At Home with Muhammad Ali Read online

  Carefully examining the tapes, I struggled to make out the scratchy writing labeling each cassette. Apart from his signature, which he wanted to be large and clear so people could read his name, my father’s penmanship was never legible. When we were writing his autobiography, The Soul of a Butterfly, in 2003, I watched as he worked in the leather-bound journals I’d bought him for one of his birthdays. He sat peacefully at his desk, beneath a soft light, copying his favorite quotes and poems from lined yellow paper onto the crisp cream pages of the journals. Just as he did when I was a little girl sitting on his lap in his office at Fremont Place as he read and wrote. He always kept a list of his favorite passages and anecdotes. I never noticed as a child—perhaps it was a habit he acquired later in life—his compulsion to rip out the pages he had written on. He was unsatisfied with his imperfect handwriting. An inclination I would also acquire. Like in my father’s office, dozens of beautiful journals line my bookshelf—all with torn-out pages. The apple landed faithfully beside the tree.

  With a raised brow, I picked up one of the cassettes. “What’s on these tapes, Dad?”

  His eyes brightened as he waved his hand slowly across the lot. His voice had a mystical tenor, as though he was about to reveal a sacred truth. Ha, I thought, how typical of my father to reel me in with the theatrics. As usual, it was working. The moment his eyes widened, I was hooked.

  “There are tapes here of you and Laila, and your other sisters and brother, talking to me when you were young.” He paused and leaned forward. “One day, when you have children of your own, you’ll be able to play these for them, so they can hear their mother talking to her father when she was a little girl.” He settled back in his chair, beaming, unable to conceal his tremendous pride in this fact.

  As I stared at the tapes, a cloudy memory resurfaced. The echo of my father and me singing, laughing, and playing rings softly in my ear.

  “Up in the morning off to school, the teachers teach the golden rule . . .”

  Singing together, “American history and practical math . . . hoping and hoping and hoping to pass . . .”

  Did he really record all these moments—my childhood memories? Hairs began to quiver on the back of my neck, and an odd sixth sense overcame me. I saw a vague image of him chasing Laila and me down the hall, past the large Tiffany glass screen that dominated the second floor. We were laughing uncontrollably. “Now they’re on the couch, cuddling up together. I’m coming after them! Hana’s four, Laila’s three . . . I’m coming!”

  Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming urge to hear the recordings and slid one of the tapes into the tiny machine. My father smiled as I pressed PLAY and the past sprang to life.

  * * *

  “Muhammad, the president’s wife, Mrs. Carter, has been calling for you for three days. Can I give her your telephone number in Los Angeles?”

  “Yeah, I spoke to her. I told her I’d be there in DC when she needs me. Hold on, Mr. Lomax, my other line is ringing . . .”

  I played another recording. “Muhammad, where have you been lately? I saw your picture in the newspaper.” An Israeli reporter is calling from overseas. “You were in Hong Kong and Cambodia, and some other places.”

  “I’ve just come back from Peking. They made me their official boxing trainer and boxing promoter—to help bring boxing back to China . . .”

  I played another recording. “Tell me, Champ, you are NOT going back to the ring!”

  “I’ve had so many offers, and naturally I went out on top. I went out supreme. I went out three-time champion, still dancing and moving fast—good reflexes, good coordination, good timing . . .”

  “Sting like a bee!”

  “Yeah! So naturally people would like to see me. I think I might. I’ve been tempted, but I don’t know . . .”

  I played another recording. “Muhammad, what do you think about the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt—do you find it a good one?”

  “I know nothing about the politics of Israel and Egypt. Although I am a Muslim, I don’t understand the problems the two countries have been having over the years. But I know all people are God’s people regardless of race, religion, or color, and I know that God, Allah, is not for war. I know God, Allah, is not for violence, and I know he is for peace . . .”

  As I sorted through the tapes, I felt like I was handling a pile of gold. All the love and adventures of my childhood, days gone by, moments lived long ago, were reaching out to me in the present. And I heard my father’s voice—loud, clear, and full of life.

  “Mama Bird,” he says to his mother, “I want to ask you something—make me laugh one more time. Do you remember that day Cash, Daddy, came home to get some money or something, and you followed him out and chased him down the street?”

  With a sweet Southern accent, “Yeah, I remember! And he was running down the alley! Sure, I remember . . . You were a little boy. Wasn’t that funny?”

  “Yeah, he had a woman in the car . . . He ran so fast the dirt flew up!”

  Laughing, “They were flying down that alley . . .”

  As I listened, the memories circled in my mind like a merry-go-round of bygone dreams and adventures. Without ever leaving the comforts of my father’s hotel room, I lost myself in that time and place, and felt the heart-aching nostalgia of never being able to go back again.

  “Hana, you were a sweet little girl. You are so beautiful, I just kiss your little jaws all the time. I always squeeze you and hug you—and I love you . . .”

  Every recording took me back to a different period. “This is Muhammad Ali making a tape for future reference. We’re now in a crisis where the Iranian college students are holding over fifty American hostages. People have been calling me and pleading for me not to go. They’re very frightened when it comes to taking a stand for what is right and for God . . .”

  My father’s voice was like a ghost from the past—the way it sounded when I was a little girl. Before time conveyed the inevitable. Every word he spoke lured me deeper into the fabric of a dream. I went to a grand and melancholy place—Fremont Place—where our tongues had a silver lining and our words were laced in gold.

  “I want to go upstairs and see Mommy.”

  “Mommy is washing her hair. Then she has to roll her hair and dry her hair.”

  “I want to, Daddy! I want to go upstairs and see Mommy! I want her to hear me talking on that thing.”

  “You want her to hear you talking on this tape?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hana, can you wait thirty minutes? Mommy told me not to bring you up until she’s finished. If I take you up now, I might get in trouble. What if she whoops me?”

  “I want to, Daddy . . . I want to go now!”

  “Hana, you are three years old, trying to boss me.”

  “I WANT TO GO NOW!”

  “Stop hollering, Hana.”

  “Can I holler a little bit?”

  “Okay.”

  Now whispering, “I want to go upstairs and see Mommy . . .”

  I played another recording, and another and another. As one memory rolled into the next, I traveled back to that grand old house, which so long ago ceased to belong to us, where my most cherished childhood memories still thrived in the annals of my heart and mind, and in dozens of micro tape cassettes—before the divorce.

  Before the “For Sale” signs appeared on our lawn and the movers emptied the house. Before I cried myself to sleep at night, worrying about my father. And before the picture-perfect image of my childhood began fraying at the edges.

  December 9, 1979

  It’s a lively morning at Fremont Place. The relentless ringing of the telephone, the shuffling of lined yellow paper, and the clicking of the tape recorder have already begun. My father is sitting comfortably behind his grand mahogany desk, as always, ready to tackle the adventures of another bustling day. He smiles at the sight of Laila and me playing on the floor in our pajamas, then he leans back in his huge leather chair and takes another sip of coff
ee before reaching for the ringing telephone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Muhammad, this is Jerry Lister calling from the New York Post. Listen, what I want to tell you is in the Star newspaper, which we also own, you’ve just been voted by their four million readers as the celebrity of the decade—over everybody!”

  “No kidding—you jokin’, man! Who was in the running with me?”

  “Farrah Fawcett, Robert Redford, Paul Newman—everybody!”

  “Are you serious? When is it going to come out?”

  “In two weeks. They want to know what your reaction is to being voted the Celebrity of the Decade.”

  “I can’t believe it! You mean out of all those movie stars and athletes too?”

  “Yep! You were also voted by the New York Post and the World News Corporation as the Athlete of the Decade. They didn’t think it was going to happen, but all of the ballots came in and you were voted the Celebrity of the ’70s.”

  “You mean of ALL the celebrities?”

  “Of everybody! The ballots came in yesterday afternoon.”

  “I can’t believe it. I know worldwide that I have a higher rating, but I didn’t know that it was the same in America.”

  “Yep, America’s number one celebrity for the ’70s—of all the movie stars, politicians, everybody!”

  “No kidding! That’s hard to believe because there are so many more celebrities and movie stars . . . That means movie stars and athletes?”

  “Movie stars, athletes, politicians—everybody!”

  “No kidding—of ALL the ’70s!”

  “Of ALL the ’70s!”

  “I have a trophy room here at my new house in Los Angeles. I’m putting up photos of great moments in my career and plaques and awards and trophies. And this, what you’re telling me about, they don’t give no trophy or nothing, do they?”

  “Yes, they’re going to give you a special award.”

  “Yeah, because I want to put that with the rest of my awards. Who voted?”

  “All the Star readers. They sell almost four million copies a week . . .”

  He looks down at the telephone. All three lines are flashing. “My other line is ringing—hold on . . . Hello?”

  “Champ, would you do me a personal favor? I’m one of your greatest admirers.” Another journalist is calling from across the sea. “When I heard that somebody offered you to come back to the ring, I was going to write you to say, ‘NO, Champ!’”

  “I appreciate it. I’m very glad you felt like that. This is one reason I haven’t returned, because people want to see me go out a winner, and I think it would be a sin and a shame—a crime—for me to continue and jeopardize what I’ve built, which is something I don’t think any man will break in our lifetime. They say records are made to be broken, but I don’t think any man will ever be four-time World Heavyweight Champion.”

  “No, Champ. Not in this century . . . Maybe not even the next . . . Tell me, Champ, what are your plans for the 1980s?”

  “I’m real confused. I don’t know what it is that I want to do. I have offers to train professional boxers here in America. I don’t think that will make me happy. I have offers to have a nationwide television show, speaking to various people on world issues. I don’t think that will make me too happy. I have an offer to probably make a couple of movies once a year. That wouldn’t make me too happy. I don’t know what it is that I want to do, so I’m trying to decide what I want to do with my life . . .”

  Domestic Affairs

  I used to chase women all the time. I won’t say it was right—but look at all the temptation I had. I was young, handsome, and heavyweight champion of the world. Women were always offering themselves to me. I had two children by women I wasn’t married to. I love them. They’re my children. I feel just as proud and good about them as my other children. But that wasn’t the right thing to do. Running around living that kind of life wasn’t good for me. It hurt my wife, offended God, and it never really made me happy. Ask any man who is forty years old—if he knew at twenty what he knows now, would he do things different? Most people would. Sometimes things you do early in life, you feel embarrassed about later. So, I did wrong, I’m sorry. And all I’ll say, as far as running around and chasing women is concerned, is that’s all in the past.

  —Muhammad Ali, in Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, Thomas Hauser, 1991

  1

  Summer of 2012

  Fourteen years after my father’s tape recordings were revealed to me, there was the unearthing of his old love letters—letters that had been lost for a long time, waiting out nearly three decades in a crowded storage room in Los Angeles. I still think about it sometimes: my mother’s storage, full of old newspaper clippings, family photos, diaries, paintings, and antique furnishings from my childhood home, all neatly stacked together in labeled cardboard boxes collecting dust. My father’s words whispering in the dark, swelling and sighing with yesterday’s hopes and dreams. His heart, etched on lined yellow paper, a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered.

  I wonder what was on his mind when he left the envelope of letters on his office floor. Was it too painful for him to place them in my mother’s hands? Did he hope she would find them, or that they would somehow find their way to her? Perhaps he simply forgot them, overlooking them in the distress of gathering the last of his belongings from our newly sold home. Knowing Dad, I’d say he left the letters there on purpose, thinking that Marge, the executive secretary, would discover them in his otherwise empty office and deliver them to Mom after he was gone. Or maybe he wrote them only for himself—to tuck away with all the other things left unsaid and undone between them.

  I guess I will never know. I’m okay with that. Some questions are best left unasked. They cause too much pain. But it saddens me to think that if my father had handed my mother the letters, if he had at least told her about them, if the envelope hadn’t been thrown in a random box and then stored away until she discovered them some thirty years later, it all might have turned out differently for my father, for me, my sister Laila—and for their marriage.

  Laila on Dad’s lap and me on my mother’s. Taken at Fremont Place.

  © Howard Bingham

  Like old ghosts, the memories of my childhood home haunt the annals of my mind and leave me wondering about days gone by: the constant ringing of my father’s telephone, the crackling of the evening fire, the screeching of my mother’s exotic birds, the smell of Dad’s freshly brewed coffee, the clicking of his tape recorder capturing fleeting moments in time, the image of my father’s Rolls-Royce returning home, and the haunting sound of his once lively voice echoing in the halls. I still think about them sometimes.

  Damn ghosts!

  2

  “Hana, it’s 10:30 p.m. You just woke me up, asking for a popsicle. I went downstairs to get you one, but there were no popsicles left. Now you sent me back down to get you a pickle. This is December 24, 1979, at the house on 55 Fremont Place—Signing off.”

  I remember the house on Fremont clearly. A shining memory, impervious to time, perfectly captured and protected—an image that will never fade. I can describe my childhood adventures, but a description will fail to capture the grandeur and exhilaration those moments held for me then, and still hold for me now. One day stands out in my memory because my father was coming home.

  I close my eyes and see the gray-blue of the early-morning sky. The subtle scent of flowers that line the driveway washes over me and I feel a cool breeze caress my cheek. When I remember with my heart, more details materialize: the song of the birds whispering their melody in the wind, the echo of the barking Dobermans, the soothing rhythm of water rippling in the swimming pool. The familiar sounds of my childhood home reach across the barriers of time and take me back to a long-ago place. When I open my eyes, I’m six years old again.

  It’s quiet this morning, an almost eerie silence, and I’m standing on my tiptoes in the driveway beneath the balcony. I shouldn’t be outside
alone, barefoot in my pajamas, as Cruella De Vil, aka the Big Bad Wolf (our new governess), would say. But Daddy is coming home today, so here I wait with my forehead pressed against the cold iron gate, watching the clouds roll by, with a half-eaten carrot in my hand.

  I had reached for the popsicles first, of course. But they were too high up. When Daddy left town, Cruella rearranged the freezer. One morning I tried to get Cruella to give me a popsicle, but she handed me a carrot instead.

  “If I am in charge, young lady,” she said with her thick Jamaican accent, “NO popsicles in the morning.”

  I wanted to punch her in the nose. By the time I was two years old my right hook was legendary—a side effect of watching my father train and our playful sparring lessons on weekend afternoons. “Show your strength, Hana,” he’d say and I, his devoted clone, would raise both arms, flex my tiny muscles, clench my teeth, and “Geeeer!”

  People never paid heed to my mother’s warnings. “Careful,” she’d caution as they pinched my chubby cheeks. “She hits.” They must have assumed she was kidding. What harm could a toddler do? They learned the hard way.

  With a few bruised noses under my belt, I fantasized about adding Cruella to my record. I imagined the look on her face when she caught a glimpse of my mighty little fist soaring up at her doomed nose. But then a list of possible punishments came to mind: a week without cartoons, a week without swimming, a week confined to my room after preschool, a week with NO POPSICLES! Nah, it wasn’t worth it. I pouted and ate the carrot.

  It’s getting chilly outside. I’ve been up since 5 a.m., waiting for Daddy. The winter sun is shy, and my little toes are beginning to feel as frozen as the popsicles I covet. I was in such a hurry to sneak out, crawling quietly through Cruella’s adjoining bedroom, down the stairs, past the kitchen, and out the back patio door, that I hadn’t realized I was barefoot. I wasn’t going back for my shoes. I’d learned from my last mistake. Getting caught buck naked under the coffee table the week before was an unforgettable experience, but I’ll tell you about that one later.