Down And Dirty

"I say you go!"

"Go now!"

"What?..."

The script sounds a lot like one of his interviews. At a recent lunch with Garczarczyk and another reporter, Golota restlessly answered inquiries in a similar manner, adding a series of grunts and other guttural mumblings. Finally, after an hour or so, Golota left the table, thus ending a conversation slightly more arduous than spleen removal. At that point Garczarczyk turned to his fellow journalist and said sincerely, "Wow, I have never seen Andrew open up like that before."

Just when Polish-American relations appeared doomed, Golota returned, and he was suddenly, magically, eloquent in his adopted tongue, as if he had crammed Berlitz or at least rehearsed a speech while settling the bill. "I wanted to tell you that growing up in Poland, I would watch videotapes of Muhammad Ali, thinking all the time about becoming the heavyweight champion of the world and living the American dream," says Golota. "Now I guess I am living the dream better than most of you Americans, yes?"

Now that's a low blow.