Undisputed Truth

by Mike Tyson

  Kiki was really stressed about money then because I couldn’t give her anything for the baby. She could barely afford diapers. She even threatened to take our child down to welfare and sign up for assistance. But I was really broke. I had something like $7,000 in my bank account and I owed over $8,000 a month in child support payments. Jeff was paying for my rehab. Whenever I could, I’d book an appearance for $10,000 to get some cash. So threatening to go on welfare didn’t faze me. I told her she wasn’t going to be living in the lap of luxury with me. Let her get her ass in the welfare line. I think she was actually in the line when Darryl came by and gave her $250 from my ATM for diapers and food.

  In February, I got out of rehab and went back to Vegas. My plan was that I would live in my house and go visit Kiki and the baby, who were in the nearby townhouse. But I was so fucked up and fragile from rehab that I went over to the townhouse and just stayed there with Kiki for two weeks. I was literally afraid to leave the house because I didn’t trust myself to stay clean. Kiki and I picked up where we left off before she went to prison. We laughed a lot and talked and watched TV and played with Milan. After two weeks Crocodile started coming around and we’d go out and go to Mack’s barbershop and hang out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. But I was staying out of trouble.

  When I had tested dirty, my probation went back to Phoenix from Vegas. But the probation officer in Phoenix was a great guy. Kiki and Milan and I drove down there and he saw that I was struggling and he knew about the new baby so he allowed me to live in Vegas and just report to him once a month in Phoenix. We drove back to Vegas after a day or two and I decided to stop by my house before dropping Kiki and Milan off at the townhouse. And fate intervened again. A pipe in my dishwasher had burst and the whole house was flooded. I don’t know if it was divine intervention to get me and Kiki even closer, but it did inconvenience me like a motherfucker.

  I moved in with them into the small townhouse. We were so broke that when we went shopping we would have to count the items in our cart as we went along, just to be certain that we didn’t go over our budget. As we shopped I would keep taking things out of the cart even though Kiki had assured me she had counted correctly. I just didn’t want to be embarrassed at the checkout counter. The last time I remember doing that was when my mother was on welfare. The checkout lady would have to put stuff aside that we wanted to purchase because we didn’t have enough money. All that anxiety came back to me when Kiki and I would shop. My concept of buying things my whole adult life had been whatever I could see, I could buy. Now the sight of ordinary groceries intimidated me. Can you imagine that? I was the most vicious, feared fighter of my lifetime and the price of a fucking box of cereal was intimidating me.

  Kiki and I continued bonding. We played a lot of trivia games, just for days on end, trivia, trivia, trivia. I was still too sick to go out and face the world. Kiki was probably secretly happy that she had me for herself. I think my old image was still weighing heavy on her.

  A few weeks after Kiki and I moved in together, I left the house with Crocodile in the afternoon. We went to the gym to watch some fighters train. But this time after we did that I told Crocodile I wanted to get some blow. We got back to the townhouse at about ten, which was real late for me. Kiki was asleep upstairs and I went in the bedroom all happy, talking real hyper.

  She popped out of bed like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

  “You did coke, didn’t you!” she screamed.

  “No, no, baby.”

  “Then why the fuck are you talking so fast? And fuck that Crocodile. He’s supposed to be helping you and he’s going off and doing drugs with you,” she said.

  “No, don’t say anything to Crocodile. He doesn’t know I did it,” I lied.

  “You really think I’m stupid and I’m supposed to believe that he doesn’t know?”

  She kicked my ass out of the house for doing coke. I saw it as her doing me a favor. I was happy to go. At that time, I’d rather be out doing coke than cooped up in that small apartment.

  I binged on coke for two days and then I went back. Kiki was worried as hell. But I vowed not to slip up again and things returned to normal.

  Until March, at least, when Kiki’s mom Rita got out of the halfway house and moved in with us. Having four of us in that cramped apartment was not fun, especially when one of them was your girlfriend’s mother. I couldn’t even make love without the possibility of her mother hearing us because the walls were so thin.

  Around then I began a series of relapses. I’d be good for a few weeks and then I’d go out and rage. I’d be gone a few days and then I’d come back all contrite.

  “I’m a piece of shit. I just wish I was dead. I’m so sorry I’m doing this to you,” I’d say.

  I looked like a monster on these binges. When I’m fucked up on coke, I get spots all over my body, like a leper. I get dehydrated and break out in sores all over my face. I can’t kiss anybody because the moisture from the other person’s lips would burn me. I’d be bleeding from the nose. I couldn’t talk, I was so congested.

  Kiki would get so mad she would start screaming at me, calling me an asshole and a piece of shit.

  “What’s up? Why are you tripping?” I’d ask her.

  Then she’d leave and I was so out of it, I didn’t even know she was gone. That was how it was then. When I was high I felt great, but the people that I loved felt bad. And when they felt great, I felt bad because I was sober.

  After these relapses I’d stay in for a week or two and then I’d get antsy again.

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Kiki would say. “It’s the time.”

  She got so sad because she saw that I really couldn’t help myself. And she’d beg me to stay home and do the coke if I had to so I wouldn’t be out somewhere getting in trouble. But there’s no recovery without relapsing and I was trying my best to stay sober.

  Crocodile left Vegas around then. He told me that he loved me too much to be around and help contribute to me poisoning myself. He moved to Arizona and flipped the script on us and went from being a hard-core Muslim to a born-again Christian. I told him that Jesus was cool but he shouldn’t lose his whole personality. Jesus had savages with him. I told him if he wanted to evangelize, be the guy from Buck and the Preacher, have your Bible in one hand and your gun in the other. Croc cleaned up his act and he hasn’t done any drugs since 2010.

  Dealing with my drug problem was new for Kiki. One time, she went online and looked for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting near our house. She got the address and we went to the place. We were a couple of minutes late so we sat down and listened to the people share. The stories were all interesting, how they lost all their money by gambling it away. After a few minutes, I whispered in Kiki’s ear, “We’re in the wrong meeting.” It was a Gamblers Anonymous meeting.

  I didn’t want to offend anybody by walking out while they were sharing with the group, but I didn’t really want to be there. So after a half an hour I got up and addressed the room.

  “Excuse me, guys, I’m very sorry but my girlfriend thought this was Narcotics Anonymous. I don’t have a gambling problem, but God bless you guys.”

  During all this troubled time, Kiki kept her spirits up. She was always so optimistic. I was OD’ing right and left and she was talking about us starting our own production company and licensing my image for all sorts of things. She always had positive dreams for us. And I had some dreams too. Seeing Kiki and Milan on a daily basis and seeing the hopes she had for all of us seeped through that drug fog I was in. One day I woke up and said to myself, I ain’t going to do this shit no more. I wanted to be awake, I want to be of service, I wanted to be a player in the game of life, functioning with all your marbles and responding to the best of your ability. That was the life that I wanted to live.

  But then I got that phone call that no parent should ever have to get in their lifetime. It wa
s Shelley, the mother of two of my children, calling from Phoenix.

  “My baby’s dead! My baby’s dead!”

  16

  I was numb when I hung up the phone. Kiki and Ma were crying the second they heard the news, like it was their kid. Darryl rushed over and we drove to the airport. Kiki and Rita and Milan got in the car and Zip drove them to Phoenix. When I got there I rushed to the hospital.

  To this day I don’t understand what happened or why it happened. All I knew was that the safety cord from the treadmill somehow got tied around my four-year-old daughter’s neck. My son found his sister like that, he ran and got Shelley and she called 911. When I got to the hospital, Exodus was on life support with no hope of recovering.

  I was furious. I wanted to make someone pay. But then I was surrounded by the parents of other children who were in the hospital dying. They were coming over to me to comfort me. Now I was a member of a club that nobody had ever wanted to join—the bereaved parents club.

  I still had so many questions though. In my opinion, there was never a thorough investigation of her death. Losing Exodus was the most bitter and helpless feeling I ever had in my life. Now my son Miquel will never be the same. He will always have that image in his head of finding his sister hanging. How do we heal from a tragedy like this? How can someone deal with this kind of loss? It’s not in the A.A. book. Just tell me what book it’s in because that’s a book I want to read. Losing Exodus is the only thing in my life that I can’t find any gratitude for. Someone has to pay and take the pain, even if it’s me. It’s been four years now and I still don’t know how I’m going to survive this. I often wonder that, if I was there, maybe things would have been different.

  Kiki and the others had checked into the W Hotel. I went back there that night and I was shattered and drained. Everyone tried to console me but how the hell do you console somebody who just lost their child? I was trying to keep it together but I would just break down in tears and then I’d take these really deep breaths. The last thing I wanted to do was to get high then so Kiki gave me some Chinese herbal medicine to stay calm.

  Exodus was taken off life support the next day. At her funeral, I didn’t know what to do. You have to stand up and thank everyone for coming and be grateful for everyone’s support, so I got up.

  “Thank you very much for coming,” I managed to get out. I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do, so I sat down. But then my son Amir got up there and he began talking. Even though I was in grief I was still rational and I was checking him out and he was telling stories about his sister and he was doing it very calmly, very professionally. What the hell is going on here? I thought. Here was the big brother talking on behalf of his sister. He did such an awesome job. Once he was through, I felt much better.

  Everyone was so supportive. Marilyn was there right by my side. She was a veteran of war, she knew death intimately. Monica was terrific. Amir and Rayna were always close to Miguel and Exodus and at times when I was broke, Monica would pay the rent and the bills for them. My oldest daughter Mikey was there as well as my stepdaughter Gena. I was so proud of all my children being there and standing strong and honoring their sister. Kiki and I agreed that it would be best if she and Milan stayed back at the hotel so she wouldn’t unintentionally upset Shelley, who had just lost her own baby girl. In the face of tragedy we were all one big family.

  Exodus had a funeral worthy of a dignitary. They used to listen to Spanish music in the house and her favorite artist was Nigga, a reggaeton star from Panama. I called up Luis de Cuba, who put me in touch with Roberto Duran. Roberto’s son reached out and Nigga came and sang and played and he was wonderful. I didn’t realize it until then but I suddenly knew the deep reason that I had always loved Duran. There is no way I can ever repay him for getting Nigga to perform to honor my daughter. I will always be indebted to both him and Nigga for their compassion. I would do anything for them. I was just so appreciative of everyone’s support. Between the doctor’s bill and the funeral it cost $200,000 and it was paid for by donations.

  We stayed in Phoenix for a few days and then drove back to Vegas. I brought my son Miguel back with me because Shelley wasn’t handling Exodus’s death that well. My oldest daughter Mikey came back with us too. So now we had me, Kiki, Rita, and all the kids in that tiny townhouse.

  • • •

  The outpouring of support for me from strangers really startled me. It shook me into realizing that I wanted to be of service to society and not just be such a glutton caring about myself. I wanted to know how to stop being promiscuous and be loyal to one person. I wanted to know how to be a responsible adult, a responsible father. I didn’t know how to do it, but I wanted it. And with all that money, with all that fame, and all those titles, the closest I had gotten to that was a divorce and a bunch of fatherless kids. But after Exodus’s tragic death, my whole paradigm shifted. I realized that everything I always thought was the truth was a lie, so I had to start my life all over.

  I wanted to create some sort of legacy for Exodus up there in heaven. I wanted her to know that her father was conducting himself in a dignified manner and that he was dealing with his fury and taking it to a whole other level of life. I lost Exodus but I had Milan. I wanted Milan to have a sister close in age so that they could grow up together. I really believe in my heart that Milan was a gift to help me through this tragedy even though she could never take Exodus’s place. This was a chance for me to be a responsible dad with her. And then from being that guy with her I could work on re-creating my relationship with my other children. For years and years I had gone through the motions of going to A.A. meetings and reading the book and working my program. Then all of a sudden, my daughter died and that knowledge just kicked in without me even knowing it. Just autodrive, boom. It didn’t happen overnight, and I’d have some slips down the road, but it was there in me. Mike, work on your lust. Mike, work on your conduct with women. Mike, put that blow away. Mike, lose that weight and get healthy. Mike, don’t look at a woman longer than three seconds. I don’t want to sound spooky, like I was possessed or anything, but the rehab teachings just clicked in my head.

  I knew I had great discipline from my time with Cus, but everything I had done with him was from a posture of being superior to everyone else. Now I was using those same tools but from a different point of view, from humility not superiority. But I still had that megalomaniacal theory that I could do it. Even though it was going to be treacherous and hard, the megalomaniac in me said, “It will be done and you will suffer.” That’s what I had been used to all my life. Nothing mattered but the accomplishment of the deed.

  But it was still a theory. A week after Exodus’s death, all that pain just got to me. Kiki and Rita were out somewhere and I just told my daughter Mikey to lock the door behind me and I went out and scored some coke. I am a scourge from hell when I’m on my addiction. I started slipping for a few days. Kiki was so frustrated and worried that she couldn’t help me anymore. Nobody could stop me from getting high. So Kiki reluctantly begged me to stay home and do the coke if I had to just so she would know something bad wouldn’t happen to me. So one night I was up all night at home coked out and Kiki was up with me talking to me. First thing in the morning, she had to meet with her probation officer. We had some heavy talks that night and we decided that we were going to get married soon. So when she left, I was still emotional and I kissed and hugged her repeatedly. Then I went out to the balcony and waved good-bye.

  “I love you,” I said and blew her a kiss as she got in the car.

  Kiki met with her probation officer and she gave Kiki her final random urine test. After a few minutes, the probation officer came back into the room.

  “Cocaine came up in your system,” she told Kiki.

  “That’s impossible. I don’t do drugs,” Kiki protested.

  “This is a very serious matter, Kiki. You’re breastfeeding your infant daughter. A
positive coke test can start the process of removing your child from the home and placing her into protective custody with a foster parent.”

  “What?? I didn’t do coke!” she said. “Wait. Can you get a positive test for coke from kissing someone?”

  “I’ve never heard of that. But if you think that might be the way that the coke was introduced into your system, why don’t you stay here for an hour and we’ll retest your urine. If it was something as trivial as that, it should be out of your system by then,” her probation officer said.

  That was when my cell phone rang.

  “You fucking motherfucker,” Kiki screamed. “They’re going to take my baby away because of your fucked-up addicted ass. I just tested positive for coke. Now your addictions are fucking with my family. I could lose my daughter! How could you do coke before you kissed me good-bye this morning?”

  She had me there. I was a licker when it came to my blow. And I’m not talking about licking no little bit of residue off that folded sliver of paper that the coke might be in. I’m talking about a jar of coke. I stuck my tongue down that jar and I hit pure cocaine. So much that you don’t even feel your tongue anymore.

  I hung up the phone and told Mikey to lock the door again and I just started walking. I walked twenty miles from my place in Henderson to the ghetto in West Las Vegas. I was high and sweating like a motherfucker and people were pulling their cars over and offering me a ride.

  “Mike, get in the car, man,” they’d say.

  “No, don’t fuck with me, man. I’m going through some shit.”