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By Root 572 0

that seemed to adumbrate Odessa’s often buried influence on him. He had nothing to say about Elijah Muhammad, who died in February of 1975. He died intestate, but left over $5 million to his squabbling sons, including Herbert and Wallace. Not bad for a young man who, after a white guy (he said) pressed a black ear into his hand, would found an erstwhile movement of irregular energy. With that kind of money, why did Ali have to buy him a house in Phoenix and absorb his hospital expenses? “’Cause he’s a nut,” Cash said. “The old man took him to the cleaners, and they still not done.” In the ensuing struggle for power, Ali would align himself with Wallace, who had an orthodox Islamic world view rather than his father’s storefront hustle, though he was not void of unearthly power, according to Ali: “Wallace, he disappears in rooms.”

Two hours after tenderly designing his son’s future, Ali went into his packed gym for a workout, and if there was any doubt of his mellowing toward Frazier it was dispelled. He hit the gym like a kid bent on chasing the boredom of a late summer afternoon; burn the insect or slowly dissect it of wing and leg? Of all the meanness, racial and personal, directed at Frazier over the years, this one was without duplication. As soon as he climbed into the ring, the crowd chanted his name, and he moved to the edge of the ring as if he were going to explain the finer parts of a seminar. Gypsy Joe Harris, back in Frazier’s good graces, stood next to me and watched as Ali let the crowd fall to a hush.

“Who am I?” he finally asked. “You know who I am?”

“The greatest!” Bundini shouted. “The king of all he see!”

The crowd began to chant, responding like one of those crowds that used to greet some Duke of Doo-Wop: “The greatest! The greatest!”

It continued until Ali spread his hands for silence. “Gorilla,” he then said. He waited, then came at them with a louder “Gorilla.”

“Joe Frazier!” a guy in the back shouted, looking like an arriviste Hell’s Angel.

“No!” a young white woman with a pasty face, blond hair like straw, and the decolletage of a barmaid shouted at ringside. “The ape man! Ape! Ape!”

Ali stared above the gathering into infinity, his mouth angry, eyes blank, then screamed: “Joe Frazier should give his face to the Wildlife Fund! He so ugly, blind men go the other way!” Bundini slapped his thighs, the comic in love with his own lines. “Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!” Ali went on, then added: “He not only looks bad! You can smell him in another country!” He held his nose. “What will the people in Manila think? We can’t have a gorilla for a champ. They’re gonna think, lookin’ at him, that all black brothers are animals. Ignorant. Stupid. Ugly. If he’s champ again, other nations will laugh at us.”

“Call us pig farmers!” the Hell’s Angel bleated. “Can’t have it!”

“Jist niggers!” a black guy screamed, tossing a grenade from the rear that extracted a sad expression from Ali. “Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “Jist niggahs and freaks. They gonna say that ’bout me?”

“Nooooooo!” the crowd roared in unison.

“Right on!” Ali agreed, then prepared for his parting shot. “Gorilla,” he said. “Ugly and smelly!” He then dropped low, on his haunches, splayed his feet, knuckles waving by his knees, and turned his nose flat and gross as he mimicked an ape. He jumped frantically around the ring, snorting and puzzled like an ape. The crowd chanted his name, mindless, nearly out of hand and, with Frazier not there to trample to death, it pushed toward the ring. Ali held his hands up, then dropped one finger to crush his nose again and said: “Settle down now. Be back in a few minutes and show ya how I’m gonna destroy the niggah.”

“Smoke ain’t gonna like this,” Gypsy said, shaking his head.

Did he have to tell him?

“Why you think I’m here?” he said. “Smoke wants to know everything.”

According to Gypsy, he reported back to Joe, who was getting dressed after a workout. A neat man, he was meticulous about the way he dressed and appeared. Music was playing, he splashed lotion on his face, and he was in a high mood.

“What you got,