Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [47]
Enrico Caruso, the great tenor who once worked in this same building, surely never heard such a roar as that which greeted Ali as he entered the ring. Practically before the crowd sat down it was on its feet. Ali dazzled, and it was clear that he was beyond any optimistic reach that Quarry had entertained. Ali cut him in the third, the fight was stopped, making it inconclusive whether it had been the true reemergence of the most lurid comet in sports; for now, the sputtering tail of it was enough. As for Quarry, after so many self-deceptions in so many fights, the essayist William Hazlitt had him pegged: “He has lost nothing by the late fight but his presumption.”
For Ali, it was on to Oscar Bonavena in December at the Garden; at this rate Oscar might get to buy all of Argentina. Ali had his hands full with Oscar; he seemed weary, punched out as Bonavena kept dropping on him like a falling safe; Ali mocked his style. Bundini Brown yelled from the corner: “Stop it! Stop that! Box like Sugar Ray. Get vicious!” Ali came back to the corner and said to Brown: “Here, take my gloves. I don’t know what to do with this clumsy fool.”
Frazier was sitting next to Durham, his nails up to his mouth, his eyes fixed for calamity. “If he keeps foolin’ with that bowlin’ ball,” he said to Durham, “we could lose millions.” As the fight wore on, Durham said, “Joe damn near jumped in the ring himself.” By the fifteenth, with both fighters exhausted, Ali ripped a left home. Oscar went down.
“Now he’s mine,” Joe said, sighing.
“Go up and shake his hand,” Yank teased.
“I got nothin’ to say to that clown,” Joe replied.
THRILLA
Miles above the Pacific, on the last leg of a twenty-one-hour trip that began in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a few hours into the ten-hour slog from Honolulu to Manila, was no place for a phobic flyer. Every grumble and wheeze of the plane became a fatal signal, every nerve was a gymnast whirring through a high triple flip with uncertain outcome. Not wanting to think of the vastness below, dark water with limitless species of hungry sharks, I riffed with a vague recall of island specks where a jet in trouble could land. Micronesia? The Marshalls? Tonga? What was the mathematical probability of surviving a splash? Bundini wasn’t calculating a few rows ahead; he was deep into a Chivas Regal dream with his mouth open. The cabin was quiet, dimmed to a reassuring calm, the propitious moment (wasn’t it always?) for the plunge to disaster. Ali’s presence, somewhere in the back, comforted some; as a psychological talisman he was worth at least the presence of a dozen cardinals.
Just as I began to flirt with the surface of sleep from nervous exhaustion, there was a loud bang to the back of the seat, then a steady vibration. The senses went into full alert, girding for a turbulent, terminal dip of the plane; the bang was a familiar sound now, since I’d heard an engine blow out once on takeoff from London. Would the contour of Saipan or Tarawa, any blessed, jungle-rot strip, be below? Breath came in gulps, brain and body honed in for the rattle of the plane. But there was none, just Ali’s sizable army scattered and as restful as clams. The source of the disturbance was soon evident—Ali, eyes popped wide, standing over the seat back. It was a relief to see him; better an untimely prank than some bungled little screws torn free somewhere.
“You’re scared,” Ali said, “and I got you more scared.” He slipped into the seat, muffling his laughter. “I love to scare people.”
“You torture rabbits, too?”
“Man, this plane goes down, we don’t have a chance,” he said. “All them octopuses and man-eaters down there. Gotta be able to swim.”
“Like you? You can’t swim.”
“Even if I could save you,” he said, “you’d be last in line. What you call me recently? A…a…a…I can’t remember.”
“A simpleton.”
“That’s it! A simpleton. That’s not right to do.”
“You missed the second part of that. A simpleton