Ghosts of Manila - Mark Kram [94]
Watson could never understand Joe’s attitude about money. He was an easy touch in the gym, even loaned guys five thousand dollars, then complained about only making eight thousand one long day for doing autographs. “Joe,” Burt said, “I bring the money in the front door, and you send it out the back.” Says Burt: “One time Joe was peeling off a few bills for a guy in the gym. The guy went for the whole roll, but turned the wrong way. Right into Joe’s left, and there he was on the floor moaning and unable to walk.” The pair traveled constantly, and Burt remembers an afternoon when a trooper stopped them in North Carolina. Joe promptly showed him his license and registration.
“Are you Joseph Frazier?” the trooper asked.
Joe nodded.
“Do you know you were speeding?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “Doin’ a 120.”
“Where you from?”
“West Philly,” Joe said.
“Spell it,” the trooper said.
“That’s not my job. I get paid for beatin’ people up.”
Joe took the ticket, got back in the car, mumbling: “Smart mothafucker.”
When a lion no longer hunts or roams, the smallest insects begin to eat it alive, reducing and devouring. Frazier, Watson observed, was being torn up inside. He couldn’t let Manila or Ali go. “On a five-hundred-mile trip,” says Burt, “that can get mighty tiring, hearing about Ali. We were on our way to Florida once, and I happened to pay a small compliment to Ali. Joe squealed a turn into a gas station. I got out, looked up and he’s speeding away. Where was he going? I was in the middle of nowhere. Do you know, I waited two hours there. Finally he comes back and says, ‘Get your ass in here. Some things best left unsaid.’ This was, mind you, almost twenty years since Manila. For a long time, I didn’t understand what was eating at him, then I did. Ali doesn’t know how deep he cut into Joe. You don’t do to a man what he did to Joe where we come from. You never have to wonder what Joe’s thinking. He never mopes or gets depressed. He says what’s on his mind. To Joe, it was total betrayal by Ali. The acclaim Ali gets eats at him. Joe is the only legend still disrespected. Ali robbed him of who he is. To a lot of people in this city, Joe’s still ignorant, slow-speaking, dumb and ugly. The tag never leaves him. Ali can’t even talk, and he’s still the prize. I saw it at Joe’s Hall of Fame induction in 1989. Ali was there.”
Watson adds: “It was Joe’s night, and here it was all about Ali. The crowd acted like it wanted Joe to go away. He just couldn’t shake Ali, not even in the museum display where their paychecks from the first fight were together, their gloves, everything. Watching the evening progress, Joe just lowered his head and shook his head. It hurt. People have only seen one Joe, the one created by Ali. If you’re a man, that’s going to get to you in a big way. It would me. Look at Philly, murals are all over the place. Dr. J. Patti LaBelle. Marion Anderson. Frank Rizzo. Where’s Joe? What’s worse, they wanted to erect a monument to a fighter to reflect the struggle of the common man. What do they put up? A statue of Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, not even real, when they have a total example in Joe Frazier. You tell me. A movie character big as life next to the sports arena. Part of it is racism and disrespect for Joe. Funny thing. Joe is like Ali now. Doing all the talking. Odd. If I could get them together, Joe wouldn’t forgive, and Ali, in his condition, wouldn’t know how.”
Burt remembers the coldness of Frazier at the Night of a Thousand Stars, a ceremony for athletes at Radio City in New York. Everyone was there: Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Dr. J., Wilt Chamberlain, Mickey Mantle, and so on. “I was helping Joe get dressed,” says Watson. “So many names there. And there was Ali, over in a corner by himself, no one talking to him. DiMaggio looked over, then quickly turned away. But Joe kept a view of him out of the corner of his eye. You know those vests