by Hana Ali
Then one day I came home from school, walked into my father’s office, and said: “Jesus is the Son of God.” The next morning Dad checked me out of Page Academy in Hancock Park and enrolled me in a Muslim academy at the mosque on Vermont, near downtown Los Angeles. Where every day he would bring me my lunch of Pioneer Chicken and a strawberry soda, standing in the doorway with the paper bag in his hand, as I learned about the Prophet Muhammad, the five pillars of the Islamic faith, and why it was important to give to charity and to treat people with love, respect, and kindness.
But on that Christmas morning in 1979 my father was wrapped in his terry bathrobe with both of my grandfathers, Papa Cash and Horace Porche, sitting beside our beautifully decorated tree, watching and recording us opening our gifts.
“There was no way to keep it from you,” he explained into the tape recorder. “We are not Christian, we’re Muslim. But you hear about Christmas everywhere, so we let you have a tree and open gifts . . .”
Even after he enrolled me in the Muslim academy, every Christmas Dad let Mom buy us a tree. As we jumped with joy watching our mother decorate it and hang stockings from the fireplace in the governess’s room, Dad was always careful to explain that we were celebrating the spirit of giving and receiving, which is what Christmas is really about.
Our three bedrooms were adjoining, like a hotel suite, each room flowing into the next. My bedroom had pink walls, two large picture windows overlooking the swimming pool in our backyard, and most importantly, the door opened out onto the hall and a second flight of stairs that led to the third floor. Thank God for that door. Without it, my most treasured childhood memories might not exist.
It provided an escape route for me on the countless mornings I snuck out of bed before school, looking for my father. I usually found him sitting behind his desk, shuffling through papers, or on the sofa watching the news, or sitting in a chair sipping coffee and soaking up the heat from the crackling fire.
A door on the other side of my bedroom led to an adjoining bathroom, which opened into the middle room, where the governess slept. It was a bright room with a fireplace and bluish-green walls, and had a large picture window with a view of the front lawn and the sidewalk of Fremont Place itself. That bedroom had three doors—one led to the bathroom and my room, another led to the hall, and the third to Laila’s room, a small cozy space with butter-yellow walls and a large circle balcony overlooking the swimming pool, garden, and driveway. Unless Laila walked through either my bedroom or the governess’s room, the balcony was the only way out of her bedroom. This may be why she fantasized about jumping off it.
Just outside, on the opposite end of the hall, was my parents’ bedroom. A large, beautiful master suite with its own large circular balcony—the one with the vines—which overlooked the manicured lawn and the two-story carriage house, which my mother’s father, Horace Porche, moved into.
Dad made a recording, talking to him about life, women, and why he split up with my grandmother. “The way Ethel tells it, it was all your fault,” said Dad, “but there’s another side to the story, isn’t there?”
My favorite part of my mother’s room was the huge walk-in closet, where she hid all our Christmas presents and birthday gifts. It reminded me of Grace’s dressing room in the movie Annie. I would often find my mother sitting on the blue brocade love seat in the middle of the dressing room, her beautiful brown hair flowing backward as she extended her long graceful legs to pull off her pantyhose.
Every day after school I’d run upstairs and into her room, begging her to let me try on her clothes and wear her fluffy French slippers. She let me play dress-up and wear those nightgowns and dresses, which, looking back now, I imagine she didn’t mind us damaging. This must have been the case because anything I put on resulted in stains, rips, and tears. After I slipped into her one-inch heels, I flopped around the room, slipping on the tail of the skirt or dress I was wearing.
“Careful, Hana,” she’d say as I sashayed across the room, staring at my reflection in the mirror, wondering if I looked as beautiful as my mother. Then I’d throw off the clothes and beg to try on something from the section of the closet I was never allowed to play in. Her silk shirts and pantyhose were also off-limits.
“No!” she said, grabbing the pantyhose from my hands. “These are my good pair.”
“Please!” I begged.
“No, you might poke a hole in them.”
“Then give me your bad pair.”
“I don’t have a bad pair,” she said.
“Can you get a bad pair so I can wear them?”
Naturally, not being allowed to put them on made them more alluring, and I fantasized about how and when I could get my little hands on Mom’s stockings without her knowing. I knew I would have to be clever about it. The last time I’d gotten caught in her closet I broke her crystal perfume bottles and got honey and dough all over her dressing table and lace bra.
Remember how I was obsessed with having boobs and had made a pair from dough that I’d stashed in a drawer in my bedroom? Well, the next morning I snuck into my mother’s closet and borrowed a bra and pantyhose from the forbidden drawer. Had I known it would end up as it did, with the police and fire department at our house, I would have stayed in bed that morning or at least put on some clothes before sneaking into Mom’s closet.
* * *
The day after Christmas, my father received a phone call from Stevie Wonder.
“Stevie! Hello, my brother. It’s nice hearing your voice.”
“How are you?”
“Oh, I’m just here recuperating from all this holiday action,” said Dad. “Where are you now?”
“I’m visiting with my children,” said Stevie.
“Oh, you have children—how many you got?”
“I’ve got two. They’re four and two.”
“Isn’t that cute?” said Dad.
“How are you feeling?” asked Stevie.
“I’m glad you called. I’m always glad to hear from you,” said Dad. “You’re one of the great black men of our times.”
“You’re the ONE,” said Stevie.
“I’m just trying to do all I can,” said Dad. “I just left Peking, China . . .”
“Listen,” said Stevie, “I want you to do me a favor. You know I bought radio station KJLH . . . We celebrate Christmas and Kwanzaa, so I wanted you to call, if you don’t mind, and wish everybody a Happy Kwanzaa.”
“Okay . . . I’ll call right now. Are they on the air?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, hold on one second. Let me call them . . .”
“Okay . . .”
Dad spoke into the recorder while he waited: “I’m talking to Stevie Wonder. This is December 26, 1979, in my Los Angeles home. It’s about 6:49 p.m., Tim Shanahan is here with me, Hana and Laila are hollering in the kitchen, Veronica’s here, and my father is in town, Cassius Clay Sr. He got here three days before Christmas, and he’ll leave three days from now . . .”
“Muhammad,” said Stevie, clicking back on the line, “can I hang up and call you right back? What I want is to set up a conference call.”
“Okay, I’ll wait here,” said Dad.
The phone rang a few minutes later, and my father and Stevie held on the line as they waited for the operator to connect them to go on-air. “Stevie,” said Dad, “when you get back to LA, I want to hang out with you.”
“I would love to hang out with you too . . . I’d love to talk to you. I wanted to tell you something while we’re on the phone. I have a special surprise I’d like to give you, as a friend and for what you’ve done for black people, and just for all people period. The thing is, what I want to give to you, as an artist, I don’t want any kind of commercialism or anything getting in the way because it’s very special to me and you are very special to me.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that, Stevie. I understand what you’re saying.”
“Okay, because I don’t want you to ever think for any moment that I have been an
y less than someone that is very fond of you . . .”
“I know. I’ll never forget some advice you gave me once. You said, ‘Champ, please don’t fight anymore—please retire, Champ.’”
The operator interrupted them: “Hold, please. I’m trying to connect you.”
“Stevie, isn’t Kwanzaa celebrated in Africa?”
“Yes, I’m going to get you a card or something with all the days of Kwanzaa . . . All people could celebrate it if they wanted to.”
They chatted some more on the recording, but Dad ended up having to call the radio station, as the line was bad, and Stevie wanted the people to hear the message from him. When Ted Terry answered and put him on air, Dad said, “This is Muhammad Ali . . . I wanted to wish the people a Happy Kwanzaa, and I want everybody to get out and promote it, because Kwanzaa will be the greatest holiday of ALL TIME . . .”
21
My father never did find out who I had a crush on, thank goodness. I’d probably still be recovering from the embarrassment if he had. Joshua was in the third grade, and he had a girlfriend named Jennifer. But that didn’t stop me from inviting him to my birthday party. I had Kim and Karen Richardson, my oldest childhood friends, help me plan how I’d give Joshua the invitation. Kim was a couple years older than me—in the same grade as Joshua—and she knew Jennifer.
“You should do it at recess,” Kim said. “Joshua and Jennifer don’t eat together.”
Karen and I walked over to the table he was sitting at with his friends. “Hi, Joshua,” I said, my knees shaking. “I just wanted to give you this—it’s an invitation to my birthday party next weekend.”
“Cool, thanks.” He smiled and put the invitation into his jacket pocket.
“I hope you can come,” I said. “There will be ponies and clowns and a magic show and a DJ . . .”
“Wow! Can I bring my little brother?”
“Yeah, that’s okay.”
“Cool!” he said.
Just don’t bring Jennifer, I wanted to say, but didn’t.
The bell rang. “Okay, hope to see you there,” I said and waved goodbye.
Karen and I hurried across the playground to Mrs. Brown’s class, a huge grin on both our faces. I was so excited about Joshua coming to my birthday party that I decided I wanted a new hairdo—to look pretty for him, the way Mommy got pretty for Daddy.
It was the ’80s, the time of Wham!, George Michael, Prince, The Jackson 5, Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna. My theme song was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”
Kim and Karen had just gotten new bangs. Naturally, I had to have them too.
“Mommy, I want bangs! Can you cut them for me? In time for my party on Saturday?”
“I’ll take you to Supercuts on Friday after school.”
“But I want them now,” I said.
“Hana, be patient,” she replied, flipping through a stack of mail on the dining-room table. “Friday’s only three days from now.”
To me, three days felt like three months. I was desperate to see what bangs looked like on me. And as my mother would soon discover, a curious, impatient, and naughty little girl was a recipe for disaster.
The next day after school Connye Richardson, Kim and Karen’s mother, picked us up from Page Academy, on Larchmont, and brought Laila and I back to her house for a playdate. Mom was busy shopping for my birthday party. Connye and our governess, Cruella De Vil, were friends of a sort, and they’d often sit in the living room talking and laughing about grown-up stuff while Laila, Kim, Karen, and I swam in the pool or rode our bikes around the neighborhood. But that day my mother was picking us up from Connye’s.
After swimming in the afternoon, I was the first to run up and take a shower. As I stared in the mirror at my curly wet hair, which hung past my shoulders, I had a bright idea—or so I thought. I’ll just see what they look like, I said to myself. Then I’ll cut the bangs off after and Mom will never know.
I opened the drawer, pulled out the scissors, and chopped away.
Bangs look good on me, I thought. I played with them for a while, flipping them to either side of my face, and practiced saying “Hi” to Joshua in the mirror: “Hi, Joshua, like my bangs? Hey, Joshua, glad you could make it . . .”
“Haaaaana?” I heard Connye call from downstairs. “Get your things, honey, your mother’s here.”
“SHIT! Okay, coming . . .”
I gathered the bangs in my hand, picked up the scissors, chopped them off and threw them in the trash beside the toilet under a pile of crumpled-up tissue.
“Open up, Hana!” said Laila, banging on the bathroom door. “Mom’s here. I have to get dressed.”
“One minute!” I shouted.
I put the scissors back in the drawer, unlocked the door, then snuck out the side door that led into the bedroom of Kelly, Kim and Karen’s older sister. I peeked out the door, then headed down the hall.
Then I heard talking and footsteps. Kim and Karen were coming up the stairs.
“Oh my god!” said Kim at the sight of me. Karen just burst into laughter.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Why do you have a bald spot on the front of your head?” asked Kim.
“Oooh, you’re going to be in big trouble,” teased Karen, walking off to her room.
I put my hand over the bald spot just above my forehead. “Let me borrow a hat,” I said.
Kim went into her room and returned with a white sun-visor cap. It covered the bald spot perfectly.
“Don’t tell my mom,” I said.
“Tell her . . .” Kim laughed. “She’s going to see it! You can’t sleep in the hat.”
“They’ll grow back by Saturday,” I said, walking downstairs.
“Sure they will.” Kim laughed.
When I walked into the kitchen, Mom and Connye were talking.
So far so good, I thought.
A few minutes later Laila, Kim, and Karen came flying down the stairs.
“Hana, why don’t you take off the hat?” said Karen.
The way she said it got my mother’s attention. “Hana, what did you do?” she asked.
“She cut bangs,” blurted Karen.
“Shut up, big mouth!” I said.
“Take it off,” Karen said. “Show them what you did.”
All eyes were on me.
Karen ran back upstairs. Laila and Kim were just staring at me.
I slowly removed the sun visor.
“Hana!” Mom shouted, half shocked and half amused. “Why is there a bald spot on your head?”
“Here they are!” said Karen, running back down the stairs, waving my severed bangs in her hand.
“What in the world were you thinking?” asked Mom.
“I wanted to see what they looked like—I thought I’d cut them off after, so you wouldn’t know . . . I didn’t think about the bald spot until afterward.”
Everyone burst into laughter, including me. And the following Saturday at my birthday I wore a floral headband my mother made to help cover the bald spot.
Joshua never noticed.
The following day my parents were off to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center’s Riding and Polo Club, for the Polo for Pandas benefit. Other than at Dad’s training camp in Deer Lake, the Equestrian Center is the only other place I can remember spending quality time together as a family on a regular basis.
Mom and Dad exchanged pleasantries with His Royal Highness Prince Philip. As usual, Daddy had a few tricks up his sleeve. During the reception, he entertained everyone with his disappearing scarf magic trick, posed for pictures with the Duke of Edinburgh, and signed autographs on cocktail napkins. The day was all laughter and cheers.
Only one reporter noticed his slow, deliberate hand.
22
At three o’clock in the afternoon, a little girl arrives home from school. She runs upstairs to her room, and from the hand-carved trunk that her parents brought her from Asia, she grabs her white glove and black fedora hat. She rushes back down the steps to her fat
her’s office, where she performs Michael Jackson’s famous song “Billie Jean” for him and his guests. Her father watches wide-eyed, on the edge of the sofa, as his young daughter bounces around the room, dancing and singing. She hears the sound of his laughter and cheers as she attempts to moonwalk, throws off her black hat, flashes her sparkling white glove, and slides across the floor.
* * *
One of the various side effects of my father’s fame was that he knew a lot of interesting people, many of whom came to our house on Fremont Place. The status of some of them was unknown to me at the time—but I’ll never forget the man who visited my father in 1984.
Laila and I had arrived home from Kim and Karen’s house, where we’d been swimming, and noticed a black Mercedes with tinted windows in front of the house. I knew it belonged to someone important. Mysterious cars with tinted windows were a usual occurrence at Fremont Place. Not that any of my father’s cars had tinted windows; Dad liked to drive convertibles and kept the top down most of the time. He didn’t like concealing himself from the world. He wanted people to see him up close—to be able to reach out and touch him. He would pull his Rolls out the driveway, past the guard gate, and onto Wilshire Boulevard, wave, smile, and sign autographs at red lights and stop signs, feeling at home with the crowds of people gathering around him. When driving down Crenshaw Boulevard, on his way to the 10 Freeway, if he saw a group of boys shooting dice on the corner, he’d pull over and surprise them.
“Awww, man,” he’d say, jumping out of the car. “I’ll run all you brothas off this corner with these dice. Give me a quarter, man!”
“MUHAMMAD ALI!” they’d gasp, wide-eyed. “What are you doing over here?” They just couldn’t believe the world champion, who they had just seen on television, was out on the street corner shooting dice with them. No press, no announcement, no campaigning. Just him and the people, talking to them about living a clean life and staying off drugs.
“Little things like this don’t cost nothing,” he’d say. “So, when you become rich and great, remember when you were scuffling out here on the street, remember the people who didn’t make it like you, and every so often go and walk down the same block where you used to live, and talk to the people you used to see, and let them know you’re still with them. It will make you greater . . .”
