by Hana Ali
My grandmother was a Baptist. Every Sunday, she dressed my dad and his brother up and took them to church. She taught them everything that she believed was right about God. She taught them to love all people and treat everybody with kindness. She taught them that prejudice and hate were wrong.
“I may have changed my religion,” my father once said, “but the God my mother taught me about is still God; I just call him by another name.”
My father adored his mother. He was always hugging and kissing her, and pinching her fat cheeks. He said she never spoke bad about anyone and described her as “a sweet, heavyset, wonderful woman who loved to cook, eat, make clothes, and spend time with family.” He said she never meddled in other people’s business or caused anybody any trouble, and that in his entire life there was no one who had treated him better. From the moment he was born to the day she died, his mother called him “Tinkie Baby.” I don’t know where she got the nickname, but, as Dad’s recordings show, she called him this his entire life. Sometimes she called him “GG,” because “GG” were my father’s first words. He later told her he was trying to say “Golden Gloves.”
My grandmother cleaned houses for a living. Every day she dropped my father off at his aunt Coretta’s house and she’d take the bus downtown to cook and clean for a white family my father never met.
Mama Bird had a hard life growing up. Her parents were separated when she was a child, so she never knew her father. She had three sisters, but her mother couldn’t afford to raise them all so she lived with her aunt. She worked hard and made her own clothes for school. One day when she was sixteen years old she and a friend were walking home from school when a boy, four years her senior, my grandfather, Cassius Clay Sr., aka Papa Cash, walked across the street and started talking to her.
“I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her,” Papa Cash once said.
“He walked me all the way home and never stopped talking,” my grandmother added.
My grandparents were both affectionate. They were always hugging and kissing each other, my father, and his brother. But, as in any family, things weren’t always perfect between them. Cash had a temper. And a wandering eye. As I mentioned earlier, he loved women—especially big-leg ladies. One day, after dinner—beef stew with cornbread and cherry pie—my grandfather grabbed some money from his wallet, then slipped out the door. My grandmother followed him down the street and found another woman waiting in a car for him. When they saw her, both Cash and the lady jumped out of the car and took off running.
My father, four years old at the time, stood in the doorway, watching his mother chase them both down the alley. They laughed about it later, but when Dad was a little boy it wasn’t funny. He used to cuddle up with his brother in their room. He didn’t like hearing his parents arguing.
Years later, on November 30, 1979, my father pulled out his tape recorder and called his mother.
“Mama Bird,” he said. “I want to ask you something. Make me laugh one more time . . . Do you remember that day Daddy came home to get some money or something, and you followed him outside and chased him down the street?”
With her sweet Southern accent, she replied, “Yeah, I remember! And he was running down the alley! Sure, I remember.” She laughed.
“He had a woman in a car!” said Dad.
“You were a little boy. Wasn’t that funny?”
“Yeah . . . He had a woman . . . He ran so fast the dirt flew up!”
“And they were flying down the alley and everything! You remember that?”
“You started walking towards the car,” Dad said, “and Cash got in the car and told the woman you were coming, then they both got out and ran!”
“They got out and ran down the alley! And I ran them down! Hee-hee-hee—you remember that? You were a little boy!”
“You remember that too,” he said. “Were you mad?”
“Yes, I was mad!”
“You took a lot of mess off him,” said Dad.
“I sure did. For about fifty years!”
“Now that I’m married, I see it,” he said.
“He was chasing women before you were born! So now you see what I’ve gone through all my life!”
“You’re separated now,” said Dad. “You don’t want him back?”
“NO! NEVER! NEVER-NEVER-NEVER! I’m enjoying life, and I have peace of mind, and it’s going to stay that way . . . I am so glad! I don’t care where he goes or what he does! Just leave me alone!”
“So, if you heard he was out with two or three big, fine ladies, it wouldn’t bother you?”
“Wouldn’t bother me at all!” she said.
“You hope he has a good time, huh?” He laughed.
“That’s right!”
“I thought maybe, by now, you would be missing him and wanting him back.”
“Oh no! Not with his lifestyle. I can’t! NO! NO! NO!”
Dad laughed harder.
“You think it’s funny,” said Mama Bird, “but I don’t think it’s funny. You laugh—laugh—laugh. It’s not funny.” She burst into laughter with him. “Hee-hee-hee . . . No, but really! That is the truth! I don’t care where he goes or what he does! My peace of mind is the best thing in the world.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you why I’ve been asking you all these questions . . .”
“Why—why?”
“I’m taping you!”
“Oh, you’re taping me! I don’t care if you are taping me. I’m going to tell the truth! You little devil!” She laughed. “No, I don’t miss him. Tape all you like. I’m going to tell the truth!”
“This will be fun for you to hear one day,” he said. “Will you be scared if Cash hears this tape?”
“No! I won’t be scared if he hears this. I always say it pays to tell the truth!”
“Let’s imagine he’s listening. Pretend I’m him.”
They acted out the imaginary conversation.
“If he says, ‘Odessa, Odessa, I want you back. Give me another chance.’”
“No—no, I couldn’t!”
“I’ve just got to have another chance!”
“No! I can’t!”
“I’ll kill myself, Odessa!”
“Oh, just kill yourself then, shoot!”
More laughter.
As I listened to their conversation, I wondered if this was the reason Daddy never handed Mommy the letters. Maybe a part of him knew he had already lost her—that after all she had lived through she would never give him another chance. He’d caused too much pain.
“Oh, you little devil,” Mama Bird said. “My little Tinkie Baby. Are you taping me, my little Tinkie Baby?”
“Yeah, I’m going to always have your voice . . .”
He played the recording back for her, then Laila got on the phone. He asked her about her trip to Chicago. She told him she saw Belinda and the kids. They laughed and reminisced together, then he promised to visit her soon.
“Everyone’s going to be here for Christmas. I’m just going to have a ball!” she said.
“I might be in China and Indonesia sometime in December—I’m not sure yet. But if I can, I’m going to be home with you—and eat your food . . . I’ll get Veronica, Hana, and Laila, and Rudy, and we’ll all be there.”
“Oh, that’s the best news in the world! That will make me so happy . . .”
“I’m getting ready to go now. I love my Bird.”
“I know you love your Bird, honey, and I love my Tinkie Baby.”
“I’m always going to look out for you.”
“Okay, honey. Bye-bye . . .”
My grandfather wasn’t perfect, but he always made sure there was food on the table and that his wife and children were taken care of. He was a painter by trade, but he came home in the evenings and practiced his singing. He taught my father and his brother to always face their fears and to try to be the best at whatever they did. “You don’t learn these things by accident,” Cash said. “They have to be taught.”
> Papa Cash was a funny, fast-talking man who loved to dance, sing, and give kisses. Whenever Cash visited us at Fremont Place, he’d grab Laila and me and say, “Give me them jaws!” His whiskers tickled our cheeks as we giggled and screamed.
I faintly remember the sound of my grandmother’s soft Southern accent and how her words flowed like a song when she spoke. “Hi, Tinkie Baby!” she said whenever my father walked in a room or called her on the phone. “How are you doing, Tinkie Tinks?”
My father made several recordings talking to his parents over the telephone and while visiting them at home in Louisville. A few tapes were made in 1979. The other recordings were made in the early to mid-1980s, mostly November of 1982, two years after Dad had come out of retirement to attempt to regain his championship for an unprecedented fourth time.
Their recorded conversations gave me a better understanding of my father and his childhood. As I listened, I caught a glimpse of the boy inside the man—that theoretical child within us all, navigating our subconscious mind throughout our lives.
33
On the evening of November 20, 1982, Papa Cash, Mama Bird, my father’s uncle William, and a few of their family and friends were gathered around the breakfast table in my grandmother’s kitchen—laughing, singing, and reminiscing about old times. In the middle of it all, my father turned on his tape recorder.
“This is Muhammad Ali, The Greatest of All Times! Introducing a man that the world doesn’t know, who’s greater than Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole and all the rest! Now I want you to hear from the uncrowned greatest singer of all times, Mr. Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., the father of me, Muhammad Ali.”
Cash looked at Mama Bird and started to sing one of his favorite songs, “Mona Lisa.” When he’d finished, my father spoke into the recorder again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very glad that you came to the Cassius Clay Show. I got a break in boxing, but I was never good at singing. This is why I’m making this tape, to show that my father is the uncrowned great! Cassius Clay Sr. . . .”
Papa Cash turned his attention to Mama Bird then and started speaking. “After all, everything hasn’t been so bad. Think of the good times we had. You only speak of the bad times, but there were some good times, and better times to come.” Then he started singing to her, “Don’t look so sad . . . I know it’s over, but life goes on and this old world will keep on turning . . . We had some time to spend together . . . Make believe you’ll love me one more time . . .”
Dad whispered into the recorder, describing the scene as his father sang to his mother in the background. “Cash is singing to my mother, and my mother’s laughing.”
“So lay your head upon my pillow . . .” Cash sang.
“My mother is laughing,” Dad whispered.
“Hold your warm body next to mine . . .” Cash sang.
“My father’s singing to my mother.”
“Hear the whisper of the raindrops blowing soft against my window and make believe you will love me one more time . . .” Cash finished the song and kissed my grandmother on her cheek. Everyone applauded, and my father spoke back into the recorder. “That was Cassius Marcellus Clay singing at my mother’s house in Louisville, Kentucky. The time is 9:01 p.m. Cash, would you please sing another great number? One day, as you know, we’re all going to die. I hope that I die before you, but you might go before me and we will always have this to listen to. Cash, will you now sing a song called ‘My Way’?”
He finished the song, “I did it myyyyyyyy waaaaaaay,” and everyone applauded some more, then my father spoke into the recorder.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Now, to wind up the show, that was Mr. Cassius Clay, the father of Muhammad Ali. Again, the date is November 20th, 1982, at my mother’s house in Louisville. The time 9:15 p.m. One day we will hear these songs when Cash is long gone! Signing off!”
That same day, three hours earlier, my father had spoken into the recorder: “I’m in my mother’s Louisville home. It’s 6:35 p.m.” Cash was at his house; he hadn’t come over to my grandmother’s yet and was talking to her about my father on the telephone when Dad walked into the living room. After a few minutes, Mama Bird hung up the phone and walked over to my father, who was now sitting in a chair next to the sofa, his recorder hidden in his lap.
“Are you taping my voice, Tinkie Tink?”
“What’s Cash doing?” Dad asked.
“He called me today saying he’s coming over later. He said, ‘GG’s home! GG’s home!’ Like I didn’t know it. ‘GG’s home!’” she said, laughing her way over to the sofa.
“He isn’t fussing anymore?” asked my father.
“No! He’s gotten too old and tired to fuss too much. He comes over here and sits on that couch and throws his head back and just sleeps all the time.”
“So he just lies down?”
“Yeah, but sometimes he gets to fussin’ about you and Rock [Rudy] like you all are still little boys!”
“He still makes you mad?”
“Yes!”
“How many years has he been on you?”
“How old are you, forty?”
“Yeah.”
She did the math. “You’re forty, so I guess about . . . oh, I guess just about forty years!”
They both laughed.
“Damn, that’s too long,” she said. “That’s where I got that ulcer from. His mouth over the years, worrying the hell out of my soul! That mouth will kill anybody, child! You know how that mouth is!”
They both laughed loud and hard.
“Sometimes we’ll try to tell Cash something for his own good, but you can’t tell Cassius nothin’! Like that yard . . .”
“What about the yard?” asked Dad.
“We keep trying to tell him to clean up that yard, and he keeps talking about, ‘That’s good stuff—good stuff! You just want me to throw away everything!’ Oh, you should see that back yard . . . How did it look when you went over last night?”
“Real nice! All cleaned up and everything.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Naw! Just kidding.” He laughed.
“Cash has more money than I do,” she said. “If I can pay the garbage man, he can too.”
“Where does he get all the money?”
“He still paints signs—great big signs sometimes.”
“What is today’s date?”
“November the 20th.”
“1982,” he added.
“Awww, I bet you’re taping me,” she said.
Dad noticed someone impersonating him on television. “Turn the sound up!” he said.
On TV: “Ali is down! The referee is counting 6 . . . 7 . . . 8 . . . On 9 Ali is up again! ‘I told you I was The Greatest! I AM THE GREATEST OF ALLLLLL TIIIIIIMES!’”
Dad spoke into the recorder. “We just saw a commercial of a man on television imitating me . . .”
His father’s brother walked into the room at this point.
“Uncle William!” said Dad. “How ya doing, big boy? You still look good.”
“Hey, Ali, how ya doin’?”
“I just came back home to see the family.”
My father spoke into the recorder. “This is Muhammad Ali at my mother’s house. For the record, what’s your name?”
“My name is William Clay . . . Where’s Big Cash?”
“He’s at home,” said Dad. “He’ll be over later. William, how old are you now?”
“I’m fifty-seven and Cash is seventy.”
Papa Cash.
© Howard Bingham
“Tell me something. When you were little boys, what was Cash like as a kid?”
“You know what he was like. The same as he is now. He likes a bowl of beans, a bowl of beef stew, and some pie and ice cream . . .”
“And cornbread,” my father added, laughing.
“Yeah,” said William.
“Did he argue much when he was young?”
“No, he didn’t argue b
ack then,” said William.
“Did my granddaddy use to whoop you guys when you were bad?” Dad asked.
“No,” said William. “Dad didn’t whoop us. Our mother whooped us.”
“William, what school did you and Cash go to?”
“Central—same as you. We went to Old Central. You went to New Central.”
“When Cash was a boy, did he fight?”
“Big Cash—yeah, he’d fight.”
“Who would have thought the greatest boxer in all history would come out of the Clay family?” Dad said.
“You didn’t come out of just the Clay family. You’re Clay, you’re Grady, you’re Greyhouse, you’re Morehead . . .”
“I’m all mixed up.” Dad laughed.
“You should have seen your granddaddy, boy,” said William. “Your granddaddy was about six foot four, and he wore a size thirteen shoe.”
“My father’s daddy?”
“No, I’m talkin’ about your mother Odessa’s daddy. He’s a Grady!”
“Somebody told me that your daddy, my granddaddy, wouldn’t take no mess off white folks.”
“No, he wouldn’t take nothin’ off white people.”
“William, when you were small, did you hang out with Cash? In those days, did he turn around every time he’d see a big-leg woman walk by?”
“Yeah!” They both laughed. “He wasn’t too bad then: he’d look at them—stop and talk to them—that’s all.”
“Big women?”
“Yeah, big fat ones.”
Mama Bird chuckled. “All you Clay boys like big women. Claude [my father’s uncle] had a great big fat woman once when he came to Louisville, a great big fat girl—bigger than me! She’s twice as big as I am, or she used to be.”
“Her name was Ophelia,” said William.
“Is that her name?” said Mama Bird. “Yeah, he had a big fat one!”
“Mama, what elementary school did you go to?” Dad asked.
“The same one you and Rock went to, Virginia Avenue. And I had the same teacher you did too. She taught me in the second grade, and Mrs. Halley Wilson . . . She’s dead now. And Mrs. Victor Perry taught you in high school, and she taught me—all those teachers who taught me, taught you all.”
