Sting Like a Bee by Leigh Montville

Author:Leigh Montville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

Her words tumbled out of his mouth. It was something to see. He spoke all twelve lines with grand emphasis and cadence. Mr. Iambic Pentameter. He described how the fight would unfold, what things he would do to the menacing Liston. The poor guy would be launched like “a spook satellite.”

No one would dream when they put down their money

They’d see a total eclipse of the Sonny.

Fate would be in control.

Then he married Sonji and the premonition seemed dead. Then he fought Liston that second time in Lewiston and word arrived that he was not happy with Sonji. Hope returned. Four weeks after the fight, he announced that he wanted a divorce. Prayers from the young girl in the Nation of Islam had been answered.

—

The proposal came on the night of the senior prom. Actually, it came the morning after the night of the senior prom. Belinda was the class valedictorian. She went to the senior prom with Wali Muhammad because that was what she thought she was supposed to do. She had been raised with Wali as if they were cousins, so there were no romantic thoughts in her head. Wali’s head was a different story.

“The prom was the first chance girls and boys had at the school to eat at the same table with each other, big whoop-dee-doo,” Belinda said. “It was at the Top of the Rock at the Prudential Building. Everyone else was escorted by parents. I was allowed to go alone with Wali because we’d known each other forever. My father told him to have me home by 10 o’clock.”

Wali had other ideas. He pulled the car into a park on the way home and said he had run out of gas, not exactly a novel prom-night approach. He tried to kiss Belinda. One of his legs already was in a cast from being broken in some athletic pursuit, and Belinda told him the other leg would be in a matching cast if he continued to try. She also told him he better have enough gas in the car to get her home or he was in serious trouble.

She arrived at midnight, worried about what her father would say. Muhammad Ali’s flashy Cadillac was parked in the driveway. What was he doing here so late at night? Wali asked, “What’s this nigger doing here?” Belinda said she didn’t know.

She went to the back door. Her father was in the kitchen. There was no conversation about Wali. Her father said that Ali had been in the house for a while. He had something he wanted to say to Belinda. She said that he wouldn’t be saying it now because it was midnight and she was tired. Men didn’t come to the house at midnight to talk to women.

When she woke up in the morning, Ali was still there. He was sleeping on the couch. Her mother had brought him a pillow and some blankets. He soon woke up and asked her to marry him. Just like that.

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