Becoming Muhammad Ali

by James Patterson

  when I realized

  that maybe boxing could

  save us,

  take me away

  from all this.

  The Next Few Years

  I fought like a gladiator

  ate like a champ

  lit up contenders

  in the ring like a lamp.

  Sparred on the daily

  kept my fists high

  danced on my feet

  like a black butterfly.

  Me and Rudy Baker

  battled two rounds

  I sent him home crying

  back to Smoketown.

  Twice I laid

  Donnie Hall out flat

  walked all over him

  like a doormat.

  I boxed nonstop

  and trained insane.

  One thing on my mind:

  NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

  A Guy with a Camera

  films me

  dancing around

  my corner,

  waiting for the ref

  to blow his whistle.

  HEY, KID! another guy

  in a baseball cap

  with a pen

  and pad yells

  from the folded seats.

  YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE JIMMY ELLIS?

  I look

  right square in the camera lens

  and yell back…

  Introduction: Reprise

  I’ll shake him, break him,

  then take him out.

  Who’ll win this fight,

  there should be no doubt.

  Cassius Clay is unstoppable

  and don’t you forget

  THE MAN TO BEAT ME

  AIN’T BEEN BORN YET.

  Cassius Clay vs. Jimmy Ellis

  AUGUST 30, 1957

  He came out smiling

  and swinging,

  strong and swift

  like Duke Ellington

  on the keys,

  so I just danced

  to the rhythm

  in my head,

  bobbing and weaving,

  letting him tag me

  a few times

  so I could get a feel

  for his might

  for the fight

  he was bringing,

  and when I saw

  he was getting tired

  in the third

  and final round

  I whispered, No offense, Jimmy,

  then smiled

  for the cameras

  and opened up

  a can of Louisville blues

  that he wasn’t expecting

  to hear.

  I threw a solid punch

  with my left

  to his side

  and while he was distracted

  with the pain

  I landed a quick, clean uppercut

  with my right

  to his jaw

  that turned that smile

  into a frown

  and shut all his music off.

  Cassius Clay: Sixteen wins.

  Two losses.

  Rematch

  I saw Jimmy Ellis

  at Fred Stoner’s gym

  and we got to talking

  about the fight,

  then some guys

  started talking smack

  about how

  the judges did Jimmy wrong

  and the fight was fixed

  and whatnot,

  so yeah, I told him

  let’s fight

  again.

  Cassius Clay vs. Jimmy Ellis, Part 2

  OCTOBER 12, 1957

  More people in Louisville watched

  our rematch than I Love Lucy

  that week, which is good

  ’cause a million folks

  saw my pretty face, but bad

  ’cause they saw it when

  I took off my headgear

  after losing in a split

  decision: one judge

  for me, and two for him.

  Cassius Clay: Seventeen wins.

  Three losses.

  Conversation with Rudy

  Sorry, Gee-Gee.

  For what, Rudy?

  I mean, ’cause of that last fight.

  Can’t have delight if you don’t see the dark, Rudy.

  Sound like something Granddaddy Herman would’ve said.

  Rudy, I’m still the greatest. In fact, I may be the double greatest.

  Can I ask you a question, Gee-Gee?

  I don’t know, can ya?

  Think we’ll ever get there?

  Get where?

  The Golden Gloves?

  Not if you don’t quit interrupting my flow.

  The kid who won this year was from Cleveland.

  I know. He was a light middleweight. Strong, though.

  Not as strong as the kid a few years ago from St. Louis. Never saw anybody hit that hard.

  He was a heavyweight, Rudy. Name was Sonny Liston.

  I swear he hit so hard, Gee-Gee, he could probably turn a human brain into grits.

  Turn July into June.

  That’s one joker you don’t wanna get in the ring with.

  The fight is won before you get in the ring, Rudy.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Means I ain’t gonna always be there to protect you, so focus, Rudy.

  I’m bigger than you, won almost as many fights as you. What I need protection for?

  Keep yapping, little brother, and I’ll show you.

  Gee-Gee, can I ask you something?

  You just did.

  What we gonna do after high school?

  Same thing we doing now. Knock out whoever’s silly enough to get in the ring with us.

  But that’s not a job.

  It was a job for Sugar Ray. And Joe Louis.

  I hear ya talking, Cassius, but maybe we ought to have a backup. Like the army.

  I got two words for you and Uncle Sam.

  What’s that?

  HECK and NO! Until this country treats boys like me and you as human beings, I ain’t fightin’ for no flag.

  True.

  Now, stop bothering me, and let me hit these bags. I gotta be ready.

  ROUND EIGHT

  A boxer needs a ton of confidence—way more than normal people. How else could you step into a ring wearing nothing but shorts, shoes, and gloves, knowing the guy in the other corner would try like the devil to knock you out? Without confidence, you’d probably just turn around and run. I know I would!

  Confidence is hard to understand. Hard to find. Hard to master.

  There was one thing Cassius was totally confident about: He knew that boxing was the fastest way for a kid like him to become famous. So he made boxing his whole focus. Cassius was getting bigger and stronger, enough to play football or baseball or basketball. He probably could have won varsity letters in all three. But he focused on one thing and one thing only. Boxing was his way up and his way out. He just knew it.

  Month after month, I sat against the wall at the Columbia Gym and did my homework while Cassius worked out. He was learning how to use his long arms and his quick feet—and I could see his confidence growing. Punch and move away. Pull back instead of duck. Stay out of the opponent’s reach. Move fast. Hit hard. Stay pretty.

  Even with all his skills and practice and focus, sometimes Cassius got knocked down. When it happened, he got madder at himself than at his opponent. But he knew that getting knocked down wasn’t the worst thing.

  “It’s staying down that’s wrong,” he told me.

  Cassius knew that to be the best, he had to learn from the best, no matter what it took. When we were in high school, the boxer Willie Pastrano came to town with his trainer, Angelo Dundee. Willie was a pro from New Orleans, and he had one of the most powerful left hands anybody had ever seen. I’ll never know how, but Cassius found out which hotel Willie was staying in. He dragged me and Rudy downtown and led us right through the hotel lobby. Then he picked up a hotel
phone and called Willie’s room. I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, only what Cassius said. After all these years, I can still recite it from memory:

  “My name’s Cassius Marcellus Clay. I’m the Golden Gloves champion of Louisville, Kentucky. I’m gonna win the National Golden Gloves, then the Olympics one day, and I want to talk to you.”

  It must have sounded like a prank call. I figured whoever was on the other end of the phone would just hang up. Instead, Cassius listened, put down the phone, walked across the lobby, and pressed the elevator button. As the elevator doors closed, he just smiled at us and said, “Wait here.”

  We waited for three hours.

  When Cassius came back downstairs, it was like he had been pumped full of boxing juice. All the way home, he wouldn’t stop talking about what Pastrano and Dundee had told him—about how a boxer should train, what to eat, how far to run, how much to hit the bag. It was a crash course in success, and Cassius soaked it up. Every word.

  “Mr. Dundee said I was a student of boxing,” said Cassius. On that day, I saw his confidence glowing.

  Some people say the opposite of confidence is fear. Not me. I say it’s humility. And for most people, that’s the last word that comes to mind when they think of Cassius Clay. He was loud. He was proud. He called himself the Greatest. Even when he wasn’t. Yet. But deep down, where it mattered, he could be very humble. It was another part of him that he didn’t let most people see.

  I could tell that it bothered him that his mother got only four dollars a day for working dawn to dusk. Cassius made that much from just one bout on local TV. He told me that one morning, when his momma was waiting for the bus on her way to her cleaning job, he walked up and stood next to her.

  “Where you think you’re going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to work,” said Cassius, “with you.”

  She tried to shoo Cassius home, but he just stood there. When the bus came, they got on together, moved to the back like always, and rode to a white neighborhood across town—a place where the only black people were the ones carrying mops, buckets, and brooms.

  For that whole day, Cassius was on his hands and knees with his mother—polishing floors, cleaning toilets, wiping down furniture. When Mrs. Clay paused at the door before they left, she had to admit the house never looked better. Cassius put his big hand on her shoulder as they walked back to the bus. Not many people could make Cassius Clay feel humble. But his mother did. Every day.

  Birthday

  For my birthday

  Rudy gave me

  the silver dollar

  Granddaddy Herman had given him

  for Christmas

  when we were little.

  Papa Cash and Momma Bird gave me

  Elite Everlast boxing gloves

  with cushions

  soft as a cloud

  and my name

  painted on them.

  And Lucky gave me

  a magazine

  that had a boxing story

  called “Fifty Grand”

  by a writer

  named Ernest Hemingway,

  who I’d heard about

  in Mrs. Lauderdale’s class.

  We read some of it,

  but I decided

  I didn’t like it

  ’cause any white fella

  who calls a black person

  by that name

  don’t deserve

  to be read.

  Beat

  By the time I finally made it

  to Chicago

  for the 1958 National Golden Gloves championships,

  I’d been fighting

  for almost five years,

  showed my talents

  on Tomorrow’s Champions

  seven times,

  and won

  more than thirty fights,

  ten by knockout.

  But none of that mattered,

  since Cash

  wasn’t screamin’

  my name ringside

  for the first time ever,

  because he’d gotten

  into a dustup

  before I left

  that ended

  with the cops

  on our doorsteps.

  I won the first two

  and lost the finals

  Because you didn’t keep your fists up,

  and you didn’t get out of the way.

  You let him hit you too much, Joe Martin

  told me after the fight,

  and he was probably right,

  but also because

  the few times

  I had a little rally going

  I couldn’t get

  into a rhythm

  ’cause it seemed like

  there was nobody

  in the whole arena

  singing my name.

  Cassius Clay vs. Kent Green

  FEBRUARY 26, 1958

  The newspaper article said:

  The sixteen-year-old pugilist

  from Louisville

  with quick feet

  and a loud mouth

  showed promise

  in his first two fights

  but got outboxed

  in the semifinals

  by the older, more seasoned,

  hard-punching

  Kent Green,

  who targeted

  the younger Clay

  like a lion

  stalking

  a gazelle,

  then unloaded

  enough head shots

  for the ref

  to stop the fight

  in round two

  of the National Golden Gloves semifinals.

  Cassius Clay: Eighteen wins.

  Five losses.

  Lucky Read

  the article

  to himself

  on my front porch

  while I shadowboxed

  with Riney

  and skipped rope

  on the lawn.

  Me and Riney

  hadn’t really hung out much

  since he and Teenie

  got serious, but she was

  visiting relatives

  in Nashville,

  so we were yapping

  and catching up

  when my momma

  told us to go pick up

  her order

  from Leonard’s grocery store.

  We were walking home

  with beaucoup bags

  of food and stuff,

  which I didn’t mind

  ’cause I was working out

  the muscles

  in my arms,

  but they hated

  ’cause Momma Bird bought

  the whole store,

  which was twelve blocks away.

  I’d rather starve, Gee-Gee, Riney said,

  than carry all these heavy bags,

  when someone started

  screaming

  my name

  from behind us.

  Face-Off

  The three of us

  turn around

  and see

  some suspicious-looking Smoketown fellas

  approaching us

  like they got something bad

  on their minds.

  Leading their gang,

  smack-dab in the front

  is a meaner

  and taller-looking Tall Bubba,

  whose face is still not back

  to normal,

  and right beside him

  is his new best friend,

  Corky Butler.

  Conversation with Corky Butler

  You been dodging me, Cassius?

  …

  Fellas, Cassius Clay been avoiding the undisputed champion of the streets, but time done caught up with him.

  What you want, Chalk—Corky? Riney says, wishing he hadn’t.

  What I want is y’all off my block, but you here, and you know what that means. Pay the toll!

  This not your blo
ck, Lucky answers, like he got fists to back it up.

  If I’m on it, it’s my block.

  …

  A quarter a head. It’s three of you, so that’s one dollar.

  Three of us, Lucky says, is seventy-five cents.

  Interest and tax is a quarter, fool. Pay me my four quarters.

  We don’t have four quarters, I say.

  Then you gotta part with one of them bags.

  I’m not giving you my momma’s groceries.

  Then I’m gonna lay you out like you got laid out at them Golden Gloves, he says, laughing.

  …

  Hey, fellas, who got thumped real bad by big Kent Green?

  They all start chanting, CASSIUS! CASSIUS! CASSIUS!

  Oh, I’m just messin’. Can’t fight ya today, we meeting some girls at the movies. I’ll catcha another time. Gimme five on that, he adds, laughing, then holding out his palm for me to slap it.

  I can’t give you five, ’cause you full of jive…

  Sometimes My Mouth Moves Faster Than My Mind

  I’d give you eight,

  but ya teeth ain’t straight.

  This makes some of his gang giggle,

  but it’s the next thing I say

  that has them all laughing

  out loud like hyenas

  and brings me face-to-face

  with the wrath of Chalky.

  I would give you thirty

  but your face too dirty.

  Can’t give you forty, ’cause—

  You got a big lip, Clay, Corky says,

  taking a swing

  that I dodge,

  just as a police car creeps by,

  eyeing us all.

  How about I make it a big FAT one!

  How about you try? I say back.

  I should knock you out

  right here, but I want

  the whole world to see

  these fists upside your head.

  Name the day and the time, Corky.

  Me and you in the ring.

  Then let’s do that.

  Then let’s do that.