like a boys’ locker room
with no ventilation
like a hot, musty day
after rain
like cut grass
in August
like the sweat
of a dozen boys
after hours
doing pull-ups,
skipping rope,
and hammering away
at heavy bags
and each other.
Columbia Boxing Gym
The plastered floor
was coming apart,
the fluorescent lights
barely hung from the ceiling.
The grimy, white-brick walls
were covered
in Louis and Dempsey posters and
large red signs
with gym rules,
training checklists,
Tomorrow’s Champion announcements,
and corny
but uplifting quotes
printed on them:
Winners are not those
who never fail.
They are those
who never quit.
The place was loud.
Old men coaching kids—some
I knew,
some I didn’t,
some white,
most black—guys
lacing gloves
and talking trash
about what they were gonna do
to each other
in the ring,
and, thing was, it felt good,
real good,
to be in there.
In the Middle
of the gym
was the square ring
with the ropes
I’d only seen
on TV,
and two muscly teenagers
I knew
from school
throwing wild punches
at each other’s heads
and missing.
On the punching bag
was a tall fella
with a lighting-fast blast
of a blow
that looked like
it could tear a man’s head
straight off his neck.
Egging him on,
occasionally looking
around the gym
at the goings on
was an old white guy
with two ballpoints in his pocket,
hair only on the sides
of his head,
and cuffed black pants so baggy
you could barely see his shoes.
When he saw me,
he walked my way.
Conversation with an Old White Guy
You lost, kid?
No, sir, but my bike is.
How’d you lose a bike?
SOMEBODY STOLE IT, AND I AIM TO FIND OUT WHO!
Simmer down, now.
WHEN I FIND HIM, I’M GONNA WHUP HIM GOOD, TOO.
Not a good idea to tell a policeman you gonna commit assault.
You the cop?
Twenty-five years.
Can I file a report or something?
You see the culprit? Any witnesses?
No, sir. But I think I know who did it.
Come down to the station on Monday.
Can’t you just help me out now?
A little busy down here.
You a boxer, too?
Do I look like a fighter, kid?
That don’t mean nothing. Look at those clumsy fellas in the ring.
Palookas. The both of them. They got will, but no skill, and they don’t listen.
You their coach?
I’m coach and uncle. Teacher and counselor. I’m breaking muscles. They’re chasing dreams.
Oh.
Most of these boys never gonna box for real, but at least they get to knock out their anger in the ring, instead of getting into trouble on the streets.
Where’s your badge? You undercover?
Enough with the questions, I got to get back to work.
This is a cool place.
You know how to fight?
Never been beat up.
That’s not what I asked you. You a southpaw? How’s your jab? Show me an uppercut.
…
If you wanna learn, come down here after school one day.
My momma won’t allow that.
Seems to me if you wanna whup somebody, you should learn how to fight first.
…
You know where I’ll be.
But what about my bike?
You can kiss that bike goodbye, kid, but we’ll file that report on Monday.
Thanks. Hey, what’s your name?
The sign on the door says Joe Martin’s Gym, and this is my gym, so you can call me Joe Martin.
Good to meet you, Joe Martin. I’m Cassius Clay.
Momma, Please
let me go
down to the gym
to box, I begged.
I promise
I’ll do better
in school,
even in French class,
plus I’ll bring Rudy
and teach him,
and make sure
he doesn’t get hurt.
The old man
said he would help me
find my bike, too,
and train me
to protect myself.
I’ve been born again, and
maybe I can be great
at something
besides my looks.
After Momma Bird finished
laughing, she agreed,
then told me
Cash was gonna buy me
a motor scooter
and that I better not
let that get stolen too.
I hooped and hollered.
Merci, I said, then hugged her
and ran to tell Riney
and Lucky the big news.
Cassius Clay is gonna be
a fighter.
ROUND SIX
As you’ve probably picked up by now, Cassius always thought big. Dreamed big. Talked big!
This one night when we were kids, we sat around his living room with Rudy and Mrs. Clay and listened to President Eisenhower on the radio. But even when a president was talking, Cassius would never shut up. He was too busy picturing himself in that big white mansion in Washington, D.C.
“I could be president!” he said. “I should be president!”
President Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. He said that name would look good on money. Mrs. Clay just shook her head and tried to shush him, but Cassius would not quit.
“He’s right,” Mr. Clay added. “He would be the best president ever!”
“Not just the best; the most beautiful one!” Cassius said.
And I think he really, truly believed it.
I don’t know what made him think that in a million years a black man could ever be president. In most places around where we lived, black people could hardly even vote! After a while, Cassius forgot about being president—but he stayed way too cocky about most other things.
Once, for about two weeks, all he talked about was the movie in his head where he beat Rocky Marciano—the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world! And in his movie, Cassius didn’t just beat Marciano. He knocked him out! Cassius was the first man in history to KO the Rock from Brockton. In his dreams.
But sometimes, when it was just me and Cassius, that confidence slipped a little. It would dim and flicker. Call it nerves. Worry. Maybe fear of failing. Fear of not living up to his own movie. I remember when his first big fight was coming up, he acted all tough and flashy around most people. He bragged to Rudy. He shadowboxed rings around his daddy. He rolled up his sleeves, showing off his skinny arms, and pumped his biceps for Mrs. Clay. But sometimes, I could tell he was acting—putting on a show. Not just for them, but for himself, too. I think maybe it was his way of convincing himself of his own greatness.
I remember Cassius showing up at school in the mor
ning with two raw eggs and a quart of milk. I watched him break the eggs into the milk, shake it all up, and drink the whole mess down in one long gulp.
“I’m the baaaaaaddest dude in Looville!” he’d shout, making sure that everybody could hear him. I guess he thought if everybody heard him, it kind of made it true.
Sometimes I saw Cassius get inspired by real movies. Every Saturday, we went to the Lyric, the Grand, or the Palace—the theaters down on Walnut Street. We saw every Western movie ever made. Every pirate movie. Every Tarzan movie. We wondered why the heroes in those movies were always white, even in the African jungle—but Cassius still loved seeing the good guy win in the end. Because that’s how he wanted to see himself—a winner against all odds, no matter what.
The truth was, Cassius knew that most of the kids in the gym were bigger than he was. Maybe stronger. He knew there probably wouldn’t be any headgear to protect him against those hard jabs and hooks. All around Joe Martin’s gym, we saw old boxers with noses flattened like mashed turnips. Some of them had their ears all crushed and mangled too. Cauliflower ear, they called it.
“I don’t wanna look like no vegetable, Lucky,” said Cassius. “I gotta stay pretty.”
And those boxing gloves. They were so dang heavy! Black leather, with “EVERLAST” in big letters around the wrists. When Cassius was starting out, those gloves felt like lead weights at the ends of his skinny arms, especially after a long training session or sparring match. One night when we were walking home, Cassius told me he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep the gloves up in front of his face in a real fight. And if he let them drop, even for a second… POW! Turnip. Cauliflower.
They say fear is catching—and I admit that I caught a touch of it. I caught it from Cassius. I think deep down we both had the exact same fear—that when he finally did get to fight on TV, he would lose. And that his dream—his own personal movie—would end right then and there.
Distance
Me, Riney, and Lucky
go waaaaay back
like Cadillac seats,
since grade school,
but now Lucky goes
to a fancy Catholic school
for smart kids
on the other side
of town, so
I only see him
on weekends
or after school
when he comes by
the gym
to see me sparring.
Conversation with Lucky
How you like your school?
The food is nasty, but it’s all right. They might skip me a grade.
I wish I could skip the rest of ’em.
I think I might go to Bellarmine College and study journalism.
To the Olympics is where I’m going. I’m too slick for these tricks, Lucky.
You got to get past the Golden Gloves first, Gee-Gee.
To win the Golden Gloves is my goal
and after that, it’s Olympic Gold.
These fists of fury will be my claim to fame.
Kings and queens will know my name.
Say it loud, what’s my name?
CASSIUS CLAY! ENOUGH YAPPING.
Oh, hey, Mr. Martin, I’m just funnin’.
Do that on your own time. This is my time.
Hey, Mr. Martin. Uh, I’ll catch up with ya later, Gee-Gee.
Later, Lucky.
Cassius, you got a dream?
Yes, sir, Mr. Martin, I’m gonna be a winner.
What’s the best way to make a dream come true?
Only Way
to make a dream
come true
is to wake up.
You gotta put in
the work, Cassius,
Joe Martin growls
for the hundredth
or thousandth time
since the first day
I stepped foot
in his gym.
Cassius, jab jab cross,
jab jab cross,
and move your feet,
not your mouth
so much.
I don’t know
why I can’t
do both, I say, laughing
and jabbing.
Roadwork
Shuffle, backpedal,
skip, dash,
and roll.
That’s half my training,
’cause Joe Martin says,
Boxers gotta run
so they don’t get spent.
A fight is not a sprint,
it’s like a short marathon, Clay!
So, I run
fast and slow,
alternating,
simulating
the rounds
in a ring,
to build up
my endurance,
keep my heart healthy,
get my lungs
and legs
strong enough
for the up
and the down
of each round
after round
after round.
Chickasaw Park
Most every day
we run before school,
take off quietly
out the back door
at 4:30 a.m.—me and Rudy
in our training gear:
green plastic trash bags draped
over us, and
heavy black paratrooper boots
that Lucky’s security-guard uncle
brought us
from Fort Knox,
We cut
straight through
Greenwood Cemetery,
zoom under the parkway
through the white neighborhoods
that we’re supposed to stay out of
to get to Chickasaw,
where we run the park
three times,
circling the fishing pond,
the cluster of oak trees,
and the three tennis courts
that I nicknamed
FREE CLAY,
since they’re the only clay courts
in Louisville
and ANYBODY can play there.
We race the last block
back to our house
as the sky dawns.
Rudy yawns,
hugs Momma—who’s on
her way
to work—on the
front lawn,
then goes inside
to shower.
Hey, Bird.
I done told you I’m not one of your friends.
Sorry, Momma Bird, I say, still jogging in place.
I swear you so big, Gee-Gee, you done outgrown your senses.
Conversation with Bird
Anybody crazy enough to be up this early ain’t got much sense.
Suffer now, and live the rest of my life as a champ.
How long you gonna keep doing this, Gee-Gee?
Until I’m a beast in the east, and the best in the west.
…
Bir—uh, Momma, I’m gonna be heavyweight champion of the WORLD, and the first thing I’m gonna do is buy you a big house up in the Highlands just like the ones you clean for them rich folks every day.
Son, don’t mind my job, I don’t. It’s decent work.
My momma shouldn’t be cleanin’ toilets and cooking food for nobody. Not for four dollars a day. Not for nothing.
I take pride in my work, son. And God bless that four dollars. It bought them trash bags you wasting.
I’m not wasting them. It’s part of a fighter’s training, helps me sweat off the fat, keep my weight right. Plus, I take pride too… in being the Greatest.
Boxing doesn’t make you the greatest.
Boxing’s gonna take us away from all this.
We got a nice house, a car, food on the table, family.
The Bible says—
The Bible didn’t get me and Rudy into
Fontaine Ferry Park, and it sho’ ain’t—
Boy, don
’t you dare blaspheme the Good Book.
I’m just saying, I don’t need church to tell me what I already know.
What you know and what you think you know is two different things.
Momma, I know who I am, and whose I am. That’s what Granddaddy Herman told me.
God rest his soul.
…
You gonna have me late to work. Look after your brother, make sure he’s fresh. He likes to run water for thirty seconds and call himself clean.
Okay, Momma.
And just promise me you gonna read your Bible, go to school, and at least try not to mess up your face doing that boxing.
I came in here pretty and I’m gonna leave here pretty.
Boy, you sillier than a goose.
Sweeter than juice, and stronger than Zeus, too.
Bye, boy.
Hold up, Momma. Been working on a poem for when I win the Olympics. Wanna hear it?
Hurry up and say it then, boy, ’fore I miss my bus…
My Victory Speech
The Olympics gave me quite the scare.
Fought three rounds with a big ol’ bear.
Came at me all wild and frantic
with fists of fury from ’cross the Atlantic.
Threw a big left, then launched a right.
Exploded on me like dynamite.
But Cassius Clay did not retreat.
I knocked him into the ringside seats.
Yeah, he was strong, but I was stronger.
If you thought he’d win, you couldn’t be wronger.
Who’s the boss that shook up the world?
Face so pretty, it’s like a pearl.
I’m the greatest, you have been told.
Now, hand me my Olympic Gold.
Craps
After last period,
Me, Riney, Rudy,
and Big Head Paul
peep some of the older guys
shooting dice
behind the school,
so I pucker my lips