Life with Maggie seemed so calm and laid-back after living with Liz. We’d both arrive home in the evening and sit and discuss our respective days. We’d chat, cuddle up on the sofa and simply love each other. There were no arguments, nastiness or disparaging comments. We enjoyed each other’s company and I revelled in the loving non-confrontational lifestyle.
On my fortieth birthday, we went out for a Chinese meal and then, the following evening, met up with my family and friend Danny for a night out. All we had to do now was convince them that there was nothing wrong with the fact that Maggie was black.
Also, in January 2002, things were coming to a head between Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis. Following his victory against Neilson, Tyson had arranged to fight the dangerous veteran Ray Mercer. This was seen as a smart move by the boxing media, who respected Mercer. He was a durable and tough opponent, who always came to fight, and had given Lewis one of his toughest battles. Lewis and his handlers, however, threatened to go to court to prevent the Tyson fight happening.
Several years previously Lewis and his management had campaigned vigorously for a Tyson bout but Mike had insisted upon adequate preparation. Finally, after his victory against Andrzej Gołota, Tyson had declared himself ready but Lewis had then elected to fight Hasim Rahman instead. One year on, he insisted that Tyson face him next or not at all. It was a thoroughly confusing scenario and hard to figure out which one of them – if either – actually wanted the fight! Certainly it was a rarity in boxing for the champion to chase his number one challenger but there was a method to Lewis’s tactics.
Recognizing that Tyson was a fighter who required regular work to keep him sharp, Lewis and his camp re-challenged him now, knowing that his bout against Neilson was insufficient preparation. Preventing him from facing Mercer first only loaded all the odds in their favour.
Tyson was in a no-win situation. In January his wife Monica Turner instigated divorce proceedings – against a background of renewed rape and sexual assault slurs in the press – and it was revealed that Mike was still in serious debt. One way or another, Tyson needed to find some money quickly, both to clear his remaining arrears and to provide a financial package for his soon-to-be ex-wife and children, and so the Lewis bout increasingly made monetary if not strategic sense.
Tyson was no fool. Although boxers are amongst the worst judges of when to call it quits and seem incapable of recognizing their own physical decline, Tyson knew that at thirty-five years of age and with just one fight in over a year – against an outclassed opponent – it wasn’t the correct way to prepare to face the best heavyweight in the world. However, maybe he only had himself to blame.
Following his Gołota victory, Tyson could have stayed busy, retaining his sharpness and adding a few more million to his dwindling bank account. The reality was that Mike just didn’t have the desire any more. He piled on the pounds through inactivity and over-eating and ended up fighting Neilson, purely out of desperation for spending-money, twelve whole months after his previous victory.
Perhaps it was no surprise when his wife explained her reasons for wanting a divorce as Tyson’s outrageous designer-clothes-and jewellery spending sprees – despite his financial predicament – and his persistent womanizing. It certainly wasn’t because he spent too much time in the gym.
Even though Tyson was desperate for money, and even after finally agreeing a date in April 2002 and signing the contracts, the fight was nearly “lost”. It was just another Tyson moment.
Boxing has a long history of hyping contests. Promoters gather the fighters and their entourages together in front of the press and encourage them to swap insults and threats and generally look menacing in order to boost ticket and pay-per-view TV sales. But, as Tyson marched towards Lewis at the press conference, one of the champion’s bodyguards pushed Tyson back. (Now, here’s a funny thing: if you’re the heavyweight champion of the world, supposedly the most dangerous unarmed man on the planet, why do you need bodyguards? Never have understood that.) Tyson swung a theatrical punch at him, which missed – “deliberately”, he later claimed, stating he’d been asked to “help hype the contest”. Lewis, who later said that no one had told him that Tyson had been asked to throw a pretend punch, threw a genuine punch at Tyson which landed and opened a cut above his eye. Tyson reacted in the way he was apt to when angry and stressed. He ducked his head down and bit a chunk of flesh out of Lewis’s leg! (Okay, point taken: maybe Lewis did need a bodyguard.)
Everyone jumped on everyone else at that moment and mayhem ensued.
When the two camps were eventually separated it didn’t end there. A member of the press shouted out, “Put Tyson in a straightjacket”, and an adrenalin-fuelled Tyson turned and exploded: “I’ll fuck you in the arse, you punk-assed white boy … You fucking faggot. Come up here and take me on you scared coward. You white bitch. You ain’t man enough to fuck with me, bitch. There ain’t no one in the room big enough to take me on. This is the ultimate man. You’re just scared like a little white pussy … I’ll fuck you ’til you love me, you faggot.”
This adorable little quotation didn’t endear him to the boxing committee who met subsequently to discuss Tyson’s actions. The Nevada board refused to allow Tyson to fight in Las Vegas because of his behaviour. The multi-million dollar super-fight was off.
A disconsolate Lewis tried to put a brave face on it but the truth was – despite his protestations about the flesh missing from his thigh and his claims that Tyson had “mental sickness” and “needs help” – Lewis couldn’t make the same kind of money by facing anyone else, plus it was a career-defining bout for Lennox. If he were to end his career without having faced the most iconic figure of his era, Lewis’s record would always be dismissed by some with, “Yeah, but he didn’t fight Tyson, did he?”
Tyson, too, was between a rock and a hard place. He had no way to earn the kind of huge money he required without facing Lewis.
Both camps got together and searched for a solution. Eventually, the date was reset for June 2002 in Memphis, Tennessee, and, with the rape charge dropped at the last minute, Tyson was able to finally focus on the bout which could help change his messy life.
By this time, my own life was no longer messy. It was extremely happy. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt angry about something. There were odd moments, of course. We had a new manager at the place where I worked with disabled people and I just couldn’t get on with him. His personality grated with me: mainly the fact that he didn’t have a personality I could grate.
Rather than allow myself to get sucked into a dark mood every time I saw him, I decided to leave and work elsewhere. There was a temporary glitch in this plan. Mags wanted me to leave the company altogether, rather than just transfer to another site, as she was still doing occasional work for them herself – although she’d now qualified as a nurse and was mainly working at a nearby hospital – and didn’t feel that it was good that we work together and live together.
Glitch, part two. I developed a hernia. It was quicker than developing a photo but more painful. The constant discomfort I was in forced me to cut down on my martial arts training and the time I spent off work allowed me to consider my options. What could I do with the money I’d just received from my divorce settlement?
Well, how’s this for an idea? I bought an old Jaguar XJ6. Mags hated it. She’d had a Mazda before, which you could fit inside a shoe-box. Now she had to try and park something longer than one of those bendy-buses. As a consequence of this Mags decided to kill the car one day on the motorway. I felt like crying as I watched my lovely Jag loaded on to the tow-truck. (We’ve had Mercedes since then and she managed to write one of those off, too, although that one was definitely an accident.)
I also used the money to take on the lease of a massage parlour in North London. I was convinced that this was the ideal way to make easy money. Men would always want to get laid and many of them were willing to pay for the privilege. Why not pay me?
Mags and I clea
ned the place from top to bottom and I bought some paint to smarten the place up. Then I placed advertisements and interviewed a selection of attractive women to work there, sat back and prepared to reap the rewards of the sex industry.
All I reaped was a selection of heavy bills; money was coming out of my account to pay for constant running repairs to the place, while the locals proved to be the least sexually motivated males in the whole of London. The immediate area must have been the impotence capital of the world!
After a few months I handed the lease back and returned to working with disabilities. It was far less stressful than alcoholic prostitutes, drunken clients who turned violent when they discovered that they couldn’t get an erection and the constant threat of a police raid. Plus, a stream of Eastern European women – without passports or visas – who offered me unlimited sex in return for work at the parlour were just another potential legal headache.
Before I gave the business up, I’d had to eject stroppy punters from the premises on several occasions. Debbie, who was running the place for me – and almost certainly ripping me off – suggested that I hire a doorman after I had to physically throw a young guy out when he started abusing her because he couldn’t reach climax. He wanted his money refunded but I was already losing enough money on the place, without taking on extra staff.
Instead, I started arming myself with a large-bladed knife and extending baton when I went there. (If I’d owned a grenade-launcher I’d have taken it!) In truth, though, most guys were easy enough to intimidate and usually chose to leave with just a few expletives and a firm push towards the front door. Only one guy became a potential problem.
He was a Hell’s Angel type: biker jacket and boots; shaved head but long beard; tattoos, etc. He arrived one day and announced that he used to be the bouncer for the previous leaseholder and wanted his job back. I told him that I didn’t need a bouncer, thanks, but he just smiled and intimated that I “might do soon”.
I could feel the adrenalin rising and assured him that I didn’t believe so. He asked if he could come in and have a massage. Ten minutes later the masseuse came out of the room and informed me that he refused to pay her.
He claimed that the previous owner had let him have sex with the girls for free, in return for his door services. I pointed out that we didn’t have such an arrangement and he walked towards me. I’d anticipated that he wouldn’t leave quietly and so, as he approached, I unzipped my bomber jacket and rested my hand on the handle of the knife. He was a really big guy and going hand-to-hand with him was secondary in my list of options. I intended doing whatever was required to cause him maximum damage whilst minimizing injury to myself. I decided which areas of his body I was going to start stabbing and slashing first, and prepared for a violent, bloody scene which I knew I’d live to regret. (I could sense that prison cell looming … but it was preferable to my death or hospitalization.)
False alarm! He merely smiled that annoying grin of his once more and ambled out. This wasn’t good. I’d been trying to move away from these sorts of confrontations but realized that I wouldn’t be able to if I pursued this sordid line of work.
As much as the girls’ stories of their clients amused me – the guy who wanted one of the women to put lipstick and mascara on him, whilst another girl inserted needles into his penis and foreskin till he cried, was a favourite – and as much as I loved sitting there flirting with women who constantly crossed-and-uncrossed their long stockinged legs, it had been a terrible mistake.
I was trying to change my life and temperament for the better. I was no longer angry and confrontational but this business was forcing me to adopt that persona again. I needed to get out of this place for my health, sanity and emotional well-being.
And so, I handed the keys back and got a job in a school for autistic children.
I could never be accused of being predictable. Nor could Maggie. She told me that she wanted a baby!
* * *
Mike Tyson versus Lennox Lewis was a huge anti-climax. The initial press conference to announce the championship match-up, which had resulted in carnage, violence and verbal abuse, was far more entertaining than the fight itself, for this was the contest which clearly exposed the fact that Tyson was past his sell-by date.
In retrospect Tyson would have been better off making a kamikaze stand in the opening minutes, throwing caution to the wind and trying to expose Lewis’s less-than-concrete chin. In fact, Tyson did win the opening round but Lewis was merely sizing him up, determining how much danger and ferocity “Iron” Mike had left. Satisfied that he had nothing to fear, Lennox assumed control in the second round and it was all one-way traffic from then on. It was the quietest I’d ever been for a Tyson fight.
Whilst the likes of Julius Francis, Lou Savarese et al. might still crumble at his feet, the truly world-class boxers such as Lewis were beyond him now. This was painfully revealed to both Tyson and the watching world, as the huge heavyweight champ rammed his left jab into Tyson’s steadily swelling face round after round, following it with crunching right-handers.
Even against “Buster” Douglas and Evander Holyfield there had always been the chance that a sudden savage right hand or crushing left hook could turn things around but, against Lewis, Tyson never showed that he still had the power or ability to turn the tide. Neither did he have the excuse of inadequacy in his corner this time. Respected trainer Ronnie Shields tried desperately to motivate Tyson between rounds, urging him to “let his punches go”, but Tyson seemed incapable of throwing anything significant. He appeared mesmerized by the constant jab-jab-right of Lewis and obligingly walked on to the punches round after round, merely proving his ability to absorb heavy punishment.
The bout could well have ended earlier than it did if Tyson hadn’t benefited from some dubious refereeing decisions. I groaned as Tyson went down in the fourth round but was then confused and delighted at the referee’s deduction of a point from Lewis for holding and pushing Tyson to the canvas. It was true, Lennox had draped his massive bodyweight over Tyson but, to my mind, he was already on his way down from a punch at the time.
Then, as Lewis opened up and hurt Tyson, the referee stopped him and gave Tyson a standing eight-count, giving him a chance to recover.
It was all immaterial. I watched in stony silence as Lewis repeatedly drove his punches into Tyson’s battered and bleeding face. In the eighth round a left hook precipitated the end. As Tyson lurched to his left from the force of the blow Lewis perfectly timed a following right cross. It exploded upon Mike’s chin and he fell heavily to the floor, not rising until the count had reached ten.
It was the conclusion which most boxing experts had predicted, particularly in light of Tyson’s woeful preparations regarding warm-up bouts and his weight-gains between contests (although he had managed to slim down considerably in comparison to his bulk against Nielson.) However, Tyson retained the ability to confuse onlookers who thought they’d summed him up. Just as Mike was garnering praise for his willingness to take a beating like a warrior and not quit on his stool, he had the media scratching their heads with his post-fight comments, in which he did everything but kiss Lewis’s ass. As he stood looking up at his unmarked conqueror, dabbing at the blood leaking from his right eye, Tyson – the man who’d stated that he wanted to “eat Lewis’s children” and “rip out his heart” – described Lewis as “a masterful boxer”, adding, “The pay day was wonderful. I really appreciate it. If you’d be kind enough, I’d love to do it again. I think I could beat you if we tried one more time.”
Let’s analyse these words. He was more or less saying: “I’m finished as a fighter but I need lots more money to pay off all my debtors and fund my extravagant lifestyle. Thanks for this opportunity. Now, would you like to beat me up again, as I need much more money than you’ve already given me?” (And I didn’t even need the Enigma machine or the Da Vinci code to crack his underlying meaning.)
I loved Mike to bits but I’d have been so much happi
er if he’d told Lewis he was a bum and that, if they’d met ten years earlier, he’d have “ripped his head off”. Tyson’s comments removed any lingering illusions I or anyone else had that he was still interested in the heavyweight title or in improving his status in boxing history. He was in it purely for the money now and this meant that he would never regain the former ferocity or “bad intentions”. In which case, without that mindset and anger, Mike Tyson was just a small, ageing heavyweight.
However, luckily for him, Lennox Lewis also thought about boxing in terms of pounds-and-pence and said that he’d happily give Tyson a rematch. And so, the saga continued.
On my forty-first birthday I sat at my dad’s house, preparing to let my family know that Maggie was pregnant. During the year or so we’d been together my family had welcomed Mags into their midst, almost as much because of the sheer contrast in personalities between herself and Liz as for anything in particular Mags had done to try and ingratiate herself. My dad had been the biggest revelation.
The others had been fine about Mags’s skin colour from the start but my dad had taken more convincing. He’d sometimes ask me whether I felt self-conscious walking down the road with her – Yeah, right, with my shaven and tattooed head you mean? – or whether it was “fair on Jim, for his dad to have a black girlfriend”, etc.
Questions such as these were raised periodically but they’d become infrequent, as Mags had won him over with her niceness. Nevertheless, it was with more than a little trepidation that I announced the news of the impending new arrival.
I told them that “something” would be arriving soon at the flat and that something would grow bigger and bigger each year until, eventually, it would be adult-size. When my mum responded, “You’ve got no room for a pot plant in that tiny flat,” I gave up trying to be subtle and told them: “Maggie’s pregnant.”
The Mammoth Book of Hard Bastards (Mammoth Books) Page 21
