Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [9]
“I know a secret,” Gypsy confided soon after. “Ol’ Frazier got a big physical problem. Nobody know, and I ain’t sayin’ either. He a friend, and I ain’t no squealer. But it hurt bad to see how I have to pay.”
A couple of years later, 1969, Gypsy recalled the triggering event that caused the bitter rip between Ali and Joe. They were on the way to see the unsuspecting Ali at his home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, outside of Philly. Frazier was so angry that Gypsy offered to drive, futilely. Joe seemed tired, tight, until he, forever the gospeler, turned toward Gypsy and said, “Trouble with you, Gyp…you just never learned to behave. Street ain’t givin’ you nothin’ back.” A few years earlier he would never have been so critical of Gypsy. Frazier had once been just a heavy, wide kid whom Gyp would leave lunging for a trace of presence like a hunting dog with a bad nose. Even well into being polished, it still took Frazier three rounds or so to find enough of Gypsy to graze with a glove. Gypsy was vital to the development of Joe, helped him grasp the concept of economical footwork. With Cubist moves that always dazzled the eye, Gypsy taunted Joe into quick punching angles until it became dangerous for anyone to speculate that Frazier could be boxed into confusion. After being banished, Gypsy said: “I weren’t his light bag. He act like it sometime. He forget I was a star, too.”
So they rode on, and Gypsy said, “Yank sold me out. Just like that, they find my eye. They find nothin’ in physicals before.”
“You sold yourself out,” Frazier said.
“Oh yeah?” Gyp said. “Well don’t be worryin’ ’bout me. Best you be worryin’ ’bout the big man. He be comin’ for you down the road. ’Member we go all those rounds. I too fast for you. Big man, he gonna be too fast, too.” He added sharply, “And a one-eyed man know a one-eyed man when he see him.”
Frazier, caught off balance, slammed the car to a stop and said, “What kinda shit you talkin’? What you signifyin’?”
“I’m just talkin’, Joe,” Gypsy said. “Why you upset? So, where we goin’, Joe?”
Frazier sat behind the wheel in thought for several minutes. “You oughta watch things ya say, Gyp,” he said, adding, “We gonna see your big man. See how big he is.”
“You gotta be kiddin’, right?” Gypsy asked.
“I ain’t no joker like you.”
Gypsy was wary and excited. Joe could be positively scary in a mood like this. Generally, his pal was a man of small temper and could trade insults with the best in the gym if it was all in the right spirit, but Frazier was not someone who ever tolerated being shown up or embarrassed. Once when Joe was young and shadow boxing, another fighter the same size stood by laughing at his poor coordination. He let him have his fun, then walked over to him, saying, “You finished?” The fighter said, “I’ll let you know.” Joe grabbed him, lifted him in the air, and sent him bouncing across the floor into a wall. “I think you finished now,” Joe said as he stood over the guy, who was clutching a broken arm. Gypsy remembered that encounter as he looked across at Joe from the passenger seat. Gypsy had thought Joe and Ali got along, but it was clear to him that something decidedly nasty was “comin’ down.” Way too personal. To Gypsy, professionals were impersonal, they moved across nightscapes into big arenas like revenants, gave what they had, left as little blood behind as