The pause between the final bell and the decision seemed interminable. Finally, announcer Johnny Addie approached the microphone: “Both of the judges, Artie Aidala and Frank Forbes, they score it this way—five, four, one even in favor of Clay.” Cassius had won, and boos showered the ring. Undeterred, the unflappable Addie finished his chores, though the booing made it difficult: “Referee . . . referee . . . referee Joe LoScalzo has it eight, one, one even Clay. The winner by unanimous decision, Cassius Clay.” And the floodgates of discontent opened wide. Spectators screamed and jeered, held their heads in amazement and looked dumbfounded, protesting with all their faculties what they considered a miscarriage of justice.
Cassius egged them on. He raised his hands, opened his mouth wide, mimicking the booing fans while he mugged for the cameras, and stuck out his tongue. As he began the ring interview with Don Dunphy, the spectators commenced a chant: “Fix! Fix! Fix!” Then: “Fake! Fake! Fake!” As Cassius told Dunphy that he did not want to fight Jones again and that he was ready for Sonny Liston, spectators started to throw bottles, programs, crumpled cigarette packs, cardboard drinking cups, and whatever was at hand into the ring. Some tossed unshelled peanuts; one pitched his switchblade. Cassius smiled as he gathered, shucked, and ate a few peanuts. A short time later he asked a reporter, “Why did those people boo me when I whup him? Why they don’t boo for me?”40
In the packed Miami Beach Auditorium, Liston had watched the match in a theater on closed circuit. He smiled when Cassius said he wanted to fight him for the title. What did Clay show him? someone asked. “He can’t punch. Clay showed me I’ll get locked up for murder if we’re ever matched.” He added, “He don’t know how to duck, he don’t even know how to run. He don’t know how to do anything.” But the packed Garden and impassioned fans showed Sonny something else. Boxing fans, that dying species, had been resuscitated and would pay to see someone close the Louisville Lip.41
JUST OVER A week after he defeated Jones, Cassius’s notoriety reached a landmark when he was featured in a portrait on the cover of Time, the country’s leading weekly newsmagazine. The drawing had two main parts: a book and the man. The illustration of the boxer hardly looks like him. The skin is darker, the features more coarse. Above his head two boxing gloves hold open a book of poetry, looking remarkably like a holy text. Together the images suggest that Cassius Clay was a man of action and words, a warrior and a prophet.42
The accompanying story portrayed the boxer as a simple athlete with simple dreams: “I’m going to drive down Walnut Street in a Caddy on Derby Day and all the people will point and say, ‘There goes Cassius Clay.’ Pretty girls will be there, and I’ll smell flowers and feel the nice warm air. Oh, I’m cool, then, man. I’m cool. The girls are looking at me, and I’m looking away.” This, the author of the piece implied, was Cassius Marcellus Clay, the fresh, innocent savior of boxing, the sum total of his dreams a tomato-red Cadillac Eldorado, the right woman, and a heavyweight crown.
The cover story, however, lacked depth. It laughed at Clay, noting his low IQ and uncomplicated dreams of material success. It bought his magic, seeing only what he chose to reveal. Nowhere in the article is there a mention of the civil rights movement or the Nation of Islam, of Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. There is no sense that he had an inner life, or that he wore a disguise as complete as those worn by the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sydney Carton, or Ellison’s Invisible Man. Even in the spring of 1963, he was not who people thought he was or wanted him to be.
Chapter Seven
HIDE YOUR CAT
Every man should have something he’d die for. A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
Treat me like a man or kill me.
—MALCOLM X
Since Clay turned professional, he had rarely uttered a single political word. Not once had he complained about the slow pace of desegregation, nor groused to reporters about the escalating racial violence in America. His entire focus was on building a boxing career so that he could earn a title shot and enough money to buy a grand house with two swimming pools—one inside for those rainy days—and a garage full of Cadillacs. All he talked about was boxing, his dreams, and himself. If Clay was a spokesman for any cause, it was his own. Yet the day after he defeated Doug Jones, he told a black writer in Harlem, “I will become the first heavyweight champion to fight a benefit for the NAACP.”1