Ghosts of Manila (24 page)

On the hospital bed in Hilton Head, Ali opened his eyes, his lips parting like manhole covers, and asked the nurses: “You die here…they take you home?” The nurses rolled their eyes and smiled, struck by his innocence; it had nothing to do, they knew, with morbidity. He was not joking, either. The practical aftermath of death seemed to stimulate his curiosity on these days. Nothing urgent, mind you, just something that began to get in your mind when watching 15,000 cc’s of blood move in and out of your body for five hours. But the procedure was not dangerous and there was no discomfort, except for the heavy tedium for someone who had spent his entire life in chaotic mobility. The nurses noticed his blood pressure, slightly rising. They believed he had to urinate. He couldn’t bear being helped to urinate; the idea of women aiding him made him anxious. His eyes were closed. One called out: “Come on now, Ali.” His breathing was barely audible. “Stop it,” the nurse begged. “Please.” She knew he liked to feign death. He didn’t move, then suddenly his head gave a small jerk, then his eyes bucked wide open, and he said, “You thought I was dead. Got no funny people round me anymore. Have to make myself laugh.”

Hospitals had always frightened and bored him; most of all, they got in the way of life. He now decided to tell a joke: “Abe Lincoln went on a three-day drunk, and what’s he say when he wakes up?” He held for a beat, then said: “I freed whoooooo?” He laughed. “Stop it, Ali,” a nurse warned. “You’ll drive the needles through your veins.” Ali calmed, then said: “I’ll never grow up, will I?” That was some of the problem. No one had ever wanted the toy to be real, or obsolete like everything else. He was in better form than the night before when his head had nearly flopped into the dessert. He was like a faraway signal that came in and out, and often he asked, in the airports
during the trip down, when people alighted by his rigid, stoic body like birds pecking for proximity to fame: “Where am I?” Dr. Rajak Mendenica, full of cheer, came into the room. He had had a lot of famous clients. His office contained photos of a senator, a Saudi prince, and an ambassador, all of whom signed their pictures with hearty appreciation for his cancer work on them.

But there were questions of a commonsense variety. The very expensive procedure he was using on Ali was called plasmapheresis. The blood cleaning removes the immune complex, which in turn removes toxins. It was a solid treatment for a blood problem and would provide an energy bounce for any patient. Did Ali have a blood condition? “He’s been poisoned by pesticides,” Mendenica said with confidence. The comment startled. It was contrary to an earlier finding by Dr. Dennis Cope of U.C.L.A., who found that Ali had “Parkinson’s syndrome, secondary to pugilistic brain syndrome.” In short, he had taken too many head shots. Certain that Ali would recover completely, Mendenica said: “I find absolutely no brain damage. The magnetic resonator tests show no damage. When I became his doctor, I watched a number of his fight films. He did not take many head blows.” Film would have shown him precious little of true impact. Was he kidding?

“No,” Mendenica, an émigré from the Balkans, said. “I do not see many head blows. When I first began work on him, he was in bad shape. Poor gait. Difficult speech. Vocal cord syndrome, extended and inflamed. He is much better. He just travels too much.” Earlier, a mention was made in Ali’s room about a comment by Floyd Patterson, who was critical of the treatment. Ali insisted on hearing what Floyd had said. “No brain damage?” Floyd had said. “Next you’ll be hearing Ali was bit by a cockroach. He’ll drop dead in a year.” Ali thought a moment, then said: “Floyd means well.” Floyd’s comments were now being given to the doctor. “He’s rather ignorant,” he replied. “I’m going to have to call that man.” But Mendenica had other more
serious problems. Marshall Tito, once head of Yugoslavia, had been so grateful for the doctor’s treatment that he arranged funding for a clinic in Switzerland. When Tito died, Mendenica’s funding was cut off, and he was left with the bills and a criminal indictment by the Yugoslavians and the Swiss. Ali would testify for him at the Swiss trial. The good doctor may have known his blood, but he was at a loss in the webbing of the brain; once more, as in the ring, Ali was in the wrong hands. As Ali left that night, he was asked about the treatment. “Sheeit,” he said wearily. “Nothing helps.”

A
fter Manila, Joe Frazier, with his head shaved to a glistening point, heavy and slow, met George Foreman in June 1976. In training, Futch noted that Joe spent long parts of sessions on the ropes, where he’d go for rest, lie back and pick off punches, and often miss the one you did not see, then it’s over; this is where careers end. Eventually, fans grow tired of a fighter’s survival and want the seriously new to sweep out the old. George wasn’t new, but at least he’d dispatch a barnacled name once and for all. George dribbled him, then stopped him in the fifth, with most of the crowd shouting Ali’s name. Frazier came down with hepatitis, and five years later came back to fight to a draw against a barrel of congealed rust named Jumbo Cummings. “No, I don’t approve,” Futch said, refusing to work with him, opening the split between them that had been dormant after Manila. Joe was fond of saying: “I got mugged by the ref in the second Ali fight, and Futch took Manila away from me.” He particularly resented what Eddie had said after the third fight: “Ali’s too strong for him now, and Joe’s too small.” When Joe later took some of his fighters to North Carolina, Eddie was there and Joe just gave him a curt nod of acknowledgment.

Frazier’s life settled into the Broad Street Gym, a local fixture in
the rough precinct where he had begun. His life fell into a groove, working with his fighters, checking into hotels, minding clocks and schedules. He had bought the gym from Cloverlay for $75,000 along with the remaining fighters under contract to the syndicate. Among his first fighters was a then-promising Duane Bobick, a white heavyweight; nothing more arouses ownership interest, and Faustian pacts are made in the endless search for one. Joe was getting him ready for a workout and slipped a right hand glove on his left hand. Accidental, but Bobick looked at him with disgust and said: “Yeah, and you want to be a trainer?” Bobick disappointed; white heavyweights invariably break your heart. But Joe learned that you can’t be friends with fighters, that he’d have to grow a new, tough hide in a new, subtle game. He’d adopt the method used by Yank Durham on him, clever but definitely not subtle. Yank insisted on obedience and punctuality, no lip and industry; even Yank’s voice scared Joe.

Frazier began to train his son Marvis; no problem with the dogma there. Marvis was a heavyweight, a good boxer who Joe tried to turn into a prototype of himself. Eventually, he’d get out of the ring with $1 million in total earnings. But Joe was having trouble with other young fighters. They didn’t want to be told what to do, when to do it. He lost a couple of good amateurs to others, and didn’t like it much; so much for loyalty, they didn’t even allow him to make an offer. He had not charged managers for training their fighters in his gym, now he would. “You don’t go to General Motors,” he said, “build a car and say it’s yours. Same thing at my gym. If you come here and learn, I want to make money back.” He had a young phenom, Bert Cooper, “a natural hitting machine.” Big things were ahead, then he lost Cooper to coke and the streets. Joe began to despise drugs, and would find how close to home they could touch.

One of his prizes was Chandler Durham, a light-heavy and the son of Yank. He threw himself into the shaping of Chandler. “The boy
could fight,” says Burt Watson, Frazier’s business manager. “But Joe just couldn’t bring him into line. He called Joe names, and Joe took it. He thought he was Joe’s equal. Joe would shake his head and say: ‘Your daddy’s spittin’ in the grave at the things you’re doin’. Chandler, too, was gobbled up by the environment. Chandler was a friend of Joe Jr., whom Frazier guarded like a Doberman. Joe Jr. was five-five, 147 pounds, and everyone who saw him not only thought he was a duplicate of Joe, but also found him better; his ring record was 15–0. “He positively walked through people,” says Watson. “One of the greatest talents I’ve ever seen.” Frazier knew it, his heart pounded with recognition of himself; he was alive, back at the hunt again. Until Joe Jr. slipped into a haze of drugs, with Frazier cruising the night streets in his car, looking for him, desperately trying to break his fall; he couldn’t. Joe Jr. got into trouble and was sent to prison for three years. Mentally, it leveled Joe to his knees.

Marvis was the opposite of Joe Jr., listening to his father’s every word. Joe once told him: “If the speed limit is thirty, you do twenty-five. If you’re ever stopped, step out of the car with your hands up. If you’re with buddies, tell ’em to cut out the laughing and pay attention to the officer. Say yes sir, no sir.” Marvis was stopped and got out with hands up. The cop just looked at him, asking: “What’re you doing, son?” Marvis said: “What my daddy told me.” Who is Daddy? Smokin’ Joe Frazier. The cop said, laughing: “Get back in the car…and give him my best.” Always practical, Marvis knew that he did not have the motivation and the destructive instinct of his father, and he sensibly left the ring early after being bopped quickly by Mike Tyson; he became a preacher. Florence, Joe’s wife, was never keen on Joe fighting, let alone Marvis. The two argued often over Marvis as a fighter and Joe’s nightlife, and the final break came when Joe told the family he had had two children by another woman. “When a marriage is gone,” Joe said, “it’s gone. Hey, I wasn’t easy. I know that.”

A Gullah himself, Burt Watson first met Joe in 1990 at a wedding. Aside from his gym, Frazier owned a limo business and was filling in for a driver with a hangover. The two became fast friends, hit the clubs every night until Burt couldn’t handle it anymore. “I was showing up loaded at work, bent out of shape,” says Burt. “So I couldn’t keep up with him anymore. I jokingly told him: ‘Hire me, or leave me the hell alone.’” Burt joined him as business manager. Joe fired the remaining people from Cloverlay, saying: “These are people who have not done me justice.” Frazier’s name had not been in circulation. Burt got him on the autograph circuit, where he’d make three thousand dollars a session, packaged him for commercials, got him into the money flow. “We worked together for ten years,” says Burt, “and I was his shoes and his pants. But nothing seemed to make him happy.”

Joe had a reputation as a two-fisted drinker around town. “Sure, he drank,” says Burt, “but, you know, I never saw him drunk. Four or five of us would be in a place, and he’d take all the drinks, a wine, a vodka, whiskey and brandy, then put them in one big glass and belt it down. He called it his Man or Mouse drink. Joe was a real accessible guy. There’s not a legend you can walk up to and be friendly. I saw Dr. J. out one night, and if you got near him you’d get your leg broke. Not with Joe. Some places were rough. I’d say, ‘Let’s get outta here…I don’t care how good your left hook is.’ Nothing to get a call from Twenty-third and Columbia, the roughest area in Philly, and there he is sitting there and buying drinks for people with no teeth, with wigs on and twirling guns. Nobody gave him trouble. He has the body of a freak, very hard. I accidentally ran into him in the gym, and I saw stars.” What about his eyesight? “He couldn’t see past my fingers. I had to be right on top of him. In the gym, he worked the light and heavy bags with bare fists. You know how that feels? He once got an inch and a half cut on his hand, not in the gym, and he just poured booze on it. He’s settled back now, though. Thank the good Lord.”

Watson could never understand Joe’s attitude about money. He was an easy touch in the gym, even loaned guys five thousand dollars, then complained about only making eight thousand one long day for doing autographs. “Joe,” Burt said, “I bring the money in the front door, and you send it out the back.” Says Burt: “One time Joe was peeling off a few bills for a guy in the gym. The guy went for the whole roll, but turned the wrong way. Right into Joe’s left, and there he was on the floor moaning and unable to walk.” The pair traveled constantly, and Burt remembers an afternoon when a trooper stopped them in North Carolina. Joe promptly showed him his license and registration.

“Are you Joseph Frazier?” the trooper asked.

Joe nodded.

“Do you know you were speeding?”

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Doin’ a 120.”

“Where you from?”

“West Philly,” Joe said.

“Spell it,” the trooper said.

“That’s not my job. I get paid for beatin’ people up.”

Joe took the ticket, got back in the car, mumbling: “Smart mothafucker.”

When a lion no longer hunts or roams, the smallest insects begin to eat it alive, reducing and devouring. Frazier, Watson observed, was being torn up inside. He couldn’t let Manila or Ali go. “On a five-hundred-mile trip,” says Burt, “that can get mighty tiring, hearing about Ali. We were on our way to Florida once, and I happened to pay a small compliment to Ali. Joe squealed a turn into a gas station. I got out, looked up and he’s speeding away. Where was he going? I was in the middle of nowhere. Do you know, I waited two hours there. Finally he comes back and says, ‘Get your ass in here. Some things best left unsaid.’ This was, mind you, almost twenty years since
Manila. For a long time, I didn’t understand what was eating at him, then I did. Ali doesn’t know how deep he cut into Joe. You don’t do to a man what he did to Joe where we come from. You never have to wonder what Joe’s thinking. He never mopes or gets depressed. He says what’s on his mind. To Joe, it was total betrayal by Ali. The acclaim Ali gets eats at him. Joe is the only legend still disrespected. Ali robbed him of who he is. To a lot of people in this city, Joe’s still ignorant, slow-speaking, dumb and ugly. The tag never leaves him. Ali can’t even talk, and he’s still the prize. I saw it at Joe’s Hall of Fame induction in 1989. Ali was there.”

Watson adds: “It was Joe’s night, and here it was all about Ali. The crowd acted like it wanted Joe to go away. He just couldn’t shake Ali, not even in the museum display where their paychecks from the first fight were together, their gloves, everything. Watching the evening progress, Joe just lowered his head and shook his head. It hurt. People have only seen one Joe, the one created by Ali. If you’re a man, that’s going to get to you in a big way. It would me. Look at Philly, murals are all over the place. Dr. J. Patti LaBelle. Marion Anderson. Frank Rizzo. Where’s Joe? What’s worse, they wanted to erect a monument to a fighter to reflect the struggle of the common man. What do they put up? A statue of Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, not even real, when they have a total example in Joe Frazier. You tell me. A movie character big as life next to the sports arena. Part of it is racism and disrespect for Joe. Funny thing. Joe is like Ali now. Doing all the talking. Odd. If I could get them together, Joe wouldn’t forgive, and Ali, in his condition, wouldn’t know how.”