Andrew
Clover
The Day I Hugged Mike Tyson
(and he sent me on a quest)
Not long afterwards, because I played the scary clown in the TV show Ashes to Ashes, I was invited to the Earl’s Court Fan Convention, to sign photos. The morning was marked my profound sense of unease. I did make an impression in Ashes to Ashes, but that was because I was dressed up, and made up, to look like David Bowie in the Ashes to Ashes video, and I was usually lurking, just out of focus, at the back of the shot.
At Earl’s Court, I just looked like myself on stage – a tall, skinny fop, dressed in a cheap Next suit.
The top act of the convention was Mike Tyson, the man who, aged 20, became Heavyweight Champion of the World, when he tore down Trevor Berbick, like a Rottweiller taking down the postman. People were paying 75 pounds for thirty seconds with Iron Mike, and I could see why. I couldn’t imagine a man whose physical presence I’d be more curious to see.
Entering the VIP room, I saw The Baddest Man On The Planet, standing alone, by the yogurts. Touching a Low Fat Raspberry with his massive hand, he looked up - directly at me.
It’s now or never, said an instinct.
**
And suddenly there I was, crossing the room towards Mike Tyson, like a gent at a ball, about to propose a dance, to a most unlikely maiden.
‘Mike,’ I said, proffering a hand. ‘I’m Andrew.’
‘Hey Andrew,’ said Tyson. He looked open – sweet even.
‘So…’ I asked, ‘what’s the key to getting through a day like this?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s all about God.’
But which is the true God? - that’s what I wanted to ask!
‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘I thought it was… smile for the camera, don’t keep em talking too long,
because there’s a big queue.’
‘No,’ insisted Tyson, ‘it’s all about God, and what can I do for God? I mean… I don’t know
why these people want to take my picture, but they do. I don’t know why. I feel profoundly
humble, but I don’t know why!’
It seemed Tyson was as uncomfortable as I was, which was, in itself, interesting. (Success is like cocaine: you get a bit of it; it leaves you needy for more).
‘I tell you why they want to take your picture!’ I blurted out. ‘That spate when you were twenty…
Other boxers had their theme tunes, and their dressing gowns, and their egos - and you were just climbing into the ring in your black shorts, and beating the crap out of them. It wasn’t just the speed. It wasn’t just the skill. It wasn’t just the savagery. It was the belief!’
Tyson swallowed. His eyes filled slightly with tears.
‘Thank you Andrew!’ he said, very sincerely.
He was still holding my right hand. He now took to squeezing my right shoulder (as if being
affectionate, or unconsciously testing what sort of punch I could throw). He pulled me
towards him.
And then, miraculously, we were hugging. For ten long seconds, Mike Tyson and I stood
by the yogurts, blissfully cuddling.
**
Dazed from the encounter, I was still running it through my mind as I went home. Had Mike Tyson just sent me on a quest? Which was the true God? That was what I’d wanted to know.
Over the next few months, I read the holy texts of the five great faiths. I read The Koran,
the Bible, The Buddhist Scriptures, The Baghavad Gita, and The Tao Te Ching…
I was struck by the similarities in the texts – and in the key men who’d fostered them.
Mohammad lost his father, before he was born. Confucius’s dad died, when the sage was three. Jesus had a father of course, but disowned him (like an aggrieved step-child saying, ‘You’re not even my real dad!’)
Were the great religions made by men, seeking a Heavenly father?
But wouldn’t it be more useful, I mused, to imagine a perfect mother?
My mother – Val – is loveable enough. She’s a great maker of lasagnes. She’s a great wrapper of cheap-and-cheerful stocking fillers - some novelty pants, some chocolate… She’s also a scatty, tense woman, who spent my childhood, losing her temper, and arriving an hour late, to pick us up from school. Her deficiencies seemed far more significant than my dad’s, into shaping the adult I’ve become.
One day, I opened a cupboard, and an opened pasta packet plunged out, scattering dried spaghetti all over the floor. ‘Oh Andrew!’ I instinctively said – and realised that, I’d perfectly reproduced the way my mother always scolded, if something went wrong. Clearly, I held her voice in my head.
It was a voice that needed to be refined.
I also read Robert Graves’s The White Goddess, an astonishing compendium of world folk
myth, which explained how Christianity had co-opted the pagan calendar. Christmas, for example, falls around the Winter Solstice, with its story of a child, born in winter, bringing renewed life – a clear reworking of the pagan idea of seeds, in mid-winter, being below ground, ready to spring forth into life. And most pagan faiths, I learned, worshipped a nurturing, forgiving mother.
It wasn’t a Heavenly Father I wanted – more a more Earthly Mother.