The Great Shark Hunt Part 38

"Holy s.h.i.+t!" my attorney screamed. "Turn on the f.u.c.king lights!" He was clinging to the top of the winds.h.i.+eld. . . and suddenly he was doing the Big Spit again, leaning over the side.

I refused to slow down until I was sure n.o.body was following us -- especially that Oklahoma Ford: those people were definitely dangerous, at least until they calmed down. Would they report that terrible quick encounter to the police? Probably not. It had happened too fast, with no witnesses, and the odds were pretty good that n.o.body would believe them anyway. The idea that two heroin pushers in a white Cadillac convertible would be dragging up and down the Strip, abusing total strangers at stoplights, was prima facie absurd. Not even Sonny Listen ever got that far out of control.

We made another turn and almost rolled again. The Coupe de Ville is not your ideal machine for high speed cornering in residential neighborhoods. The handling is very mushy. . . unlike the Red Shark, which had responded very nicely to situations requiring the quick four-wheel drift. But the Whale -- instead of cutting loose at the critical moment -- had a tendency to dig in, dig in, which accounted for that sickening "here we go" sensation. which accounted for that sickening "here we go" sensation.

At first I thought it was only because the tires were soft, so I took it into the Texaco station next to the Flamingo and had the tires pumped up to fifty pounds each -- which alarmed the attendant, until I explained that these were "experimental" tires.

But fifty pounds each didn't help the cornering, so I went back a few hours later and told him I wanted to try seventy-five. He shook his head nervously. "Not me," he said, handing me the air hose. "Here. They're your tires. You You do it." do it."

"What's wrong?" I asked. "You think they can't take take seventy-five?" seventy-five?"

He nodded, moving away as I stooped to deal with the left front. "You're d.a.m.n right," he said, "Those tires want twenty-eight in the front and thirty-two in the rear. h.e.l.l, fifty's dangerous, dangerous, but seventy-five is but seventy-five is crazy -- crazy -- They'll explode!" They'll explode!"

I shook my head and kept filling the left front. "I told you," I said. "Sandoz laboratories designed these tires. They're special. I could load them up to a hundred."

"G.o.d almighty!" he groaned. "Don't do that here."

"Not today," I replied. "I want to see how they corner with seventy-five."

He chuckled. "You won't even get get to the corner, Mister." to the corner, Mister."

"We'll see," I said, moving around to the rear with the air hose. In truth, I was nervous. The two front ones were tighter than snare drums; they felt like teak wood when I tapped on them with the rod. But what the h.e.l.l? I thought. If they explode, so what? It's not often that a man gets a chance to run terminal experiments on a virgin Cadillac and four brand-new $80 tires. For all I knew, the thing might start cornering like a Lotus Elan. If not, all I had to do was call the VIP agency and have another one delivered. . . maybe threaten them with a lawsuit because all four tires had exploded on me, while driving in heavy traffic. Demand an Eldorado, next time, with four Michelin Xs. And put it all on the card. . . charge it to the St. Louis Browns.

As it turned out, the Whale behaved very nicely with the altered tire pressures. The ride was a trifle rough; I could feel every pebble on the highway, like being on roller skates in a gravel pit. . . but the thing began cornering in a very stylish manner, very much like driving a motorcycle at top speed in a hard rain: one slip and ZANG, over the high side, cartwheeling across the landscape with your head in your hands.

About thirty minutes after our brush with the Okies we pulled into an all-night diner on the Tonopah highway, on the outskirts of a mean scag ghetto called "North Las Vegas." Which is actually outside the city limits of Vegas proper. North Vegas is where you go when you've f.u.c.ked up once too often on the Strip, and when you're not even welcome in the cut-rate downtown places around Casino Center.

This is Nevada's answer to East St. Louis -- a slum and a graveyard, last stop before permanent exile to Ely or Winnemuca. North Vegas is where you go if you're a hooker turning forty and the syndicate men on the Strip decide you're no longer much good for business out there with the high rollers. . . or if you're a pimp with bad credit at the Sands. . . or what they still call, in Vegas, "a hophead." This can mean almost anything from a mean drunk to a junkie, but in terms of commercial acceptability, it means you're finished in all the right places.

The big hotels and casinos pay a lot of muscle to make sure the high rollers don't have even momentary ha.s.sles with "undesirables." Security in a place like Caesar's Palace is super tense and strict. Probably a third of the people on the floor at any given time are either s.h.i.+lls or watchdogs. Public drunks and known pickpockets are dealt with instantly -- hustled out to the parking lot by Secret Service-type thugs and given a quick, impersonal lecture about the cost of dental work and the difficulties of trying to make a living with two broken arms.

The "high side" of Vegas is probably the most closed society west of Sicily -- and it makes no difference, in terms of the day to day life-style of the place, whether the Man at the Top is Lucky Luciano or Howard Hughes. In an economy where Tom Jones can make $75,000 a week for two shows a night at Caesar's, the palace guard is indispensable, and they don't care who signs their paychecks. A gold mine like Vegas breeds its own army, like any other gold mine. Hired muscle tends to acc.u.mulate in fast layers around money/power poles. . . and big money, in Vegas, is synonymous with the Power to protect it.

So once you get blacklisted on the Strip, for any reason at all, you either get out of town or retire to nurse your act along, on the cheap, in the shoddy limbo of North Vegas. . . out there with the gunsels, the hustlers, the drug cripples and all the other losers. North Vegas, for instance, is where you go if you need to score smack before midnight with no references.

But if you're looking for cocaine, and you're ready up front with some bills and the proper code words, you want to stay on the Strip and get next to a well-connected hooker, which will take at least one bill for starters.

And so much for all that. We didn't fit the mold. There is no formula for finding yourself in Vegas with a white Cadillac full of drugs and nothing to mix with properly. The Fillmore style never quite caught on here. People like Sinatra and Dean Martin are still considered "far out" in Vegas. The "underground newspaper" here -- the Las Vegas Free Press Free Press -- is a cautious echo of -- is a cautious echo of The People's World, The People's World, or maybe the or maybe the National Guardian. National Guardian.

A week in Vegas is like stumbling into a Time Warp, a regression to the late fifties. Which is wholly understandable when you see the people who come here, the Big Spenders from places like Denver and Dallas. Along with National Elks Club conventions (no n.i.g.g.e.rs allowed) and the All-West Volunteer Sheepherders' Rally. These are people who go absolutely crazy at the sight of an old hooker stripping down to her pasties and prancing out on the runway to the big-beat sound of a dozen 50-year-old junkies kicking out the jams on "September Song."

It was some time around three when we pulled into the parking lot of the North Vegas diner. I was looking for a copy of the Los Angeles Times, Times, for news of the outside world, but a quick glance at the newspaper racks made a bad joke of that notion. They don't need the for news of the outside world, but a quick glance at the newspaper racks made a bad joke of that notion. They don't need the Times Times in North Vegas. No news is good news. in North Vegas. No news is good news.

"f.u.c.k newspapers," said my attorney. "What we need right now is coffee."

I agreed, but I stole a copy of the Vegas Sun Sun anyway. It was yesterday's edition, but I didn't care. The idea of entering a coffee shop without a newspaper in my hands made me nervous. There was always the Sports Section; get wired on the baseball scores and pro-football rumors: "Bart Starr Beaten by Thugs in Chicago Tavern; Packers Seek Trade". . . "Namath Quits Jets to be Governor of Alabama". . . and a speculative piece on page 46 about a rookie sensation named Harrison Fire, out of Grambling: runs the hundred in nine flat, 344 pounds and still growing. anyway. It was yesterday's edition, but I didn't care. The idea of entering a coffee shop without a newspaper in my hands made me nervous. There was always the Sports Section; get wired on the baseball scores and pro-football rumors: "Bart Starr Beaten by Thugs in Chicago Tavern; Packers Seek Trade". . . "Namath Quits Jets to be Governor of Alabama". . . and a speculative piece on page 46 about a rookie sensation named Harrison Fire, out of Grambling: runs the hundred in nine flat, 344 pounds and still growing.

"This man Fire has definite promise," says the coach. "Yesterday, before practice, he destroyed a Greyhound Bus with his bare hands, and last night he killed a subway. He's a natural for color TV. I'm not one to play favorites, but it looks like we'll have to make room for him."

Indeed. There is always room on TV for a man who can beat people to jelly in nine flat. . . But not many of these were gathered, on this night, in the North Star Coffee Lounge. We had the place to ourselves -- which proved to be fortunate, because we'd eaten two more pellets of mescaline on the way over, and the effects were beginning to manifest.

My attorney was no longer vomiting, or even acting sick. He ordered coffee with the authority of a man long accustomed to quick service. The waitress had the appearance of a very old hooker who had finally found her place in life. She was definitely in charge in charge here, and she eyed us with obvious disapproval as we settled onto our stools. here, and she eyed us with obvious disapproval as we settled onto our stools.

I wasn't paying much attention. The North Star Coffee Lounge seemed like a fairly safe haven from our storms. There are some you go into -- in this line of work -- that you know will be heavy. The details don't matter. All you know, for sure, is that your brain starts humming with brutal vibes as you approach the front door. Something wild and evil is about to happen; and it's going to involve you. you.

But there was nothing in the atmosphere of the North Star to put me on my guard. The waitress was pa.s.sively hostile, but I was accustomed to that. She was a big woman. Not fat, but large in every way, long sinewy arms and a brawler's jawbone. A burned-out caricature of Jane Russell: big head of dark hair, face slashed with lipstick and a 48 Double-E chest that was probably spectacular about twenty years ago when she might have been a Mama for the h.e.l.l's Angels chapter in Berdoo. . . but now she was strapped up in a giant pink elastic bra.s.siere that showed like a bandage through the sweaty white rayon of her uniform.

Probably she was married to somebody, but I didn't feel like speculating. All I wanted from her, tonight, was a cup of black coffee and a 29 hamburger with pickles and onions. No ha.s.sles, no talk -- just a place to rest and re-group. I wasn't even hungry. hamburger with pickles and onions. No ha.s.sles, no talk -- just a place to rest and re-group. I wasn't even hungry.

My attorney had no newspaper or anything else to compel his attention. So he focused, out of boredom, on the waitress. She was taking our orders like a robot when he punched through her crust with a demand for "two gla.s.ses of ice water -- with ice."

My attorney drank his in one long gulp, then asked for another. I noticed that the waitress seemed tense.

f.u.c.k it, I thought. I was reading the funnies.

About ten minutes later, when she brought the hamburgers, I saw my attorney hand her a napkin with something printed on it. He did it very casually, with no expression at all on his face. But I knew, from the vibes, that our peace was about to be shattered.

"What was that?" I asked him.

He shrugged, smiling vaguely at the waitress who was standing about ten feet away, at the end of the counter, keeping her back to us while she pondered the napkin. Finally she turned and stared. . . then she stepped resolutely forward and tossed the napkin at my attorney.

"What is is this?" she snapped. this?" she snapped.

"A napkin," said my attorney.

There was a moment of nasty silence, then she began screaming: "Don't give me that bulls.h.i.+t! I know know what it means! You G.o.dd.a.m.n fat pimp b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" what it means! You G.o.dd.a.m.n fat pimp b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

My attorney picked up the napkin, looked at what he'd written, then dropped it back on the counter. "That's the name of a horse I used to own," he said calmly. "What's wrong wrong with you?" with you?"

"You sonofab.i.t.c.h!" she screamed. "I take a lot of s.h.i.+t in this s.p.a.ce, but I sure as h.e.l.l don't have to take it off a spic pimp!" spic pimp!"

Jesus! I thought. What's happening? I was watching the woman's hands, hoping she wouldn't pick up anything sharp or heavy. I picked up the napkin and read what the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had printed on it, in careful red letters: "Back Door Beauty?" The Question mark was emphasized.

The woman was screaming again: "Pay your bill and get the h.e.l.l out! You want me to call the cops?"

I reached for my wallet, but my attorney was already on his feet, never taking his eyes off the woman. . . then he reached under his s.h.i.+rt, not into his pocket, coming up suddenly with the Gerber Mini-Magnum, a nasty silver blade which the waitress seemed to understand instantly.

She froze: her eyes fixed about six feet down the aisle and lifted the receiver off the hook of the pay phone. He sliced it off, then brought the receiver back to his stool and sat down.

The waitress didn't move. I was stupid with shock, not knowing whether to run or start laughing.

"How much is that lemon meringue pie?" my attorney asked. His voice was casual, as if he had just wandered into the place and was debating what to order.

"Thirty-five cents!" the woman blurted. Her eyes were turgid with fear, but her brain was apparently functioning on some basic motor survival level.

My attorney laughed. "I mean the whole whole pie," he said. pie," he said.

She moaned.

My attorney put a bill on the counter. "Let's say it's five dollars," he said. "OK?"

She nodded, still frozen, watching my attorney as he walked around the counter and got the pie out of the display case. I prepared to leave.

The waitress was clearly in shock. The sight of the blade, jerked out in the heat of an argument, had apparently triggered bad memories. The glazed look in her eyes said her throat had been cut. She was still in the grip of paralysis when we left.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Random House, 1972 Random House, 1972 Last Tango in Vegas: Fear and Loathing in the Near Room

PART I.

Muhammad Ali Bites the Bullet, Leon Spinks Croaks a Legend. . . Sting Like a b.u.t.terfly, Float Like a Bee. . . Wild Notes of a Weird Cornerman When I'm gone, boxing will be nothing again. The fans with the cigars and the hats turned down'll be there, but no more housewives and little men in the street and foreign presidents. It's goin' to be back to the fighter who comes to town, smells a flower, visits a hospital, blows a horn and says he's in shape. Old hat. 1 was the onliest boxer in history people asked questions like a senator.

-- Muhammad Ali, 1967 Life had been good to Pat Patterson for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it was like to be anything but a free-riding, first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger on a flight near the top of the world. . .

It is a long, long way from the frostbitten midnight streets around Chicago's Clark and Division to the deep-rug hallways of the Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South in Manhattan. . . But Patterson had made that trip in high style, with stops along the way in London, Paris, Manila, Kinshasa, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and almost everywhere else in the world on that circuit where the menus list no prices and you need at least three pairs of $100 sungla.s.ses just to cope with the TV lights every time you touch down at an airport for another frenzied press conference and then a ticker-tape parade along the route to the Presidential Palace and another princely reception.

That is Muhammad Ali's world, an orbit so high, a circuit so fast and strong and with rarefied air so thin that only "The Champ," "The Greatest," and a few close friends have unlimited breathing rights. Anybody who can sell this act for $5 million an hour all over the world is working a vein somewhere between magic and madness. . . And now, on this warm winter night in Manhattan, Pat Patterson was not entirely sure which way the balance was tipping. The main shock had come three weeks ago in Las Vegas, when he'd been forced to sit pa.s.sively at ringside and watch the man whose life he would gladly have given his own to protect, under any other circ.u.mstances, take a savage and wholly unexpected beating in front of 5000 screaming banshees at the Hilton Hotel and something like 60 million stunned spectators on national/network TV. The Champ was no longer The Champ: a young brute named Leon Spinks had settled that matter, and not even Muhammad seemed to know just exactly what that awful defeat would mean -- for himself or anyone else; not even for his new wife and children, or the handful of friends and advisers who'd been working that high white vein right beside him for so long that they acted and felt like his family.

It was definitely an odd lot, ranging from solemn Black Muslims like Herbert Muhammad, his manager -- to shrewd white hipsters like Harold Conrad, his executive spokesman, and Irish Gene Kilroy, Ali's version of Hamilton Jordon: a sort of all-purpose administrative a.s.sistant, logistics manager and chief troubleshooter. Kilroy and Conrad are The Champ's answer to Ham and Jody-- but mad dogs and wombats will roam the damp streets of Was.h.i.+ngton, babbling perfect Shakespearean English, before Jimmy Carter comes up with his his version of Drew "Bundini" Brown, Ali's alter ego and court wizard for so long now that he can't really remember being anything else. Carter's thin-ice sense of humor would not support the weight of a zany friend like Bundini. It would not even support the far more discreet weight of a court jester like J.F.K.'s Dave Powers, whose role in the White House was much closer to Bundini Brown's deeply personal friends.h.i.+p with Ali than Jordan's essentially political and deceptively hard-nosed relations.h.i.+p with Jimmy. . . and even Hamilton seems to be gaining weight by geometric progressions these days, and the time may be just about ripe for him to have a chat with the Holy Ghost and come out as a "born-again Christian." version of Drew "Bundini" Brown, Ali's alter ego and court wizard for so long now that he can't really remember being anything else. Carter's thin-ice sense of humor would not support the weight of a zany friend like Bundini. It would not even support the far more discreet weight of a court jester like J.F.K.'s Dave Powers, whose role in the White House was much closer to Bundini Brown's deeply personal friends.h.i.+p with Ali than Jordan's essentially political and deceptively hard-nosed relations.h.i.+p with Jimmy. . . and even Hamilton seems to be gaining weight by geometric progressions these days, and the time may be just about ripe for him to have a chat with the Holy Ghost and come out as a "born-again Christian."

That might make the nut for a while -- at least through the 1980 reelection campaign -- but not even Jesus could save Jordan from a fate worse than any h.e.l.l he'd ever imagined if Jimmy Carter woke up one morning and read in the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post that Hamilton had p.a.w.ned the Great Presidential Seal for $500 in some fas.h.i.+onable Georgetown hockshop. . . eyes for collateral. that Hamilton had p.a.w.ned the Great Presidential Seal for $500 in some fas.h.i.+onable Georgetown hockshop. . . eyes for collateral.

Indeed. . . and this twisted vision would seem almost too bent for print if Bundini hadn't already raised at least the raw possibility of it by once p.a.w.ning Muhammad Ali's "Heavyweight Champion of the World" gold & jewel studded belt for $500 -- just an overnight loan from a friend, he said later; but the word got out and Bundini was banished from The Family and the whole entourage for eighteen months when The Champ was told what he'd done.

That heinous transgression is shrouded in a mix of jive-shame and real real black humor at this point: The Champ, after all, had once hurled his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River, in a fit of pique at some alleged racial insult in Louisville -- and what was the difference between a gold medal and a jewel-studded belt? They were both symbols of a "white devil's" world that Ali, if not Bundini, was already learning to treat with a very calculated measure of public disrespect. . . What they shared, far beyond a very real friends.h.i.+p, was a shrewd kind of street-theater sense of how far out on that limb they could go, without cras.h.i.+ng. Bundini has always had a finer sense than anyone else in The Family about where The Champ black humor at this point: The Champ, after all, had once hurled his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River, in a fit of pique at some alleged racial insult in Louisville -- and what was the difference between a gold medal and a jewel-studded belt? They were both symbols of a "white devil's" world that Ali, if not Bundini, was already learning to treat with a very calculated measure of public disrespect. . . What they shared, far beyond a very real friends.h.i.+p, was a shrewd kind of street-theater sense of how far out on that limb they could go, without cras.h.i.+ng. Bundini has always had a finer sense than anyone else in The Family about where The Champ wanted wanted to go, the s.h.i.+fting winds of his instincts, and he has never been worried about things like Limits or Consequences. That was the province of others, like Conrad or Herbert. Drew B. has always known exactly which side he was on, and so has Ca.s.sius/Muhammad. Bundini is the man who came up with "Float like a b.u.t.terfly, Sting like a Bee," and ever since then he has been as close to both Ca.s.sius Clay and Muhammad Ali as anyone else in the world. to go, the s.h.i.+fting winds of his instincts, and he has never been worried about things like Limits or Consequences. That was the province of others, like Conrad or Herbert. Drew B. has always known exactly which side he was on, and so has Ca.s.sius/Muhammad. Bundini is the man who came up with "Float like a b.u.t.terfly, Sting like a Bee," and ever since then he has been as close to both Ca.s.sius Clay and Muhammad Ali as anyone else in the world.

Pat Patterson, by contrast, was a virtual newcomer to The Family. A 200-pound, forty-year-old black cop, he was a veteran of the Chicago Vice Squad before he hired on as Ali's personal bodyguard. And, despite the total devotion and relentless zeal he brought to his responsibility for protecting The Champ at all times from any any kind of danger, ha.s.sles or even minor inconvenience, six years on the job had caused him to understand, however reluctantly, that there were at least a few people who could come and go as they pleased through the wall of absolute security he was supposed to maintain around The Champ. kind of danger, ha.s.sles or even minor inconvenience, six years on the job had caused him to understand, however reluctantly, that there were at least a few people who could come and go as they pleased through the wall of absolute security he was supposed to maintain around The Champ.

Bundini and Conrad were two of these. They have been around for so long that they had once called the boss "Ca.s.sius," or even "Cash" -- while Patterson had never addressed him as anything but "Muhammad," or "Champ." He had come aboard at high tide, as it were, and even though he was now in charge of everything from carrying Ali's money -- in a big roll of $100 bills -- to protecting his life with an ever-present chrome-plated revolver and the lethal fists and feet of a black belt with a license to kill, it had always galled him a bit to know that Muhammad's capricious instincts and occasionally perverse sense of humor made it certifiably impossible for any any one bodyguard, or even one bodyguard, or even four, four, to protect him from danger in public. His moods were too unpredictable: one minute he would be in an almost catatonic funk, crouched in the back seat of a black Cadillac limousine with an overcoat over his head -- and then, with no warning at all, he would suddenly be out of the car at a red light somewhere in the Bronx, playing stickball in the street with a gang of teenage junkies. Patterson had learned to deal with The Champ's moods but he also knew that in any crowd around The Greatest there would be at least a few who felt the same way about Ali as they had about Malcolm X or Martin Luther King. to protect him from danger in public. His moods were too unpredictable: one minute he would be in an almost catatonic funk, crouched in the back seat of a black Cadillac limousine with an overcoat over his head -- and then, with no warning at all, he would suddenly be out of the car at a red light somewhere in the Bronx, playing stickball in the street with a gang of teenage junkies. Patterson had learned to deal with The Champ's moods but he also knew that in any crowd around The Greatest there would be at least a few who felt the same way about Ali as they had about Malcolm X or Martin Luther King.

There was a time, shortly after his conversion to the Black Muslim religion in the mid-Sixties, when Ali seemed to emerge as a main spokesman for what the Muslims were then perfecting as the State of the Art in racial paranoia -- which seemed a bit heavy and not a little naive at the time, but which the White Devils moved quickly to justify. . .

Yes. But that is a very long story and we will get to it later. The only point we need to deal with right now is that Muhammad Ali somehow emerged from one of the meanest and most shameful ordeals any prominent American has ever endured as one of the few real martyrs of that G.o.dd.a.m.n wretched war in Vietnam and a sort of instant folk hero all over the world, except in the U.S.A.

That would come later. . .

The Spinks disaster in Vegas had been a terrible shock to The Family. They had all known it had to come sometime, sometime, but the scene had already been set and the papers already signed for that "sometime" -- a $16 million purse and a mind-boggling, d.a.m.n-the-cost television spectacle with Ali's old nemesis Ken Norton as the Bogyman, and one last king-h.e.l.l payday for but the scene had already been set and the papers already signed for that "sometime" -- a $16 million purse and a mind-boggling, d.a.m.n-the-cost television spectacle with Ali's old nemesis Ken Norton as the Bogyman, and one last king-h.e.l.l payday for everybody. everybody. They were prepared, in the back of their hearts, for that one -- but not for the cheap torpedo that blew their whole s.h.i.+p out of the water in Vegas for no payday at all. Leon Spinks crippled a whole industry in one hour on that fateful Wednesday evening in Las Vegas -- They were prepared, in the back of their hearts, for that one -- but not for the cheap torpedo that blew their whole s.h.i.+p out of the water in Vegas for no payday at all. Leon Spinks crippled a whole industry in one hour on that fateful Wednesday evening in Las Vegas --The Muhammad Ali Industry, which has churned out roughly $56 million in over fifteen years and at least twice or three times that much for the people who kept the big engine running all this time. (It would take Bill Walton 112 years on an annual NBA salary of $500,000 to equal that figure.) which has churned out roughly $56 million in over fifteen years and at least twice or three times that much for the people who kept the big engine running all this time. (It would take Bill Walton 112 years on an annual NBA salary of $500,000 to equal that figure.) 1 knew it was too close for comfort. I told him to stop fooling around. He was giving up too many rounds. But I heard the decision and I thought, 'Well, what are you going to do? That's it. I've prepared myself for this day for a long time. I conditioned myself for it. I was young with him and now I feel old with him.'

-- Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer Ali's trainer Dundee was not the only person who was feeling old with Muhammad Ali on that cold Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Somewhere around the middle of the fifteenth round a whole generation went over the hump as the last Great Prince of the Sixties went out in a blizzard of pain, shock and angry confusion so total that it was hard to even know how to feel, much less what to say, when the thing was finally over. The last shot came just at the final bell, when "Crazy Leon" whacked Ali with a savage overhand right that almost dropped The Champ in his tracks and killed the last glimmer of hope for the patented "miracle finish" that Angelo Dundee knew was his fighter's only chance. As Muhammad wandered back to his corner about six feet in front of me, the deal had clearly gone down.

The decision was anticlimactic. Leon Spinks, a twenty-four-year-old brawler from St. Louis with only seven professional fights on his record, was the new Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World. And the roar of the pro-Spinks crowd was the clearest message of all: that uppity n.i.g.g.e.r from Louisville had finally got what was coming to him. For fifteen long years he had mocked everything they all thought they stood for: changing his name, dodging the draft, beating the best they could hurl at him. . . But now, thank G.o.d, they were seeing him finally go down.

Six presidents have lived in the White House in the time of Muhammad Ali. Dwight Eisenhower was still rapping golf b.a.l.l.s around the Oval Office when Ca.s.sius Clay Jr. won a gold medal for the U.S. as a light-heavy-weight in the 1960 Olympics and then turned pro and won his first fight for money against a journeyman heavyweight named Tunney Hunsaker in Louisville on October 29th of that same year.

Less than four years later and almost three months to the day after John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Ca.s.sius Clay -- the "Louisville Lip" by then -- made a permanent enemy of every "boxing expert" in the Western world by beating World Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston, the meanest of the mean, so badly that Liston refused to come out of his corner for the seventh round.

That was fourteen years ago. Jesus! And it seems like fourteen months.

Why?

Brain damage.

The Real Story: A Memo With Nails in Both Nostrils. . . by Raoul Duke, Sports Editor This story is badly bogged down, and I think I know the reason: Dr. Thompson has been on it so long -- in the belly of the beast, as it were -- that he has lost all functional contact with his sense of humor; and where I come from they call that condition "insanity."

But there are a lot of high-powered fools where I come from, and it's been about fifteen years since I took any one of them seriously. . . And in fact it was Thompson himself who originally made that connection between humor and sanity; which changes nothing, because we come from the same place -- from the elm-shaded, white-frame "Highlands" of Louisville, Kentucky, about halfway between the Ca.s.sius Clay residence down on South Fourth Street and the homes of the men who originally launched Ca.s.sius Clay Jr. on his long wild ride on the Great Roller-Coaster of professional boxing and paraprofessional show business. They lived out in Indian Hills or on Mockingbird Valley Road near the Louisville Country Club, and they owned every bank in the city -- along with both newspapers, all the radio stations that white folks took seriously, and at least half the major distilleries and tobacco companies that funded the munic.i.p.al tax base.

They knew a good thing when they saw one, and in the year of our Lord 1960 the good thing they saw was an eighteen-year-old local Negro boxer, a big, fast and impressively intelligent young light-heavyweight named Ca.s.sius Clay Jr., who had just won a gold medal for the U.S.A. in the 1960 Olympics. . . So ten of these gents got together and made the boy an offer he couldn't refuse: they were willing to take a long risk on him, they said, just as soon as he gained a few pounds and decided to fight professionally as the new morning star among heavyweights.

They would finance his move for the t.i.tle in a division that Floyd Patterson and his crafty manager, Cus D'Amato, had dominated for so long -- by means of a new gimmick known as "closed-circuit TV" -- that a whole generation of what might have been promising young heavyweight challengers had died on the vine while they waited in line for a chance to fight Patterson, who didn't really really want to fight anybody. want to fight anybody.

Floyd was "The Champ" and he used that fact as leverage as Richard Nixon would later learn to retreat behind the odious truth that "I am, you know, The President."

Indeed. . . and they were both right for a while; but bad karma tends to generate its own kind of poison, which -- like typhoid chickens and rotten bread cast out on the waters -- will usually come home to either roost, fester or mutate very close to its own point of origin.

Richard Nixon abused karma, chickens and even bread for so long that they all came home at once and totally destroyed him. . . And Floyd Patterson's neurotic, a.n.a.l-compulsive reluctance to get into the ring with anything at all with two arms and legs under thirty was what eventually created the vacuum that hatched Sonny Liston, an aging ex-con who twice turned poor Floyd to jelly, just by climbing into the ring.

. . . Hot d.a.m.n! We may be approaching a heinous new record for mixed metaphors in this thing; the rats have swarmed into the belfry, and anything sane that survives will be hurled out to sea and stomped down like a dwarf in a s.h.i.+train. . .

Why not?

It was never my intention to make any real sense of this memo. The Sports Desk has never loved logic; mainly because there is no money in it -- and pro sports without money is like a Vincent Black Shadow with no gas. Dumb greed is the backbone of all sports, except maybe college wrestling -- which may or may not be a good & healthy thing for some people, in places like Kansas and Idaho, but not here. here. Those knotty little monsters can write their own stories, and toss them in over the transom. . . If we have enough room or maybe a bad check for a half-page ad from the Those knotty little monsters can write their own stories, and toss them in over the transom. . . If we have enough room or maybe a bad check for a half-page ad from the Shotgun News Shotgun News or the "Billy Beer" people, that's when we'll focus the whole twisted energy of the Sports Desk on a college wrestling feature: or the "Billy Beer" people, that's when we'll focus the whole twisted energy of the Sports Desk on a college wrestling feature: UTAH CHAMP DROGO PINS THREE-ARMED COWBOY.

FOR WEST SLOPE t.i.tLE IN NINE-HOUR CLa.s.sIC.

How's that for a stylish headline?

Well. . . shucks; let's try it again, from the other side of the fence: CRIPPLED COWBOY CHALLENGER FALLS SHORT IN MAT FINALS;.

ANGRY FANS MAUL REF AS MATCH ENDS;.

HUGE DROGO GAINS SPLIT WIN.

Jesus! I could get a job writing sports heads for the Daily News Daily News with that kind of feel for the word count. . . Right, with a big salary too, in the core of the Big Apple. . . with that kind of feel for the word count. . . Right, with a big salary too, in the core of the Big Apple. . .

But that is not what we had in mind here, is it?

No. We were talking of Sport, and Big Money. Which gets us back to pro boxing, the most shameless racket of all. It is more a Spectacle than a Sport, one of the purest forms of atavistic endeavor still extant in a world that only big-time politicians feel a need to call "civilized." n.o.body who has ever sat in a front-row, ringside seat less than six feet just below and away from the sickening thumps and cracks and groans of two desperate, adrenaline-crazed giants who are whipping and pounding each other like two pit bulls in a death battle will ever forget what it felt like to be there.

No TV camera or any other kind will ever convey the almost four-dimensional reality of total, frenzied violence of seeing, hearing and almost feeling feeling the sudden WHACK of Leon Spinks' thinly padded fist against Muhammad Ali's cheekbone so close in front of your own face that it is hard to keep from flinching and trying to duck backward -- while a whole row of $200-a-seat ringsiders right behind you are leaping and stomping and howling for the sudden WHACK of Leon Spinks' thinly padded fist against Muhammad Ali's cheekbone so close in front of your own face that it is hard to keep from flinching and trying to duck backward -- while a whole row of $200-a-seat ringsiders right behind you are leaping and stomping and howling for more more showers of flying sweat to fall down on them, showers of flying sweat to fall down on them, more more droplets of human blood to rain down on the sleeves and tailored shoulders of their tan cashmere sport coats. . . and then, with Leon still pounding and the sweat and blood still flying, some fist-flailing geek screaming over your shoulder loses his balance and cracks you between the shoulder blades with a shot that sends you reeling into a cop hanging on to the ring ap.r.o.n -- who reacts with a vicious elbow to your chest, and the next thing you see is shoes bouncing inches in front of your face on a concrete floor. droplets of human blood to rain down on the sleeves and tailored shoulders of their tan cashmere sport coats. . . and then, with Leon still pounding and the sweat and blood still flying, some fist-flailing geek screaming over your shoulder loses his balance and cracks you between the shoulder blades with a shot that sends you reeling into a cop hanging on to the ring ap.r.o.n -- who reacts with a vicious elbow to your chest, and the next thing you see is shoes bouncing inches in front of your face on a concrete floor.

"The horror! The horror!. . . Exterminate all the brutes!"

Mistah Kurtz said that but the smart money called him a joker. . . Ho, ho, good ole Kurtz, that Prussian sense of humor will zing you every time.

I said that. We were sitting in a sauna at the health spa in the Las Vegas Hilton -- me and my friend Bob Arum, the sinister promoter -- when all of a sudden the redwood door swung open and in comes Leon Spinks.