LITMIR.BIZ

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more than a lifetime of obscurity.”

      When I started studying the lives of the great old boxers, I saw a lot of similarity to what Cus was preaching. They were all mean motherfuckers. Dempsey, Mickey Walker, even Joe Louis was mean, even though Louis was an introvert. I trained myself to be wicked. I used to walk to school, snapping at everybody. Deep down, I knew I had to be like that because if I failed, Cus would get rid of me and I would starve to death.

      Cus had given me a book to read called In This Corner … ! I couldn’t put it down. I saw how these fighters dealt with their emotions, how they prepared for fights. That book gave me such superior insight into the psychology of human beings. What struck me was how hard the old-time fighters worked, how hungry they were. I read that John L. Sullivan would train by running five miles and then he’d walk back the five miles and spar for twenty rounds. Ezzard Charles said he only ran three to four miles a day and boxed six rounds. I thought, Damn, Sullivan trained harder in the 1880s than this guy did in the 1950s. So I started walking four miles to the gym, did my sparring, and then walked back to the house. I started emulating the old-school guys because they were hard-core. And they had long careers.

      I drove Cus nuts asking him questions about these old fighters all the time. I know he wanted to talk about boxing but I think I overdid it sometimes. I read all of Cus’s books about boxing, so when we’d sit around the dining room table and Cus would start expounding to the other guys about boxing history and he’d stumble on a name or a date, I’d finish his sentence for him.

      “This guy knows everything,” he’d say. “He acts like he was there.”

      I was serious about my history because I learned so much from the old fighters. What did I have to do to be like this guy? What discipline did this other guy possess? Cus would tell me how vicious and mean they were outside the ring but when they’re in it, they’re relaxed and calm. I got excited hearing him talk about these guys, seeing that he held them in such high esteem. I wanted so much for someone to talk like that about me. I wanted to be part of that world. I would watch the fights on TV and I’d see the boxers punching with grimaces on their faces and their ripped bodies, and I wanted that to be my face and my body.

      We talked about all the greats. I fell in love with Jack Johnson. What a courageous guy. He was really the first black-pride guy. And I loved his arrogance. He got pulled over for speeding at the turn of the century and the ticket was for, like, ten dollars and he gave the cop a twenty and said, “Why don’t you take this twenty ­because I’m going to be coming back the same way I’m going.”

      He was a master of manipulation. When he was training, he’d wrap his penis before he put on his tights to make it look larger and give the white guys an inferiority complex. He’d humiliate his opponents during fights. He was the original trash talker. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars if you can cut my lip,” he’d say. He’d laugh in the face of his opponents during a round, talk to his white wife and tell her how much he loved her while he was beating the shit out of the guy he was fighting. He was a guy I would have loved to hang with. He spoke several languages and partied with the royal families of Russia and England. Dempsey was the first million-dollar champion. He brought showbiz and glamour to boxing. I related to him the most because he was a real insecure guy, he was always afraid, but he always overcame those feelings to reach his goals.

      Cus loved Henry Armstrong the most. He would constantly attack his opponents and wear them down. “Constant attack, no letup,” Cus told me. “Moving his head with a good defense, that’s what Armstrong would do. Break his opponent’s will, destroy his spirit, make all his causes a lie.”

      Make all his causes a fucking lie? Whoa. Then Cus would stare at me.

      “If you listen to me, you’ll reign with the gods. See the way you’re interested and talk about all these old fighters? By the time you’re champ, if you listen to me, the only reason people would know about these guys was because you’d talk about them. You’ll supersede them all. You’ll make them forget about everybody. I watched Jack Dempsey as a boy. I’ve met these guys, shook their hands. They are not what you are. You are a giant; you are a colossus among men.”

      I ate that shit up. But all this talk about dedication and discipline and hard work wasn’t enough to keep me from going back to Brooklyn and doing my jostling and robbing. I was playing two heads of the same coin. I’d be up in Catskill and be the choirboy and then I’d go down to Brooklyn and be the devil. Thank God that I never got arrested for anything. That would have broken Cus’s heart.

      Cus knew how to make me feel like I could conquer the world. But he also knew how to make me feel like shit. Sometimes he’d tell me, “You allow your mind to get the better of you.” That was his secret, unwritten code way of saying, “You’re a weak piece of shit. You don’t have enough discipline to be one of the greats.” The greats could fight the best fight of their life even if someone had just kidnapped their child or killed their mother. Greats are totally emotionally independent. Performers are like that too, not just boxers. Some of the legendary artists I read about would be high on everything but still be able to go out there and do a record-breaking performance. They couldn’t even walk, but they had great discipline and determination. Sometimes they’d go directly from the arena to a hospital. I wanted to be one of those fighters and performers.

      From the first night I moved in with Cus, he started to break me down, see how far he could fuck with me for no reason. He’d come to my room and say, “What did you do in school today, what did you do? Well, you had to do something, you were in school all day. What did you learn? Where’s your homework? Do you have homework today?” The other guys in the house would always say that Cus favored me but they didn’t know what he was saying to me when we were alone.

      I was always struggling with my weight. In my mind, I was a fat pig even though nobody would know by looking at me. When I trained, I would put Albolene over my pores and wear a plastic suit for a week or two and only take it off at nighttime when I was taking a hot bath so I could sweat some more weight off. Then I’d go to bed and wake up the next morning and put it on and go run and wear it the whole day.

      My weight was another thing that Cus would get on me about. “Your ass is getting fat,” he’d say. “You’re losing interest, aren’t you? You don’t want to do this no more, huh, Mike? It’s too tough for you, isn’t it? You thought that we were playing games up here, didn’t you? You thought you were back in Brownsville running around and playing games. Huh?” Imagine hearing that. Just as I was about to enjoy some ice cream that I only allowed myself to have on the weekend, I’d hear that. “Not many people could do this, that’s why it’s so special. Jeez, I really thought you could.”

      Sometimes Cus would reprimand me and I’d have no idea why. He would rip into me, put down my character. “You can never reach the apex of what we’re aiming for with your infantile behavior and conduct.” At times I’d just scream, “I hate everybody here! Agggghhhhh.” Cus was tearing me apart.

      I would pick up on his positive comments and say things like, “I’m going to do anything I can do to win. I’d give my life to be champion, Cus.” And instead of saying, “You’ll get it, Mike,” he had to just step in my face. “You just be careful what you ask for, you might get it.”

      He’d even criticize my clothes. On the holidays, they might have some guests over, Camille’s sister or someone. I’d put on nice slacks and a shirt and a vest and I’d wear a tie that Camille helped me put on. I’d be sitting there chilling and all the ladies would be saying, “Oh, you look so nice, Mike.” And then Cus would come in the room.

      “What are you dressed like that for? Your pants are so tight your balls and your ass are all over the place. What is wrong with you?”

      Camille would defend me, but Cus had none of it.

      “Don’t tell me nothing about what you think about this. Camil-lee, please. Okay? There is nothing nice about his clothes.”

      Cus would never call me bad names like “a son of a bitch.” He’d just call me “a tomato can and

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