Ali And His Entourage

She stood in a food-splotched apron in the basement cafeteria of a private school on East 70th Street in Manhattan, stuffing pita pockets with barbecue and rolling her hips to the music from the radio. Her hips, her soul and her name—Lana Shabazz—are those of a jazz singer, but the gaze she gave the children was that of a mother.

Hardly none of 'em down here know. That's nothin' off my teeth, no need for 'em to. I got my own life, I don't need 'em fussin' over me. Get up at five every mornin', draw me a bath, get dressed in my whites for work. Still live out of suitcases—that's from being with him. Then I go drink coffee in a deli or a restaurant. Nice to sip and socialize with folks. By seven, I'm down here workin' myself tired to the bone runnin' this kitchen, the kind of tired you got to soak out in another big hot bath at night. Ain't easy, but I'm happy, 'course I am.

"Lana," the headmaster called, "do you have some tea?"

"Lana," a teacher said, "you got any of that broiled fish?"

"Lana," said the memo on the wall, "a reminder that we will need coffee and Danish for parent tours next week."

"Mama," said the little boy. "I'm hungry. What's to eat?"

Mama, that's what the young ones call me. Three hundred and fifty kids needin' me here every day...but all of 'em needin' together can't never need me like he did. He'd come in at midnight, I'd have his dinner ready. He'd wake up at five a.m. and say, "Lana, get me a cuppa tea," I'd get up and do it. He'd travel, I'd pack up and cook in his hotel suite. Made sure he got all the live enzymes. Cooked without butter to save the calories—he had to allow for his sweet tooth. Made him cookies and cakes, then hid 'em so he wouldn't eat 'em all at once. He'd swallow what I made so fast I'd wonder if he had teeth in his stomach. Then he'd go back to his cabin, and I'd worry about the cold from the air-conditionin' hittin' his chest, he kept it so high. What a beautiful man. I'd feed his kids at camp, break up their fights—they treated me like a mother. Nobody else couldn't a did what I did for that man.

She looked up and saw the first- and second-graders fill the cafeteria like a burst of happy swallows. They swarmed at her legs and tugged at her white bell-bottom trousers. "Mama, do you have cookies? Mama, can we have a cookie?" She told them she couldn't do that, stroked their heads, then grinned and sneaked them each a big one.

One time, man read my cards and looked at me funny. He said, "There's more of Ali's cards showin' than yours." That scared me—I'd almost lost myself to him. All I thought of was Ali. But he gave so much of himself to the world, I told myself, he needs someone to take care of him. And that was me. Veronica, his third wife, she sat there combin' her hair while Earnie Shavers was punchin' on him, but I couldn't bear it. I had to get up and go back to my hotel room, where I prayed and screamed so long, God had to let him win. Psychic told me that in another life, I was his mother. Gets me to wanna cry, thinkin' about him. But I won't though. No, I won't.

She did a little samba around the butcher block, disappeared into the pantry and reappeared bopping out a bongo beat on a shiny ice bucket. When she leaned to dip a spoon and test the soup, her gold earrings shook. She straightened and pushed her big eyeglasses back up her steam-slick nose.