At Home with Muhammad Ali

by Hana Ali

  “I love you, Muhammad,” he said to his seven-year-old son on the recording. “I just love you so much. I think about you every day. I miss you. I’m not with Mommy anymore so I don’t see you much. Do you ever think about Daddy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you want to see Daddy more?”

  “Nope!”

  “You don’t? Tell me why.”

  “Because you have work to do—you have to go take care of business.”

  “No, I said do you ever WANT to see Daddy more?”

  “No,” he said again.

  “Why don’t you want to see me more? I want to see you more.”

  He paused as if considering. “It might be because you can’t spend the night . . .”

  Dad had purchased the Woodlawn house for them, but as fate would have it, they’d never move in. Instead they moved into their grandparents’ house when their mother, Belinda, moved to Los Angeles.

  “Rasheda and Jamillah, I just had to talk to you because I got real sad today and I didn’t know why,” he said on another tape, in 1979. “I said my prayers and something told me, ‘Talk to your children more because they love you and you love them. You should talk to your children because one day they’re going to be grown and you won’t see them as much.’ I want you all to know that Daddy always thinks about you. I’m trying to help you guys find your purpose in life. I have a lecture called ‘The Purpose of Life’ where everything God made has a purpose. Horses have a purpose, chickens, cows, trees, grass, everything has a purpose . . . You are a human being; if everything else has a purpose, humans have a purpose too. You don’t have to really know yet, but you should know by age twelve, so you’ve got three more years to think about it, because one day you’re going to have to take care of yourself. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I gave Mommy a lot of money when we got divorced so you all can go to college. Your money is already put up for you. So, find out what you want to go to school for—try to be something in life where you can make a good living. Don’t depend on men and don’t be living in the ghettoes. You know what a ghetto is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You see how nice Mommy’s house is and Grandmommy’s house is?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Daddy helped them get all of that. I’m saving money for you too, so that when you get big you can have nice clothes and your own car. You’re going to be a woman with a good education, a nice house, and one day a nice family, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So Daddy is going to help you do that—that’s what I’m thinking about every day. I’m always working hard to save money to make a future for you all, so you can have nice things when you get big. I’m sorry I can’t be around you more because I’m so busy. I’ve got Hana and Laila to take care of, and I got Miya and Khaliah. I’ve got you guys. I’m always working to take care of all of you. I give Mommy money to take care of you, and I pray to God that I’ll be able to keep doing it. One day soon I’m going to come back to Chicago and start seeing you more, so be good.”

  “Yes, sir . . .”

  Picking the phone back up, “Daddy,” May May asked, “when are you going to come visit?”

  “As soon as I get free—I promise you! I’m working on it . . .”

  “Daddy . . . where are you?” Jamillah asked.

  “I’m at my house in California. I want you to come see it. This is your house too! You hear me?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Daddy, do we have your phone number?”

  “Yeah, Maryum has it—call me sometime, you hear? I think about you all the time, but you never call me.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Do you love Daddy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I love you guys. Let me hear you say it together—say, ‘We love our daddy.’”

  “We love our daddy!”

  “Okay, God bless you. I’ll be thinking about you. Daddy loves you. Give Mommy the greetings for me . . .”

  The photo my mother had taken. Los Angeles, summer of 1984.

  * * *

  I thought about Belinda and her relationship with my father. Listening to their conversations, you’d never know there was ever any discord between them.

  “Salaam alaikum [Peace be with you]. How are you doing?” she asked on December 9, 1979.

  “I’m fine. What’s happening?”

  “Oh, nothing much,” she said.

  They sound like friends—joking and catching up about old times. Which is how two people who were once married should sound together.

  “The kids are grown!” said Dad. “They look extra big to me because I don’t see them anymore and when I see them it just shocks me. It seems like not too long ago, when you think back, that we were bringing them home from the hospital.”

  “Yep, that was a long time ago . . . a long time,” she agreed. “I took them to see your mother.”

  “Yeah, I talk to her. It was so good that you did that, I’m so glad. I want them to see her more. Before you know it, Maryum’s going to be grown and she will be coming home with her own children and her man.”

  Belinda laughed. “She better not bring nobody home.”

  “If she’s like you, she will be bringing her man home at seventeen. Think about that. That’s only six more years. What is today’s date?”

  “I think it’s the 9th,” said Belinda.

  “No, it’s the 8th,” said Dad.

  “It’s December the 9th. Yesterday was the 8th,” she said.

  “No, it’s December the 9th—check it out.”

  More laughter. “No! You check it out,” she said. “Today is the 8th!”

  “I’ll bet ya—I’ll bet ya a hundred dollars. Are you sure?” said Dad.

  “I’m positive! Have you been asleep for two days?”

  He checks the newspaper. “You’re right! You’re right! You’re right! I would have bet you were wrong,” he said. “The white man’s paper doesn’t lie!”

  They both laughed.

  “Belinda, I never told you this but—right now—I’m really thirty-nine.”

  “Thirty-nine! You aren’t thirty-nine; you’ll be thirty-seven in January.”

  “I put my age back so I could marry you.”

  “You put your age back to marry who? You were twenty-five, fool!”

  “I was twenty-seven—you thought I was twenty-five.”

  “What! You were twenty-seven? Why did you lie to me like that?”

  “To trick your momma and daddy!”

  “What!”

  “Just kidding . . .”

  Another moment of laughter.

  “So what are you doing today?” she asked.

  “Harold Smith [Dad’s business associate and friend] is coming by. Herbert [Dad’s manager] is in town and we’re trying to start an organization where we sign and manage fighters . . . Maaan, we got a camp here. It’s ten times better than Deer Lake! It’s for sale—the current owner wants 900,000 cash—so I’m trying to figure out how I can get it. I don’t want to fight no more, but the damn thing is terrible . . . So I’m taking Harold and Herbert to see it . . . That’s all I’m doing today . . .”

  Dad described the property with a passion that turned to melancholy, then he paused for a moment. “There’s always something changing,” he said. “At one time, I was back in Chicago and you were here. Now I’m here and you’re back in Chicago. We’re always rotating.”

  “Yeah, it’s cold here, but according to the weatherman we’re not supposed to have a bad winter.”

  His voice grew somber. “I wish the children were out here. Before I know it, Maryum is going to be grown, and I haven’t even seen her much. I try not to let it bother me—it used to upset me, not being able to see them. But, hell, they’re going to grow up and go their own ways. As long as they are healthy and have money, I’m happy. They’ll get of age one day and I might see them more. I don’t forget them, I
just forget about having to see them all the time because I live too far away . . . So what are you coming out here for this time?”

  “I’m going to some meeting for my union to see about a film.”

  “You’re going to do a film?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know what it’s about because we are still negotiating.”

  “Hold on, Belinda, Hana’s cuttin’ up.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “I’m drinking coffee. Hana’s got her spoon, trying to get it. She’s sucking on a popsicle, begging me for coffee . . .”

  In the background: “I want some toffee, Daddy . . .”

  “Hana, please leave me alone. I’m talking on the phone.”

  “I want some . . .”

  “Belinda, Hana’s crying. We’ll talk later.”

  “Okay. Salaam alaikum . . .”

  * * *

  I remember Belinda walking around the grounds at Fremont Place once. It was the summer of 1985, after my parents’ divorce was announced. My siblings were visiting, and apparently Dad had a small gathering of businessmen at the house. My mother wasn’t home at the time, but Belinda told the press a different story. According to the September 12, 1985, issue of the Los Angeles Sentinel, Belinda was walking around playing the gracious host, which fueled rumors of a possible reconnection between she and my father. After the gathering, she met up with the newspaper’s staff writer at a Beverly Hills restaurant for an interview.

  “It’s taken a long time for me to feel completely confident with myself,” she said between sips of ginger ale. “First, I was living in the shadow of Muhammad, then the divorce, then the marriage of he and Veronica.”

  The interviewer wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumors about her getting back together with my father.

  “I don’t need him anymore,” she said. “If anything, he needs me; he always did . . . Ali is like a big brother to me now. We still talk on the phone and keep in touch . . . There was a lot that happened between us. A lot the public didn’t know about . . .”

  The magazine reported that Belinda waltzed around our estate, greeting guests and making small talk, while, according to her, my mother was in her bedroom hiding.

  “Both of us knew where we were supposed to be,” said Belinda. “I was down at the party and she was upstairs. Why would she want to come down and face me after taking my husband?”

  My mother wasn’t home, and she had no idea Belinda was ever even there. When the reporter asked why she was at our house in the first place, she said she was invited by her daughters, who were visiting from Chicago. They were young teens at the time. Belinda was living in Los Angeles, trying to pursue a film career. According to the article, she was then negotiating a contract with CBS to star in a series called Jessy Clark about a black female attorney in which she would play the main character.

  Toward the end of the article, Belinda talks about her new love interest. The reporter writes about her two marriages after my father. How the first one lasted one month and the second ended after only two weeks.

  “As a Muslim, I couldn’t make love until I was married,” she said. “It was probably for physical rather than spiritual reasons that I married. I admit I wasn’t doing this whole thing properly, but we all make mistakes.”

  I bumped into Belinda that day when she was coming out of the bathroom, around the corner from Dad’s office. She smiled and started talking to me, imitating the voice of Daffy Duck. I remember laughing out loud, listening to her. She sounded just like him. But what stands out most in my memory about that day is her telling me about the book she was writing—about how my mother ruined her life.

  I was nine years old at the time.

  Belinda made many false statements to the press about my mother over the years, dragging her name through the mud. To this day my mother has never revealed Belinda’s deepest, darkest secrets.

  Muhammad Ali, aka Daddy

  At ten o’clock in the morning my father edges his Rolls out of the driveway and drives through the gates onto Wilshire Boulevard. Naturally, he leaves the top down, and within seconds a royal procession forms. Cars heading in his direction fall into line behind him, hooting their horns to catch his eye. On the sidewalk, passersby suddenly freeze in their tracks as if paralyzed by one of those sci-fi laser guns. People scream and shout: “Aaaahhh!!! Aliiiiii!!!”

  One young man does a kamikaze turn, screeches to a halt at the red light, leans out the window and yells, “Ali, you were right—you are ‘The Greatest’!” Dad raises his fist in acknowledgment. At Crescent Heights Boulevard, two garbage collectors almost smash a VW as they spot the champ. “How ya doin’, baby?” screams a man pushing a cart out of a supermarket. “You’re number one,” yell a couple of black teenagers. “Thank you, brothers!” Dad shouts back. He doesn’t miss one of the salutes along the way. By the time he turns onto Melrose, he’s left a trail of awed citizens—all ages, all sexes, all colors. It was a magic-carpet ride.

  —“A Place in the Sun,” The Sun, November 1979

  18

  We all think we know our parents. The more we presume to know, the more shocking the discoveries when they are revealed.

  For instance, I never knew that my father had two half brothers, who he never knew existed until they turned up at his father’s funeral in Louisville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1990. I was fourteen years old when my grandfather passed. Laila and I weren’t at his service, but my siblings were there, and my stepmother Lonnie told me about it in later years. Dad was aware of his father’s indiscretions, but he had no idea that Papa Cash had other children. My father never spoke about things that upset him, so I’ve formed my own opinions based on what I know of him.

  All his life my father treated strangers like family, inviting them into our homes, riding them around town in his Rolls, talking to them on the telephone. But when he saw his estranged brothers that day he didn’t know what to say to them. He probably felt an emotional void when he looked in their eyes and saw his father’s reflection. So he remained silent.

  I don’t know their names or who their mother was or what sort of relationship, if any, they had with my grandfather. And I don’t know why he never told Dad or his brother about them. Maybe Papa Cash just didn’t know how to handle the situation or how to bring all four of his sons together. Perhaps he didn’t want my grandmother to know. Maybe the main reason my father worked so hard to unite his own children was so none of us would one day bump into the other in the distant future and view him or her as a stranger. I only wish that my father and his estranged brothers had had the same opportunity. Papa Cash was a good man, but he didn’t give his sons the gift that Dad would later give to his own children: the chance to grow up with their siblings.

  Me on the left, with my hand on Dad’s knee. Laila is on the far right.

  Every summer my father brought all his children together. Belinda’s kids—May May, Muhammad Jr. and the twins—flew in from Chicago. Pat’s daughter, Miya, flew in from New Jersey, and Aaisha’s daughter, Khaliah, flew in from Pennsylvania.

  Once there, he’d pile us all into his Rolls-Royce and drive around Los Angeles with the top down. Dad loved putting himself and his family on full display. I remember the sting of the wind blowing my hair in my face as we drove up Wilshire Boulevard to Dad’s favorite diner, Carnation’s, or Bob’s Big Boy for lunch. His order was always the same: a cheeseburger with mustard and onions, clam chowder, coffee with cream and three packets of Sweet’n Low.

  I looked forward to the summers, knowing that my sisters and brother were coming to stay with us.

  I might have been able to show my sisters Carnation’s, Bob’s Big Boy, and Wilshire Boulevard, but when it came to pop music and dancing, I was very much the little sister, and being a year older than Laila, it was a summer role reversal I enjoyed. May May used to put Prince, New Edition, Salt-N-Pepa, and Doug E. Fresh on her Walkman cassette player and dance in Dad’s office as we sat on his sofa watching her. S
ometimes she’d teach us her dance moves, then we’d go to the kitchen for ice cream and popsicles—I didn’t mind sharing with them.

  May May was the oldest and somewhat of a mother figure to us all, especially the twins and Muhammad Jr., who, like me, always seemed to be in some sort of trouble. Once when we were all sitting around the kitchen table eating lunch after our morning swim, little Muhammad was twirling his silverware between his fingers and poked Laila, then aged six, in the eye with his fork. Unfortunately, he didn’t always listen to May May, as she had warned only moments before, “Muhammad! Put down your fork before you hurt somebody.”

  May May and I resembled each other the most, so naturally I felt close to her. In fact, Dad was always trying to keep us all connected.

  “Maryum,” said Dad on one of his recordings, a few years before Belinda let them come visit, “does Hana look like you?”

  “A lot like me.”

  “That right!”

  “How old is Hana, now?”

  “Hana is three and Laila is two.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Hana is at preschool and Laila’s upstairs with the babysitter, Janet . . . Do you love your sisters, Hana and Laila?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me hear you say it.”

  “I love my sisters Hana and Laila.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do!”

  “You don’t love them—you don’t know them yet. But I’m going to start flying you all out here, so when you grow up you can say, ‘I didn’t live with all my sisters, but I knew them because Daddy let us play together’ . . .”

  I had the time of my life following my older siblings around the house, driving them crazy with kisses and endless questions: “Who do you like best—Michael Jackson or Prince?” or “Who do you think dances better, Madonna or Cyndi Lauper?”

  Everywhere they went, I wanted to go with them. Their only refuge was sleep and a hideaway outside the kitchen door at the bottom of the steps that led to an outdoor entrance to the basement. It was a narrow, dark stairwell—they knew I wouldn’t follow. Sometimes I’d give up and go swimming or run to my father’s office to see what he was up to. But usually it was a waiting game to see who tired first. I knew they couldn’t hide forever. I’d sit at the top of the stairs, sucking on a popsicle, waiting patiently for them to reappear.