity is ugly and venomous like a toad, yet wears a precious jewel in her head.” The extra suspense surrounding the fight would turn the event, he said, from colossal to super-colossal.

  Ali, meanwhile, did one of the things he liked best: he entertained. He continued getting to know Veronica. He practiced a set of rudimentary magic tricks. He learned to hammer out two or three boogie-woogie songs on the piano. He watched movies that the American embassy sent to his camp. He offered daily press conferences and informal interviews to journalists who were starving for copy and getting little from Foreman, enjoying the fact that some of the reporters from Africa and Europe had not heard his old poems before. He even came up with a new one, a long ode called “A Bad Morning Shave.” He explored Zaire. And he continued to train. To make sure that neither he nor his sparring partners grew weak or got sick from the local food during the long wait, he ordered meat flown in from Europe.

  One week before the contest, Ali repeated his oath to make this his final fight. “I plan to retire as soon as I win,” he said at a news conference. “There won’t be no lose.”

  The journalists who had been following Ali for years and had come to love him marveled at his demeanor. Even some of the men in his entourage were awestruck. How did he do it? How did he manage to stay so sunny and to convey such confidence? Ali was not naive. He knew Foreman was young and strong and undefeated. He knew that Foreman was one of the greatest knockout punchers the sport had ever seen. He knew that Las Vegas made Foreman a three-to-one favorite. Even if Ali genuinely believed he was the better and smarter boxer, he had to be concerned that Foreman might hurt him, that one good punch might end his comeback, end his career. Red Smith of the New York Times called Ali’s chances of winning “as remote as Zaire.” Smith added, “There is much loose talk in the fight mob about the fix being in for Ali, but on its merits this shapes up as a match between a rising young power hitter and a folk hero far past his peak.” A British writer quipped that Foreman could be stopped only one way: “Shell him for three days and then send in the infantry.”