At Home with Muhammad Ali

by Hana Ali

  I never actually witnessed my father seriously flirting with another woman. I know he was a lady’s man till the end. His eyes lit up like the sun whenever a pretty girl walked by, but I’ve never seen him really look at anyone the way he looked at my mother.

  I remember the way he sat up in his chair and straightened his shirt the first time he saw Mom after he’d moved to Michigan with Lonnie in 1987. Dad visited us regularly at our new house after the divorce. He’d sit in the living room with her, drinking coffee and telling her how much he still did and always would love her. Sometimes he’d tell jokes, and he once said to her before leaving, “I had your best years.” He always found the humor in life—even in painful situations.

  But after a couple years had passed without seeing her, it must have brought back all his pain and love when Mom came up to his hotel room to pick us up. “Ronca,” he said, walking across the room to hug her, “you’re still beautiful.”

  “So are you,” she whispered. Tears welled in both of their eyes.

  My parents shared a great romance. Laila and I were born out of their love, and a lot of beautiful memories, adventures, and sometimes pain and sorrow were experienced in the twelve years they were together. They were just two remarkable people trying to find their way in the world. My father would be the first to admit he made mistakes. It saddens me to think they cost him the love of his life.

  * * *

  I lay on my bed for a while, staring at the ceiling, pondering everything: their fairy tale courtship, the letters, the tape recording, and the divorce. I thought, too, about my father and his pain. How he had blamed himself when Mom left him, his conviction that he deserved to lose her. When I first asked him about it, years ago, he denied it of course. It was the same afternoon that we were watching the movie Ali at the house in Michigan. After discussing the circumstances surrounding the demise of his relationship with Belinda, I asked Dad why he cheated on my mother if he loved her so deeply.

  “No,” he said. His brows squinted, as if I had just accused him of murder. “I never cheated on your mother.”

  “Yes, you did, Daddy.”

  “No.” His eyes were wide with denial.

  “Daddy, you have kids by different women who are the same age,” I gently reminded him with a chuckle. “You brought us all together, every summer, and made sure we knew about each other so we could grow up and be friends. And we did.”

  He said nothing.

  “Daddy, the whole world knows. Admitting it to me won’t make me love you any less. Nothing you could ever do or say will make me love you less. I’m not going to judge you. I just want to know why you cheated.”

  “She didn’t satisfy me!” he blurted abruptly.

  “Daddy! That’s not fair. I know that’s not true.”

  He shifted in his seat, staring in his lap, as if considering—searching. “I don’t know . . .” he finally answered. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” I assured him. “No one is perfect. We all make mistakes.” I hugged him and reminded him once more, “All of your children grew up to be friends because you brought us together. You did good, Daddy.”

  He nodded and neither of us spoke further about it. We shifted our attention back to the movie and our dessert.

  He had asked for forgiveness and I gave it. But the truth is, I had forgiven him for everything he had ever done, or ever could do, long before that day. Something about the way he looked when he answered me—the sadness in his eyes, perhaps, reminded me about the time I tried to take him to visit the house on Fremont Place.

  We were driving down Wilshire Boulevard in January of 2002 on our way to his hotel, the Beverly Hilton. Dad was in town for the unveiling of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. An honor that is generally reserved for filmmakers, actors, and musicians was awarded to him for, among other reasons, “living his life as live theater.” And since he first gained world recognition with his Olympic gold medal in 1960 he had been a constant showman and entertainer—“walking theater.”

  But of the 2,500-plus stars that line the sidewalks on the fifteen-block stretch in Hollywood, my father’s is the only one that has never been walked on. At his request, it was placed on a wall—at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard, in the entrance of the Dolby Theater, home of the Academy Awards.

  Dad had originally declined the invitation to receive a star from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce because he didn’t want his name and what it represented disrespected.

  “It will have to be on a wall,” he said. “I bear the name of the beloved prophet of Islam. I can’t allow it to be trampled on by people and urinated on by dogs . . .”

  Respecting my father’s wishes, Johnny Grant, then chairman of the Walk of Fame Committee, broke tradition to honor Dad’s request and decided that the 2,189th star would be the first and, so far, only one mounted on the wall. No other honoree has ever been granted a similar request, and probably never will.

  I stopped at a red light on the corner of Rossmore Avenue, adjacent to Fremont Place. I saw my youthful self soaring down the street on my bicycle en route to 7-Eleven. I remembered Laila and I riding over bumps on the sidewalk as our friends Kim and Karen trailed close behind. Wendy was my name and my bike was a red Corvette. Laila was Heidi and she drove a white Porsche. These were the games we played, the adventures we etched into the heart of the street. Eating Jolly Ranchers and red licorice, bought with the fifty-dollar bills my father pulled from the small round safe he kept under his desk.

  “Look, Daddy,” I said as we waited for the light to turn green. “Want to drive by and see the old house?”

  He looked up but said nothing.

  “A lawyer and his wife live there now,” I said. “They have two children.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Maybe another time.” Tears welled in my eyes and I leaned over to kiss him. When the light turned green, I glanced at the huge stone pillars that frame the guarded entrance to Fremont Place and drove away.

  Remembering that day made me think of one of my father’s last letters to my mother. I felt his pain as if it were my own, especially now, knowing what he suffered: living under the same roof with Mom, unable to sleep in the same bedroom with her. Hoping and praying, day after day, while traveling the world together, knowing the end was near. Those final years of their marriage he endured the uncertainty looming above like a dreary cloud waiting to unleash its storm.

  “Veronica, our love has now come to its end, simply because we are only friends . . . For it is never easy to understand how heartache and despair can take command . . .”

  I was in my twenties when I learned my father’s strategy for overcoming a broken heart. I had just broken up with a boyfriend and asked Dad for advice. He was always happy when we came to him for help. I think hearing about our problems made him feel closer to us, made him feel needed, like a father.

  I explained my dilemma. “What should I do, Daddy?” I asked.

  “If he’s sorry, and he’s worth it, give him another chance,” he said. “If you decide not to, first you should get rid of everything that reminds you of him; moving away helps. Then it will take twice as long as you were together for it to happen.”

  “For what to happen?”

  There was an enduring pause. “For the pain to end.” There was a sadness in his voice that haunts me to this day. I knew he was probably thinking of my mother. He had loved and lost before, but in those situations he was the one who’d walked away. I think it’s a much deeper agony when you’re the one being left.

  I did the math: two years for me. Twenty-four for him. According to his philosophy, at the time he still had eleven years to go. But there are some things in life—some people—we never really get over. We just learn to live through the pain. Dad was always good at that—living through pain.

  Several years ago, Mom asked me to tell my father she will always love him and that she forgave him for all her pain. When I conveyed th
e message, Dad stared down in his lap, as if remembering his own sorrow. After a moment, he looked up and said, “Tell her that I love and forgive her too.” I nodded in agreement wondering how love ends up this way.

  Most women think that men cheat on them because they’re lacking in some way—not beautiful enough, thin enough, etc. Because my mother was so exceptionally beautiful and intelligent, and my father still cheated on her, I learned that it has absolutely nothing to do with a woman’s looks. It’s more to do with men having problems and issues of their own.

  I thought about my mother and her decision to leave my father. Did she come home one day and realize she was no longer in love with him, or did it happen gradually, over time? I have so many unanswered questions, questions I never asked either of them, fearing I don’t know what, really—the answer, maybe? Or worse, the painful memories that might resurface on hearing the details: the months following the divorce when I would smile watching my father walk up the brick driveway to visit us at the new house, then cry when it was time for him to leave and walk away, his suffering only outweighed by my own.

  * * *

  I sat on my bed thinking about all my father was dealing with. It seemed like torture for him—knowing, yet not knowing, what would become of his marriage, his health. It was such a melancholy and unsettled time. “Faith comes easy when things are going smooth in life,” he once said. “The test is holding on to it when the winds of change and uncertainty blow.”

  He got through it, of course; he’s always had a remarkable tolerance for discomfort, both physical and emotional. So much so that we never knew when something was bothering him. A headache, cramped hands, a limp in his walk. You had to watch him closely, especially near the end. He never complained. And he always had an extraordinary ability to turn a negative situation into a positive one. He came to the earth that way.

  Dad started boxing when he was twelve, after his bike was stolen. Every day after school he’d go to Nazareth College to help the nuns Sister Allen and Sister Christina dust the shelves, sweep the floors, and take care of the library. From there, he crossed the street to Columbia Gym to train with Joe Martin, the policeman who had introduced him to boxing, whom he met just after the bike was stolen. I imagined him in the gym—sparring, jumping rope, and hitting the speed bag; he could never pass a mirror without shadowboxing.

  Joe Martin introduced my father to the sport, but Dad always said that it was a black man named Fred Stoner, whom he had to train with in secret, who taught him the science of boxing. After training from six to eight at Martin’s gym, he’d sneak over to Stoner’s—“To get my real training,” said Dad. Joe Martin had one rule: no one could train with Stoner or his boy.

  Day after day, Dad repeated the process.

  My father was embarrassed to tell his friends that he didn’t always have a nickel to ride the bus to school, so he found a creative way to deal with the situation. The walk from his house on Grand Avenue to Central High was long. This is a good chance for exercise, he thought, as the big city bus drove past one morning. And with that he ran out beside it, his classmates and friends waving and smiling at the sight of him. He never knew what they were saying. He just smiled and waved back as he jogged beside the bus all the way to school, with his peers shaking their heads and saying, “That Cassius is as nutty as can be.”

  31

  They say men learn how to be good husbands from their fathers, and women learn from their mothers. I think my mom had the advantage here. She grew up in a modest but comfortable house in Los Angeles, with two sisters, Michelle and Diane, and three brothers, Tony, Leonard, and Steven. My grandfather, Horace Porche, was a carpenter. He built the house they grew up in after my grandmother, Ethel, a registered nurse, received a $30,000 inheritance from one of her private-duty patients.

  My mother’s father was the opposite of Papa Cash, my dad’s father. Grandpa Porche was a quiet, reserved, loving but unaffectionate man who liked to spend his time fishing with his friends, watching baseball, and cooking gumbo.

  “You act like you love fishing more than you love your family,” my grandmother often complained.

  “I’ll be home at five,” he’d say, and walk out the door. He was a man of few words.

  My grandmother was a fashionable, hardworking homemaker. She cooked dinner every night after work, did everyone’s laundry, and always found time to doll herself up. Her hair was always freshly rolled, and she wore red lipstick to match her pretty dresses. She loved to sing my mother’s praises, then and now. “Of all my children, your mother never gave me any trouble,” she said one afternoon, not too long ago, while cleaning out one of her closets. She was making space for more of Mom’s storage boxes. Almost every room in my grandmother’s house was stuffed with boxes and bundles of clothes and furnishings from Fremont Place—things my mother wanted to sort through before throwing them out.

  “She’d go straight to her room after school and do her homework,” Grandma said proudly. “And when she was a little girl and got her clothes dirty playing outside, she went upstairs and put on a clean dress.”

  My mother was a goody-two-shoes. She spent most of her time studying in her room, earning the perfect record of straight-A grades that my grandma loved to show off. Mom was voted Prom Queen, Homecoming Princess, Senior Class President, and she received four full scholarships to Princeton, Yale, USC, and UCLA. Grandma had been Prom Queen and valedictorian herself.

  “Why can’t you be more like Veronica?” she’d say to my aunt Diane, the rebel of the family, who regularly snuck out her bedroom window to meet her boyfriends, listing the names of the ones she kissed on a notepad in her nightstand. This had been the catalyst for my grandmother’s decision to send both her and my mother off to Catholic boarding school, where she hoped the nuns would manage to teach Auntie Diane how not to sin.

  “I’m sending you with her, Veronica, so she isn’t alone,” she explained on a Saturday afternoon as my twelve-year-old mother reluctantly packed her bags. “The year will fly by. You’ll be home before you know it.”

  Two years later, Mom returned with a perfect report card; Diana came back with a handful of names to add to her list.

  From then on, my mother’s young life was uneventful. While her sisters fought over the telephone and her brothers debated about sports, she spent most of her time, as she always had, studying in her room. Unaware that the poster hanging on her brother’s wall of the handsome, outspoken boxer—whom she thought was conceited, and whom the world and the boys in chemistry class referred to as “The Greatest of All Times”—would one day be her husband.

  My grandparents separated after my mother graduated high school. Grandma, still young, beautiful, and in need of attention, found herself a boyfriend, and my grandfather eventually moved into the guesthouse at Fremont Place. For the most part, my mother’s youth was ordinary. Dad, on the other hand, observed more than any little boy should, growing up in the segregated South of Louisville, Kentucky.

  Louise Hay wrote in her bestselling book You Can Heal Your Life, “We’re all victims, of victims . . . When we learn about our parents’ childhood we learn where their fears and rigid patterns come from.”

  Like so many parents around the world, my parents were doing the best they could with what they had been taught as children.

  * * *

  I forgot about the newspapers and magazine articles for a while and let my thoughts roam. I thought about my father’s childhood, and how different it was from mine and my mother’s. I wondered what it was like for him when his parents separated. He was an adult when his father moved out, but still I wondered if it had the same effect on him as it did me.

  I thought, too, about my father’s parents, Papa Cash and Mama Bird, and the little pink house Dad grew up in at 3302 Grand Avenue, with its leaky roof and walls, and lopsided front porch. The porch my father, as a seven-year-old little boy, used to go outside and sit on and look up at the stars, waiting for God, or one of his angels, to tel
l him his divine mission in life. He always believed he’d been born for a special purpose.

  I wished I could go back in time and tell that little boy—my dad—that he was right. He was born for a special purpose, and he would grow up and fulfill it a thousandfold and come to be known all over the world as The Greatest.

  My Father’s Childhood

  Everything Muhammad did seemed different as a child. He even had the measles and the chicken pox at the same time . . . His mind was like the March wind, blowing every which way. And whenever I thought I could predict what he’d do, he turned around and proved me wrong.

  One time he tied a string to our curtains in the bedroom and ran the string out the window around the house to his own room. Then when we went to sleep, he’d pull on the string to make the curtains move. He always had confidence in himself. And that gave me confidence in him. He started boxing when he was twelve and he’d sit up at night and tell me how someday he was going to be the champion of the world. I always felt like God made Muhammad special, but I don’t know why God chose me to carry this child.

  —Odessa Grady Clay, aka Mama Bird, in Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, Thomas Hauser, 1991

  32

  Every great person has a story of how they came to be. A place, a reason, a moment when their purpose became clear and the journey began. And there comes a time in every person’s life when they have to choose the course their life will take, inspiring a series of events that will ultimately shape their destiny. For my father, Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., “the only man in history to become famous under two names,” the story began when he was twelve. But his road to glory was paved with humble beginnings.

  On October 9, 1984, a reporter from Star magazine asked my dad, if he could go back and relive his life, would he do everything the same way?