Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [76]
Approaching from the air, the country seemed abundant with riches: blue mountains, emeralds of ripening rice terraces, great pools of water that changed color with reflections of the sun. Down on the ground, during a quick look at the land out of Manila, it was no less so, with its flowering poinciana trees, working caraboa, black forms like wood carvings in the fields. When the jet broke out of the clear sky into the thick smog over Manila, you could tear up the postcard, replace it with billowing smoke, baking tin roofs that shot up piercing arrows of light, a city that was sure to yield a Malthusian night terror. As the plane came to a stop, masses of Filipinos came in waves toward it. “Look at that, will ya?” Ali said, a man who certainly knew the quality of crowds.
By now kids had somehow swarmed the jet’s wings like ants on remnants of a chicken bone. The heat and sun were enough to blast one back from the cabin doors. It wasn’t just hot there, it was as if a central flamethrower was in use that dispensed heavy wet heat that crumpled the spirit instantly. Foreigners, finding it hard to adapt, stayed by the pool, or in bars; air conditioning was like an I.V. load. A motorcade was rushed into place by the plane, and Ali, squinting, hands in front of his eyes, left for the city, on a route that took him through the grim outskirts where people lined the streets and threw flowers at his limo. “See how they love me?” Ali was heard to say. “Never been a champ like me. You think even John Wayne come here and be greeted like this? No way.” This was his kind of venue, deprived masses made for his social caterwaul.
In a press corps of about eight hundred, from all points of the world, no one could honestly guess at the quality of the fight ahead. Even after his brilliant gamble in Zaire, how much at age thirty-three did Ali really have left for what would be a totally different fight, without compromise or a place to hide if their patterns of attack held and Frazier was still, as he liked to say, “put together like a tough piece of leather.” But this was going to be the endgame of the trilogy and, considering the blood factor between the pair, the probability of the momentous in some form could not be ignored. Back in his Philly gym, Joe once more had worked toward the dangerous edge, not seen since their first fight. “I’m gonna shoot it all over there,” he said. “This is the end of the line.” Under Futch, he was working again like a farmhand. His feet were in synchrony, his punching volume way up, and Futch had raised his time on the heavy bag from three minutes to five, a long, draining pull for an aging fighter. Futch had a clear vision for the fight. First, he was determined to deter any intrusion from a referee, and Joe would be physically ready and have a single focus on Ali’s belly button; he hadn’t punched to the body much in their first two meetings.
Up in Deer Lake, serenity was the mood. Belinda was not there, nor was Veronica, only the mystery woman who searched the night sky with Ali for alien ships. Once, he put his boy, not much older than a year, on his knee and said: “One day you’ll go to Venus or Mars. You’re gonna be a good man when you get big. Speak three languages. Talk to your brothers all over the world. You’ll be smart. Not like your daddy. You’ll be able to read good. Use your brains like I do my fists.” A soft moment