Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [81]
His brother was one of thirty eight in Ali’s entourage for this trip, about six or seven who could qualify as workers, and they all could write his room number with confident flourish on checks. He had picked up a new addition, a body servant from Malaysia named Bala, his latest favorite. “He’s so obedient,” Ali said. “Always saying ‘yes sir, no sir.’ He’ll go fetch anything for you. Even take your shoes off for you. I pay people who won’t do that. He’s civilized.” Otherwise, there were the all too familiar faces: Gene Kilroy, the chief of logistics; a couple of quack doctors worthy of being defrocked; Luis Sarria, the meditative masseur; the Texan Lloyd Wells, who got the women and had no other job until he was put in charge of hotel bills and rooms. “These are professional hangers-on,” Lloyd said, in admiration of the staggering bills. “We got the best in the business.” Jeremiah Shabazz, Herbert’s muscle and spy; the decent Wali Youngblood, the taster of Ali’s sweat from which he believed he could divine conditioning; the inimitable and garish Cash, who liked to say: “Without me, there ain’t no Ali.” Throw in assorted boyhood friends, groupies, and grifters, and you had a floating Casbah around the world.
It was astonishing how unsubtly some of them seemed to live through him, become him. Out of the ring, the struggle for Ali’s favor went on like one of those old European wars, and no one was spared. “Look at the big trainer, Angelo,” one said. “He doesn’t know a cue tip from a bucket.” Youngblood, an assistant trainer, used to moan: “I build Ali up to condition, and Wells tears him down,” a comment that hinted that Wells was in charge of more than accounting. Ed Hughes, who was in charge of massaging Ali’s scalp, said: “Man, I’m not like the rest of these crabs in a can.” In Munich later, when he fought Richard Dunn, sand started to dribble from Ali’s heavy bag. Two workers, like wild insects, dove to clean it up, elbowing each other, with one saying: “Get away from me, boy. I’m handlin’ this mess.”
In Japan, some of them would be thrown in jail for shooting pictures of nudity in a gender-neutral bathhouse, a sacramental ritual to the Japanese. A crisis point would evolve in Munich. Ali was weary of the bills, gathered them together. He picked on Bundini first. “You, Bundini!” he shouted. “How many phone calls can you make in a day? How many meals can you eat?” Shabazz, munching on a sandwich, shouted: “Amen!” Youngblood, a Muslim, complained: “Too many sausage eaters around here.” Ali asked: “Who you mean?” Wali didn’t speak. “You make a statement,” Ali said, “then don’t tell me what you mean. What kind of friend are you?” Youngblood was furious, took off his jacket.
“Come on over here, sucker,” Ali yelled. “Come here and I’ll throw you out the window.”
They all stood there frozen like blind men in Calcutta, sensing that their tin cups were about to be smashed. Ali then calmed down after a long silence and said: “Look, fellas. I don’t mind you eating. You want three steaks, get three steaks.” He started to get riled again. “I feed you niggers,” he said. “I take you all over the world. You see places. You learn things. Never been anywhere in your life. You treat me like this?” But he could never be the constable for long in his little town. “Look, just call long distance once a day, not every minute. Stay on the phone five minutes, okay? I understand. I get homesick myself.” He was very sensitive to his gang, patiently adjudicated their quarrels, played them off against each other, and it gave rise to the thought that he might need them more than they could ever suspect. “Nobody,” he liked to say, “has ever had a crowd around him like me. Not John Wayne, or Frank Sinatra, or Elvis Presley.”
Two figures of perverse fascination were Bundini