?What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.? ? Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
ROUND 1.
Back in 1996, when Muhammad Ali went down to Pensacola, Florida, for an event with Roy Jones Jr. and spoke to thousands of schoolchildren bused in from around the county, Ali asked to go where Jones Jr. trained so they could playfully spar a few rounds.
Even on good days, Ali?s speech was pretty limited, but he was still strong enough to move around and exercise back then. After Ali and Jones Jr. had circled one another in the ring and only really feigned jabs, at one point Ali smiled and gestured at Jones Jr. that he?d spotted a weakness.
Ali imitated and exaggerated the flaw he?d discovered in Jones Jr.?s jab and left them both in fits of laughter at his shrewdness. Jones Jr. nodded after he?d caught his breath and confessed, ?Yeah, you found it. But I?m so fast I can get away with it.?
And then, one day some years later, he wasn?t, and he couldn?t.
?Old fighters don?t fade away,? the late Budd Schulberg wrote. ?They just slowly die in front of our eyes.? Jones Jr., whom Schulberg described as a ?genius? and ?Hamlet with a mouthpiece,? is just shy of his 47th birthday, yet he refuses to let go of his career as a prizefighter. On December 12, Jones Jr. will fight Enzo Maccarinelli in a cruiserweight bout in Moscow. It will be the 71st bout of his career and the fourth of this calendar year.
How much longer can he safely hold on? How safe is it for a man to release a grasp he?s clutched with a death grip all his life? How much longer will the choice remain his to make? Does anyone have the right to talk this man off the ledge he first climbed onto at the age of five and has remained on ever since?
Over a professional career that?s spanned a quarter-century, after 15 years dominating a sport like few athletes before him, in these last 10 years, Jones Jr. has taken his share of beatings. He?s lost eight times in his career, with some of those losses delivered by chillingly iconic blows and aftermaths.
Jim Lampley, who was ringside in Tokyo calling Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas, said witnessing Roy Jones Jr. getting knocked out for the first time?via an Antonio Tarver left hand in 2004?was the most shocking thing he ever saw calling fights. It was the first time Jones Jr. had been knocked out in his life.
Does anyone have the right to talk this man off the ledge he first climbed onto at the age of five and has remained on ever since?
Before the boxing world had recovered from the shock, four months later, on September 25, 2004, another punch drove Jones Jr.?s head against the canvas like an auctioneer?s mallet, where he shivered and remained nearly motionless save for eyelids that strained to raise. This time, even with medical assistance, it required almost 15 minutes to safely remove him from the ring and load him into an ambulance.
Early on, back in 1995, Jones Jr. had seen his friend Gerald McClellan, who once beat him in the amateurs, bludgeoned by Nigel Benn until a blood clot in his brain nearly killed him. After this event, Jones Jr. promised we would never see him risk suffering anything like what befell his friend. At the time, he claimed he was even more terrified of inflicting such damage on an opponent. The scene haunted Jones Jr. the rest of his life, though it didn?t dissuade him from remaining in the sport.
Twenty-five years since his professional career began?a wife and six children later?rumors of money troubles and numerous calls to retire, here we are anyway. If you?re looking for happy endings with your heroes, boxing remains one of the worst places in America to look.
Photo courtesy of Rich Schultz/Getty Images for NUVOtv
He?s hung on 10 years longer than Joe Louis after being knocked senseless through the ropes by Marciano. Nine more than Muhammad Ali, slumped over and swollen on his stool against Larry Holmes. Seven more than the spectacle of a bankrupt and battered Mike Tyson, finally abandoning the cruel charade of his late career, caving in and quitting on his stool against someone named Kevin McBride.
One way or another, if Roy Jones Jr. continues to fight another year, he will be the same age George Foreman when he hung up the gloves. Only Jones Jr., unlike Big George, never took a full decade hiatus from the sport. The further along we get, the scarier the station Jones Jr.?s train threatens to stop at?that is, if it doesn?t derail terribly along the way first.
The stakes have never been higher, and ?kill or be killed? is a thread that?s stitched Jones Jr.?s lifelong relationship to boxing.
Many have asked and indeed asked Jones Jr. personally, after being the first middleweight champion to win a heavyweight title in 106 years and once being in the conversation with Sugar Ray Robinson as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter who ever lived, what could Roy Jones Jr. possibly have left to prove? It turns out, at least in his own mind, everything. The stakes have never been higher, and ?kill or be killed? is a thread that?s stitched Jones Jr.?s lifelong relationship to boxing.
?If God truly wanted me to stop,? Jones Jr. told me, ?all He?d have to do is have one doctor at the Mayo Clinic find something wrong with my brain. Just one little CAT scan showing any sign of trauma or damage and I?d be done. Am I slurring right now? I?m right where God wants me to be. To stop now would be to spite God with everything he gave me and everything he has planned, yet. That?s why I?m here?and nobody can tell me different.?
ROUND 2.
On the flight over to the Gulf of Mexico, I wondered about how they say you can never go home again, but maybe an equally expensive reality is how many people, regardless of how many years or miles they put between themselves and where they were born, are never truly able to leave home.
Burning up in mid-September Pensacola?s muggy late-afternoon heat, I stepped inside the air-conditioned taxi?s reprieve and jolted the slouched-over, nodding-off Butterbean-look-alike cab driver at the airport. After I offered Roy Jones Jr.?s address to punch into his GPS, he inauspiciously turned back with a furrowed brow and look of concern, ?None of my business, but you seem kinda jumpy. This house expecting you??
?Hopefully,? I shrugged optimistically.
?First time in Pensacola?? the cab driver asked.
?Yep.?
?I?m not much of a tour guide, but out your window is our very own methadone clinic. Big ol? line kicks up every morning like clockwork.?
I looked out the window and lingered a while on the roadside attractions: nearby fast-food chains, drifters along the side of the highway, a distant water tower, car dealerships with shiny red, white and blue triangular-shaped streamers flapping in the breeze, truck stops, local cemeteries, feed stores, an empty theme park with a miniature Statue of Liberty at the gate greeting nobody in particular, small children laughing in the back of pickups.
When Jones Jr.?s father returned to this small Florida Panhandle town from Vietnam as a war hero, he put food on the table by working at the local naval base as an aircraft electrician. Pretty soon, in 1975, when Little Roy was six, Big Roy gave professional boxing a whirl for a few years.
He won his first eight fights in a row before getting knocked out. He fought on and remained undefeated for a year until he landed a fight against a rising contender named Marvin Hagler. Hagler stopped him in three rounds. Big Roy hung around boxing another year and lost his last four fights in Las Vegas before moving over to training his son and other poor kids around the neighborhood back in Pensacola.
?Say,? I said. ?Just curious, who would you say is the most famous man out of Pensacola??
?Some folks would say Emmitt Smith, but he?s kinda disowned us. I guess a lotta folks would say Roy Jones Jr. Fastest fighter I ever saw. Fastest fighter my daddy ever saw, too. And he watched Ali back when he was Cassius Clay. I ain?t seen Little Roy around town in a long time. Wonder what he?s been up to since he finished with boxing.?
And here was the rub with plenty of folks to whom I?d mentioned about covering this story.
?Actually he hasn?t finished with fighting,? I said. ?Still going.?
?Shee-it, that right??
“I guess a lotta folks would say Roy Jones Jr. Fastest fighter I ever saw. Fastest fighter my daddy ever saw, too. And he watched Ali back when he was Cassius Clay.”
?The address I gave you is his house.?
?He?s still fighting? He must need the money. All them boxers do. How long he been fightin? for anyhow? Seems like forever.?
Close enough.
?Hey, pal,? the cab driver announced. ?We?re gettin? close.?
We passed a lonely stretch of train tracks followed by the Escambia River. As the car slowed, we spotted the opened set of black gates off to the side of the road with four fighting rooster figurines greeting visitors. It was another quarter-mile drive under broad oaks and pines until we saw the fenced-in cows and hundreds of looming rooster cages next to the main house.
Photo by Brin-Jonathan Butler
As we neared the main driveway, three men were playing with a little boy and girl circling around them on scooters. A large pit bull trudged along in pursuit of the children until a peacock and a turkey raced over in front of the crowd to cry out a horribly off-key alarm about the taxi?s intrusion on the property.
I stepped out of the cab, and the cows and roosters joined the ear-piercing duet the turkey and the peacock had begun.
?You lost?? the tallest man from the group, wearing an old, greased-up Roy Jones Jr. T-shirt, hollered as he slowly started in my direction.
I waved a little nervously and asked if Roy was around, as the group sized me up cautiously.
?You have business with him??
?I?m just here for an interview with him,? I said. ?He texted me just now to say he?s on his way.?
The stranger got closer and reached out a hand while flashing a smile comprised of mostly gold teeth.
?I?m Coco,? he said. ?That?s Roy?s cousin back there and his kids Royce and Regan on the scooters.?
?Nice to meet everybody,? I said. ?Any idea when you?re expecting him??
?Not long,? Coco grinned. ?He?s out at the naval base playin? ball. We?ll keep you company till he gets back.?
Before Coco had finished proudly showing me all his bullet wounds, Jones Jr.?s six-year-old son discarded his scooter on the pavement and threw me a lifeline. Royce had braids hanging down over his shoulders but otherwise was his daddy?s mini-me.
?You wanna play some ball before daddy gets home? We got a hoop next to daddy?s gym.?
?Sure,? I said.
He pointed the way about 50 yards off from the house, just beyond the endless rows of chicken cages.
?C?mon, I?ll show you around.?
Royce took me by the elbow and dragged me along for the dime tour of the property while his 10-year-old sister Reagan gave chase.
As I watched the little girl stomp the pavement to accelerate her scooter, I remembered a story Thomas Hauser had told me about her while she was in the dressing room at Madison Square Garden after her daddy had lost to Joe Calzaghe. She noticed another child in the room crying after seeing the blood on her father?s bruised and swollen face. She pulled at her daddy?s boxing trunks to get his attention until he gave her a kiss and looked at her. ?I?m a big girl, daddy,? she beamed. ?See? I don?t cry.?
Together they showed me his gym housed in a gigantic garage next to a few guest houses.
Once inside the gym, a giant 30-foot poster of Jones Jr. in his prime greeted visitors, along with many other cobwebbed posters hung on the walls from dozens of his old fights.
Royce climbed into the ring and shadowboxed while staring at his reflection in a soot-smeared mirror while his sister tinkered around with aging gym equipment littered everywhere.
?Where does your daddy do his roadwork around here?? I asked Royce.
?Roadwork?? his face pinched up in disbelief.
?Where he runs in the morning.?
?I know what roadwork means,? he laughed. ?Daddy hasn?t done roadwork since way before Regan was born. His knees ain?t no good no more.?
Once inside the gym, a giant 30-foot poster of Jones Jr. in his prime greeted visitors, along with many other cobwebbed posters hung on the walls from dozens of his old fights.
Regan nodded matter-of-factly in agreement.
?He can?t run??
They both shook their heads in unison from different corners of the gym.
?I thought he was off playing basketball.?
?Daddy tries,? Regan shrugged.
Suddenly the kids? faces lit up when they heard the peacock sound the alarm about a car pulling up in front of the main house?s driveway.
?Mommy!? they screamed, abandoning me in the gym to sprint off just as Coco returned with a CD he?d recorded during his most recent spell in a prison.
?Is that Natlyn?? I asked Coco.
?Nah, son,? Coco corrected gravely. ?That?s Missus Jones who arrived.?
ROUND 3.
The inside of Roy Jones Jr.’s home warehouses the spoils of one of the most decorated athletes in history: trophies, framed posters, medals, ribbons, an Imelda Marcos-worthy stash of sneakers lying around from his expired promotional deals with Michael Jordan and Nike. Pride of place in the family home, however, is devoted to family photos and elaborately illustrated portraits of fighting cocks.
Roosters stare down from nearly every wall, and Jones Jr.?s mantel, located a few steps after you enter the front door, offers his numerous accomplishments raising prize-winning chickens. Louisiana was the last state in America to legally ban cockfighting back in 2008. At one time Jones Jr. had owned in excess of 2,500.
Natlyn Jones, a Florida native herself, invited me into her kitchen while she made tea and heated up some food for her children. Her elegance refused to give anything away despite being dressed down in a large Mike Tyson hoodie and wearing her hair in a ponytail.
She met Roy Jones Jr. back when she was still a teenager and while attending Florida State on her way to becoming a lawyer. She fell in love, and he became her first boyfriend. They got married and started a family in the early 2000s, and she abandoned her ambitions to follow through with law school. It was obvious how her beauty had caught Jones Jr.?s eye, but her keen intelligence, warmth and effortless way with children made a far deeper impression.
I noticed it was already dark outside the window.
?I?m sorry you had to wait here and hang around so long for Roy to make it back from basketball. I hope these monsters weren?t too much to handle.?
?They were great,? I said. ?They showed me around.?
?Did Coco lay his usual spiel on you??
?Mommy, that man?s crazy,? Royce shook his head.
?Their daddy?s got a big heart,? Natlyn smiled to herself. ?When he gets here, you listen how many times his phone jingles. Every two minutes from dawn to dusk, his Morse code ringtone is chiming away.?
?What percentage of those texts or phone calls are people with their hands out??
?These days?? she snickers.
?How do these days compare to when he was on top??
?Their daddy?s got a big heart,? Natlyn smiled to herself. ?When he gets here, you listen how many times his phone jingles. Every two minutes from dawn to dusk, his Morse code ringtone is chiming away.?
?On the way up? After he won the heavyweight title? I?d guess 95 percent of people reaching out wanted something from him. Now things have slowed down a little, but I?d still say 70 percent. Everyone thinks how much easier life must get when your boat comes in, but there?s a lot of other stuff you have to be ready for too. Not all of it?s that easy to deal with.
“But I guess going into marrying a professional athlete, you have to know what you?re marrying into. Not that I did. I just couldn?t believe how nice he was, and, you know, you fall in love.?
?I didn?t remember until right now that I?ve actually seen you once before,? I said. ?Do you go to a lot of Roy?s fights??
She nodded.
?I think I saw you after a fight of Roy?s in Moscow.?
?Oh boy,? she moaned, running her hand over her face. ?Lebedev fight. Yeah, that was me crying my eyes out after that one. You watch somebody you love, and all you?re waiting for is that final bell knowing everyone is OK, and we were almost there and then that happened.
Russia’s Denis Lebedev, left, and Roy Jones Jr. in action during their fight at the Megasport Arena in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, May 21, 2011. Lebedev knocked out Jones in the last seconds of the final round.
Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev
“While you?re breaking down, everybody else, 10,000 people or whatever, are busy losing their minds cheering. He?s lying there, and you?re in a panic that when he wakes up, he?s the same guy as before. That one was a real long night for us. But we made it through, and here we are.?
?Are all those highs you?ve been through with him worth the lows?? I asked.
Natlyn leaned over her kitchen counter and glared up at the ceiling.
?Not even close.?
Soon, Jones Jr. entered the house in slippers with a large gym bag slung over one shoulder. We watched as Dusty, his floppy-eared golden cocker spaniel, pleaded to come inside with no luck.
He was still in shape but was holding over 200 pounds on his once-middleweight frame now. When he flicked the light and sighed relief at dropping his gym bag, I could see his hairline had crept up some from his early days. As I watched him walk with an agonized expression wrenching his face, his knees were far worse than I?d imagined.
It took me a while to adjust to seeing someone who expressed youth so vibrantly throughout a career under the lights confronting middle age.
ROUND 4.
Roy Jones Jr. started boxing at five and was competing at the age of 10 in 1979. Between then and being the youngest member on the American Olympic team, his grueling roadwork over Pensacola highways, train tracks or back trails carried him somewhere close to the distance around the circumference of the earth.
Nearly every afternoon, he sparred under an angry sky until exhaustion in Big Roy?s backyard against bigger, older kids. His father was ruthlessly abusive, beating him with ?anything he could get his hands on.? That included a PVC pipe, broom handle, switch, bungee cord and old gym equipment. Big Roy never hit him with a closed fist, but, according to Little Roy, ?That was only because he?d caused brain damage to a guy fightin? when he was young. Otherwise I?m sure he would have.?
Coming of age, Little Roy fought 134 times as an amateur. He won all but 13, first capturing the Junior Olympic title in 1984 at 119 pounds, followed by the national Golden Gloves at 139 and then 156, just before flying out to Seoul for the 1988 Olympics as one of the most promising prospects in the sport?s history. Before he flew home, wiping tears from his eyes with a towel, Little Roy gave an interview in Seoul where he talked about retiring before he ever turned professional.
1988 Olympian Roy Jones Jr. poses for a portrait at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Photo courtesy of The Ring Magazine/Getty Images)
Back in Pensacola, Little Roy changed his mind, and for the next 27 years (and counting) he said he never again considered hanging up the gloves. By now, he?s fought 461 rounds across 70 fights, spending almost an entire 24-hour day in the ring over the course of his boxing career.
?Glad you made it,? he smiled. ?When Jim Lampley called and vouched for you?that was good enough for me. I don?t usually let people into my life here. Let?s go sit down and talk.?
As we shook hands and he sheepishly apologized for arriving late, for all his accomplishments and abilities, Jones Jr. wasn?t an especially charismatic presence. Instead, he was real?nothing about him lending itself to becoming a brand. As I?d been told by numerous folks in the industry, ?He?s still that same country boy.?
We talked for an hour on his couch about the state of boxing, until his children approached him for a goodnight kiss. His wife was doing the dishes. I changed the subject to the elephant in the room: his own story with boxing.
?Given all the stories about how afraid you were of your dad,? I began. ?It?s quite something to see just how much your kids adore you.?
?I never wanted my kids to feel about me the way I felt about him,? he said.
?How do you separate the killer you were in the ring with the man you are with your family??
?Battling the fighter in me and the other guy with this life here has been a struggle every day of my life.?
?How long did it take from when you started for boxing to stop being fun??
?A week,? he said.
?Was there ever an opponent who scared you as much as your dad??
Roy Jones Jr. celebrates winning the super middleweight title fight in 1994 against James Toney at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo courtesy of The Ring Magazine/Getty Images)
?Never,? he says under his breath.
?You never wanted to get away from him and Pensacola??
?I?m gonna leave my home? For what? That gonna make me happy??
?I was born in 1979, the same year you started.?
?Uh huh,? he nodded.
?Battling the fighter in me and the other guy with this life here has been a struggle every day of my life.? ? Roy Jones Jr.
?That?s an awful long time putting yourself through what you do to be a fighter. Is there any part of letting go of boxing that offers you some relief??
?Nah,? he laughed. ?But if I stepped away, there?d be relief for my wife and family.?
?Huh?? Natlyn hollered over.
?I was just tellin? him, if I stepped away, you?d get some relief from boxing.?
?Why would you say a thing like that?? she asked him.
?She?d be happy,? Jones Jr. smiled and lightly tapped me on the shoulder.
?I mean,? Natlyn turns it over, ?a part of me would be happy.?
?She?d be happy.?
?A part of me would be happy because of all the stress around him fightin?.?
?You never thought about giving it up?? I ask.
?After the Olympics I did,? Roy shakes his head. ?If Tyson had taken the fight I wanted with him after I won the heavyweight title, that woulda been it. Can you imagine if I got that fight??
?You really wanted that fight??
?Hell yeah,? he laughs. ?I woulda made 50 million easy. And look what Toney did to Holyfield when they fought. Look what I did to Toney. I woulda come at Tyson just like Holyfield did.?
?You woulda tried to knock him out??
?I woulda knocked him out. That woulda been it. I did everything I could to make that fight happen. He wouldn?t take it. That woulda been enough.?
?If Tyson had taken the fight I wanted with him after I won the heavyweight title, that woulda been it. Can you imagine if I got that fight?? – Roy Jones Jr.
?What?s enough now?? I ask.
?Cruiserweight title. Nobody in history has won all the titles I?ve won and the cruiserweight title. I?d be the only man in history. That?s when you die and go to heaven, and God can look at you and know you did everything with the gifts he gave you. If I died today, could I really say that? If I stopped fighting, could I live the rest of my life knowing I didn?t do everything I was put here to do??
?I think a lot of people would say you?ve done more than enough to justify a place in history.?
?After I win that cruiserweight title, it?ll be enough.?
?You sure?? I laugh uncomfortably.
?Unless they threw crazy money at me for one more. Yeah, I figure it?d be enough. Maybe after I win the cruiserweight title, just one little fight in my own backyard.? ROUND 5.
The next morning, Jones Jr. spent a few hours clearing brush with some heavy machinery behind his house toward the pond. When I arrived at the house, he was off proudly giving his wife a tour of the progress.
They returned hand in hand, and Jones Jr. offered to take me for a ride in a vehicle that looked like a cross between a golf cart and a four-wheeler. Dusty and Bullet tagged along.
The vehicle nearly flipped over three times along the newly shorn bumpy trail over to the pond, and the man at the wheel howled the whole way. When we arrived at the edge of the pond and he cut the engine, I spotted a tennis-ball green five-inch lizard, and we spent a minute cornering it until I had it by the tail, pinched between two fingers.
Photo by Brin-Jonathan Butler
?Give it here,? he told me.
A little puzzled by his grim tone, I gave him the lizard.
?Now you just watch this,? he laughed, tossing the lizard into the shallows of the pond.
The lizard drifted motionlessly.
?What?s wrong?? he asked me. ?You wanted him for a pet??
?No,? I said. ?I was just trying to have a closer look at him.?
?Keep your eye on him now. See that ripple from where he landed stretching out over the surface of the pond? In no time, a bass is gonna be on that s–t and come lookin? to tear your lizard?s ass up. Give it a sec.?
True to Jones Jr.?s forecast, a few seconds later, a bass auditioned for the starring role in Jaws and re-enacted that film?s movie poster with the lizard standing in for the woman swimming on the surface of the ocean.
?I tol?ja! Goddamn. Tore his ass up.?
Welcome to Roy Jones Jr.?s world.
After we got back to the house, Jones Jr. offered to take me over to his old house on Barth Road, where his boxing life began, on the way to pick up some seed for his birds. With his son Royce asleep in the backseat, we drive over in his large blue Toyota truck. Along the way, he points out his school and where various friends and relatives lived and worked around town.
As we get closer to his childhood home, he grows more distant and removed. Then a traffic light off in the distance has his attention.
?Daddy,? Royce, now awake, asks from the backseat. ?What was your old job??
?My old job ain?t changed from my current job?I always been been a fighter.?
?You didn?t have no real job before??
?Boxing always been my job.?
Roy Jones Jr. and Eric Watkins during their bout in the Season 2 finale of NUVOtv?s Knockout at Foxwoods Resort Casino on Aug. 16, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Rich Schultz/Getty Images for NUVOtv)
Royce falls back asleep, and I ask his dad if he ever imagined having a ?real? job. He smiles, saying, ?Nope. This was it.?
A few minutes later, I?m slapped on the shoulder.
?You see that traffic light next to that old restaurant, Jimmy?s Grill?? he asks.
?Yep.?
?Jim Lampley vouched for you, so I?m gonna go all-in and show you something right now. I don?t like to come around these parts much. Too many bad memories.? He grows silent but puts his foot down on the gas to accelerate for the light until we?re passing traffic along the highway with disturbing ease.
We blow through an amber light at the intersection he?s singled out, and he slaps me against the shoulder. We?re still picking up speed, but Jones Jr. looks completely relaxed everywhere but his eyes, fixed in some haunted metaphysical stare across his whole life.
?Now listen,? he says. ?You keep an eye outside for just how much distance we?re covering from here on in till we get back to my old man?s house.?
I look over at the odometer under the wheel, but he immediately points me out the window to track the mileage via the woods and power lines racing by. After a couple of minutes, Jones Jr. breaks hard before a turn on Barth Road and guns it until we reach a gray cinder-block house. I?m looking at it beyond Jones Jr.?s sullen face staring straight ahead at more decaying cinder-block houses scattered around the area.
“No fighter in history ever worked harder to achieve their dream than me. Early days? Shit. I worked harder than any fighter in history. Period. End of story.” ? Roy Jones Jr.
?You looking in the wrong place. That house ain?t the one I grew up in. Mine was across the street.?
He points, and I turn to follow his finger and see a backyard of grass and dirt with hung laundry, a swing, some toys and a few basketballs lying around.
?They tore down our old place and put up something new. Don?t think I?d be able to come back here if the old place was still standing. All these roads was dirt before. Not much paved. Changed a lot now. We used to fish and hunt deer in these woods growing up.?
?That backyard is where you and your dad first started training??
?Yup,? he said, staring off. ?And every single goddamned day I ran from right here all the way out to that traffic light and back. You seen how my knees give me trouble? Wonder why? And I wasn?t out there running alone when I was a kid. My dad had older kids from the neighborhood out there with me, and if they beat me, then you know I had a good beatin? waiting for me when I got home.?
?He had you out here running 10 miles every day??
?And sparring until I drop. Nothing but training. On my way up as a pro, they used to say I was the most gifted or talented athlete ever to fight. Bullshit! Most talented or gifted?? he glares at me, eyes burning. ?Try hardest worker. No fighter in history ever worked harder to achieve their dream than me. Early days? Shit. I worked harder than any fighter in history. Period. End of story.?
?And he?d still beat you anyway??
?Kill ?em, you gonna go to jail,? he said, without a trace of emotion in his voice. ?You don?t kill him, he?s gonna end up tryin? to kill you. I grew up always knowing sooner or later I was gonna have to go all the way. When I got old enough?when he killed my dog?by that time, I knew the time had come.?
?You ever wonder if your dad had post-traumatic stress disorder from what he saw in Vietnam??
?Bullshit,? Jones Jr. scoffed. ?Bullshit. If he had PTSD, why was I the only one he inflicted that on? You tell me that. Why not nobody else??
?He never hit your mom??
“My daddy went to Vietnam and then made sure I did too growing up. He made damn sure.? ? Roy Jones Jr.
?It happened, but nothing like what he laid into me with practically every day.?
I ask him if I can take a few photos of him in front of the house where he grew up. ?Sure,? he says, getting out and inspecting some of the changes.
?You brought up my daddy fighting over in the jungle,” Roy said. “My daddy went to Vietnam and then made sure I did too growing up. He made damn sure.?
Photo by Brin-Jonathan Butler
?How did you survive this shit, Roy??
?I thought about killing myself all the time. It wasn?t like I didn?t have access to guns. As I got older, when more people came around to the gym and see us train, he couldn?t be as bad as he wanted to be. He had to be more careful in case somebody saw and reported that he was abusing kids. He couldn?t be as open back when nobody could see.
?This is a big piece to what made me who I am. But I?m gonna take you to meet a bigger piece. My daddy trained me to be a champion, but his siblings, as much as my mama, looked after me as a human being. While I go play basketball I?m gonna drop you off with my uncle Freddie. Nobody on this earth knows me better than that man.?
ROUND 6.
?RJJ? adorns the front gate leading down a steep hill to another of Jones Jr.?s properties around Pensacola. Freddie Jones moved over here soon after his nephew won his first world title and bought it.
Before becoming part of his nephew?s ?supporting cast? on the way to boxing glory, Freddie worked at a local Olive Garden and did some landscaping. Though he?s actually eight years younger, over the years, he?s often been mistaken for Big Roy or his twin brother. Their physical resemblance is spooky?broad men with mustaches and a preference for ball caps?but their countenance, by all accounts, is worlds apart.
Freddie had cancer removed from part of his jaw and neck over a decade ago, and yet, soon after his nephew drove off for the naval base to play ball against kids half his age, Freddie wanted to go out for a pack of cigarettes.
?Some people say me and Big Roy are twins despite us being eight years apart,? Freddie began. ?Usually there?s two personalities to every person out there, a good and bad a side. But with me and Big Roy, I think one of us personifies the good and the other personifies the bad side. That?s what we probably represented to Little Roy from his point of view.
?I don?t think he would have went as far as he did without that balance. He mighta slipped off without that. Any athlete as dedicated as Roy?and there ain?t too many I?d put in that category?without that balance, pretty soon you?re gonna read about ?em in the paper, you know what I mean??
?Roy brought up murder and suicide an awful lot when he mentions growing up with his dad, and I didn?t get the sense it was hyperbole.?
?Little Roy cut off his dad at 23,? Freddie shrugged, ?to break away from that cycle. I was sorta what you might call their conduit to one another. You remember when Toney was taunting Roy, sayin?, ?I?m breakin? you up!? and Little Roy told him, ?I?m your huckleberry?? Well, Big Roy would be on the phone screaming at me two seconds later, ?Who is this guy to talk to him like that? Tell Little Roy to knock this motherf–ker?s head off!??
Soon the subject turns to Roy continuing his career at his advanced age. I ask Freddie if he ever thought Little Roy would still be here, pushing 47 next January, and still fighting.
Roy Jones Jr. (right) alongside his uncle Freddie Jones. (Photo by Brin-Jonathan Butler)
?Truthfully,? Freddie shrugs. ?I thought he?d done enough after the heavyweight title and would move on. But if he?s still enjoying it, who?s to say he should have to stop? It?s always been his decision to make.?
?Do you ever wish he?d stop??
?Any athlete as dedicated as Roy?and there ain?t too many I?d put in that category?without that balance, pretty soon you?re gonna read about ?em in the paper, you know what I mean?? ? Freddie Jones
Freddie looks at me hard and reaches into his pack for another cigarette.
?What I think doesn?t matter beyond what I?ve always tried to do with Little Roy. I was always there to make my nephew the best nephew he could be. I?m not here to exemplify doubt. I don?t feel I have that right. I?m here to support in every way I can. I?m not here to deter; I?m here to support.?
I shrug. ?It?s a cruel game.?
?He knows he can?t do this forever. Sooner or later, it?s gonna end. You can only keep going for a certain length of time. He?s typical of most athletes in that he doesn?t wanna think when the end is gonna happen. But sooner or later, it?s gonna happen to you. That?s just the cycle of life.
?He?s got so much to live for. He?s got kids, his wife…pretty soon grandkids. When God says, ?Roy, you went as far as you can, son. Sit down.? I think he?s gonna sit down. You can?t put this ugly part of life off forever. It?s comin?.
?He?s probably struggling with it in his mind right now. Fighting is all he knows. I know he don?t wanna never come up lame like them other folks I?m sure he?s seen come before.?
ROUND 7.
The following afternoon, Jones Jr. picks me up in his blue truck and takes me over to the naval base to watch him play his daily game of basketball.
On the way over to the basketball court, we stop for gas, pick up some more seed for his birds and pass through the naval checkpoint. Every time Jones Jr. has to get out of his truck or even roll down the window, someone recognizes him and greets him warmly. He?s gracious and appreciative with anyone he encounters.
His degree of fame in his hometown never seems intrusive for him, and with almost every interaction, he delights in putting a smile on people?s faces and generally shares a laugh before carrying on his way. But it?s never his putting on the charm?nothing surface or boilerplate. It?s his decency that shines through. It?s hard to spend any time with him and not have him grow on you.
And then Roy Jones Jr., four months shy of his 47th birthday, is jogging up and down a basketball court on the knees of a 75-year-old construction worker against hyper-athletic youthful military cadets. It was the only basketball court I?ve ever seen that had a wing of the gym reserved for boxing equipment.
While a heavy bag swayed and someone feebly took a few swings at a speed bag, Jones Jr. was spotting up for threes and taking his time getting back on defense.
Photo by Brin-Jonathan Butler
Mostly, he played the game cautiously and intelligently, never overextending himself or risking injury. His knees progressively got worse and more painful. Then a game would get close, and his competitiveness would get the best of him.
Two points down, I watched him drive through the lane for a layup. The next time down the court, he winced in agony, spinning off a defender for a jump shot for the win. The shot rainbowed down for a swish, and Jones Jr. had his jackpot moment. He commenced a Zorro signature with his shooting hand and looked over to the bleachers. ?You saw it! Don?t pretend like you didn?t!?
ROUND 8.
The drive over to Big Roy?s house was tense and quiet.
Roy Jones Jr. has never minced words when talking about the open wound of his childhood in Pensacola and the ?torture chamber? passageway out in the sticks to becoming a man: kill or be killed. Beyond the sanctuary of the ring and raising his beloved roosters, the constant companion of Jones Jr.?s journey was death?his own or his father?s. The switchblade he carried throughout his youth was for protection against his own blood and driven into his father?s heart in endless bitter fantasies.
With an almost Dickensian devotion toward abuse, humiliation and torment, his father made sure before he?d entered his teens that Little Roy was driven to the brink of murder or suicide, often on a daily basis, while being reared to be the greatest fighter who ever lived. By fiendish design, no opponent would ever be more feared than his own father.
He confirms that he hasn?t had a conversation with his father in over a decade. He says he doesn?t worry about missing a chance to make up with Big Roy before he?s gone. He says Big Roy isn?t worth hating. He says he wouldn’t feel ?a damn thing? if Big Roy were to pass away. Yet, Jones Jr. bought and still pays taxes on Big Roy?s house. The Bentley and Rolls-Royce in the driveway? Little Roy bought those, too.
?Where does your dad stack up next to the other famous father-son dads?? I wonder out loud. ?I guess I?m thinking of Joe Jackson or Floyd Mayweather Sr.?
By fiendish design, no opponent would ever be more feared than his own father.
?My daddy is one of the most brilliant people I ever met,? he shakes his head.
?I?ll say that flat out. But listen, Floyd and his daddy make good reality TV. Their deal?for cameras or not?helped sell fights on 24/7. Good for them. Michael and Joe had a TV movie selling their deal as the American Dream. They couldn?t make nothin? about me and my daddy if even half of it was true.?
Roy reaches over with his forearm and shows me some scars. ?You imagine doin? that to a little boy? And what I ever do wrong to deserve gettin? whooped the way he done??
ROUND 9.
A few minutes later, our tires crackle over some pebbles in the dirt as we pull up in front of a decaying, otherwise plain house with some caged farm animals dozing while others wander around the yard. An aging, slightly rusting Bentley and Rolls-Royce are in the driveway, clashing surreally with the smeared mud on the hubcaps and gravel under their tires and an assortment of leaned-over rakes and shovels nearby.
?Hey!? Jones Jr. hollers toward the house.
?Hey yourself!? someone growls from inside the home.
When Big Roy emerges from the back door, he avoids any recognition of his son and glares exclusively at me. Like an old grizzly bear, he lumbers over carefully on his own pair of shaky knees and never breaks eye contact.
?Who?s this, Roy?? Big Roy asks, instinctively applying zero effort to look at his son who, in turn, is looking anywhere but in his father?s direction during this exchange.
?This here?s a reporter doing a profile on me.?
?Yeah?? Big Roy bellows, reaching up with his index finger to scrape something from his teeth. As he opens his mouth, he exposes only a few badly neglected teeth surrounded by darkness.
?Yeah,? his son confirms.
?OK then,? Big Roy agrees.
And with that, Little Roy nods either at a power line, a shingle on a neighbor?s house or the sound of a distant train?for all I can tell, that?s as close as he wants to come to actually acknowledging his dad?and turns back for the solace of his truck and immediate departure. I chase after him, but without turning around, he holds up his hand to address my concern.
He asks his father to drop me off at the hotel after we?re done and instructs me to then come find him later to talk.
Door slams. Engine turns. Tires peel. The father-and-son reunion from hell has concluded.
?Well,? the 69-year-old Big Roy strains to smile hospitably. ?I gotta pick up my little boy from school. Why don?t you hop in my car, and I can drop you off after I pick up the last of my Mohicans.?
As the Bentley engine purrs, I ask when he and his son parted ways.
?That?s a funny way to put it. We don?t interact, but he?s still my son,? he says. ?I told him that, ?Ain?t nothing you can do. Ain?t nothing I can do. I?m always gonna be your father. What you gonna do with your life is strictly your business.? He couldn?t be no bigger screw-up than me.
?But I didn?t raise him to be me; I raised him to be better. If somehow you unsatisfied with that when you get old enough to understand that? That?s on you. First thing you gotta understand? Boxing was never my idea for what I wanted him to do. It was his dream; it wasn?t my dream.
Big Roy?s Bentley pulled up into a queue of other parents picking up their kids from elementary school. When his son?maybe a year older than Little Roy?s youngest?jumped in the car, he patted my headrest.
?Who dis??
?Your brother brought him over,? Big Roy said, making a little mocking sound in his throat and looking over at me. ?What else you wanna ask??
?You worried your son is fighting too long??
“First thing you gotta understand? Boxing was never my idea for what I wanted him to do. It was his dream; it wasn?t my dream.” ? Roy Jones Sr.
?Like a lot of folks, I think he shoulda quit too. But if that?s what he wanna do? Well, that?s his decision. He seems to have all his facilities. The press getting on him about that is gonna do nothing but encourage him to keep going to prove something.?
?What could he possibly have left to prove?? I asked.
?I guess, in my belief, he understands he didn?t accomplish everything he should?ve.?
?What didn?t he accomplish?? I ask.
?It ain?t so much money. You can?t take that with you. But, you know, legacy? That go with you. That?s the reason they name high schools, stadiums?whatever?after you gone.
Photo courtesy of Rich Schultz/Getty Images for NUVOtv
?Abraham Lincoln? He ain?t dead. He?s still everywhere you look. You wanna be renowned? It ain?t about money; it?s about legacy. My son wants to be remembered when he gone. He don?t wanna die. When he ceases to exist, he wants to know and feel, there gonna be streets named after him and buildings.?
But is it dangerous to still be chasing that?
?The way certain things happened, turn of events, there?s an imbalance there,? he explains. ?Whatever he did, it doesn?t add up to a high enough mention. He just figures that he never fulfilled the potential of his talent and ability. You don?t detect that in him??
?He?s still going,? I shrugged. ?So I guess he isn?t finished, and something?s missing. I don?t really see how the cruiserweight title would solve it.?
?I want things to turn out well for him because he?s my kid. I love him.?
?You?re proud of him??
?I?m proud of his success, and I?m even proud of his mistakes. I wish he?d have done some differently, but he?s his own man. I always raised him to be that way. Father Time is always gonna be there, and you can?t buck him neither. I just wish he?d decide to make up his mind to do it before that decision is made for him.?
Big Roy stopped to get his son a Happy Meal from a McDonald?s. A minute later, he turned off the highway and pulled into my motel parking lot.
?Here we are,? Big Roy announced. ?Nice talkin? to you.?
ROUND 10.
On the last night I spent with Roy Jones Jr., we were driving back from a sports bar after watching a football game with his son, cousin and an old friend.
After asking about my impressions of his old man, he never again returned to watching the game. Suddenly, behind his eyes was the brave and wounded 10-year-old boy self, operating like a ventriloquist with the still-tormented 46-year-old man.
For an hour, he tore into his old man with a vengeance I?d never seen him unleash on an opponent throughout his career.
?I got holes,? he cried. ?My children know I got holes. My wife knows I got holes. But I ain?t no liar. Ain?t he exactly what I told you he was?? He punctuated each grievance with a backhand against my shoulder and, after roughly a hundred, finally became conscious of it and apologized.
So he calmed down enough to inquire about the last story I?d worked on before flying out to Pensacola. I told him it was about Spain?s relationship to bullfighting.
His eyes lit up: ?I?d love bullfighting. Always wanted to see one. That?s something I gotta see. Who?s the Ali of bullfighting??
?A matador named Juan Belmonte.?
?He get gored pretty bad??
?His critics said that the only thing he didn?t do inside a bullring was die in one. He did everything else.?
?How?d he end up?? Jones Jr. asked eagerly.
?He came out of retirement a few times. He lived hard, but he got old. Developed a heart condition and lung cancer. His doctors told him if he wanted to prolong the inevitable, he couldn?t smoke, drink, f–k or ride horses anymore.?
?What he do??
?He had his horse brought over to his house, some cigars, couple bottles of his favorite wine and two of the best-looking prostitutes from a Seville brothel sent to meet him at a cottage he rode over to. The next morning, he blew his head off.?
Jones Jr. laughed.
?I wouldn?t blown my damn head off,? he smiled mischievously. ?Why blow your head off? I?d have had that day over and over again until I finally died. My old barber, they told him if he kept drinking, he was gonna die. He said, ?OK. But I?m not gonna stop drinking.? So he kept drinking until he died. But you know what he told me? He said, ?I gotta die of something.??
