Читать книгу Sporting Blood. Tales from the Dark Side of Boxing онлайн

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In March 1919, Johnson returned to Havana—site of his diminishment four years earlier—and upon disembarking, immediately announced that his loss to Willard in 1915 had been a fix. Unfortunately, this startling claim distressed the Cuban government, which promptly issued a warrant for his arrest. Again Johnson sailed on, this time to Mexico, where some brave entrepreneurs assured Johnson that there was a fortune waiting for him in setups. In keeping with his knack for chaos, Johnson arrived during turbulent times in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. There, he publicly called for black Americans to abandon the United States for the more racially tolerant Mexico, a move that verged on sedition.

At odds with the United States over oil rights, President Venustiano Carranza saw Johnson as a public-relations opportunity he could not pass up, and so he welcomed Johnson to Mexico City. Under the patronage of Carranza, Johnson waltzed through exhibitions, put on his strongman act, and eventually ran a bar in Tijuana. But Carranza would not live long enough for Johnson to truly prosper. Ousted by a coup after appointing a figurehead to the presidency, Carranza was assassinated before he could flee Mexico. With Carranza dead, Johnson found himself the enemy of yet another state. Ordered to pack his bags by the Mexican government, Johnson contacted the Bureau of Investigation and offered to negotiate terms of surrender. For seven years, Johnson had wandered across the world, often under duress, and now, with nowhere else to go, he was ready to trade one form of exile for another.