A frenzy seized him. Suddenly, all salvation seemed to lie in finding Freeda and George III, whom his wife had taken to St. Lucia. He knew he must act quickly or he might never see them again. It would be dangerous; Andrea's family played a prominent role in the island's government, and the moment the ex-world champion stepped onto the tiny island, everyone would know.
He flew to Barbados and chartered a plane for the 100-mile flight to St. Lucia, where he sneaked past customs. He hid behind a tree on the beach while his luggage was checked through, then he was whisked to a hotel and checked in under a false name. He looked at himself, lying and hiding, and wondered what had become of him. But something he couldn't comprehend drove him.
Handing out thousand-dollar bribes, he discovered the hotel where Andrea and his two children were staying. That night he went there with Erma Compton. a local woman who'd agreed to help him—ironically, she had once sued Foreman for beating her. Compton knocked on the door and told the kids' nanny she wanted to leave a note for the mother. Foreman burst in, swept up the children, and returned to his hotel.
"Baby, what you want?" he cried, hugging his children ferociously.
"I want a McDonald's," declared 6-year-old Freeda.
Now he had another problem—the plane he had chartered for his getaway wasn't leaving until the next day. George III, six months old, had a stomach virus and wouldn't stop crying. Foreman sat up through the night in his room, trying to hush him, envisioning the possibility of kidnapping charges. At 4 a.m. he heard a voice.
"This is the police. Your hotel room is surrounded. Give yourself up."
"These children want to go with me," he shouted back. "I have their passports and birth certificates. They're American citizens. The only way to get them is to break in and kill me!"
As dawn was breaking, he was at the hotel entrance, and in the uncertain light he saw a huge army truck, a detachment of men in black berets with cartridge belts across their chests and armed with semiautomatic weapons. It was the SSU, the island's special fighting force.
They marched toward him. He placed his children behind him, folded his arms and stood inside the double-glass sliding doors, praying, trembling. Just as they reached the door, he heard a command from behind them. They backed oil' and drove away, telling him they would return with an order for him to be in court at 9 a.m.
"My wife's cousin was the top lawyer on the island," he would say later. "I knew I'd lose the case and never see my children again."
Foreman began shelling out thousand-dollar bills again. He left the hotel as if heading for the court, then, on a desolate stretch of the road, switched his children to a van he had arranged to have waiting and lay down on its floor. The van raced to the airport. George III screamed and vomited. The driver hopped out to locate the pilot, and returned, his eyes wide with fear. "Mr. Foreman," he said excitedly, "the police say no airplane can leave the island until you have been apprehended."
"I thought, 'This is it,' " Foreman would recall. "I can't light anymore. I used to be heavyweight champion of the world, and now here I am, sweating, hiding from the police, cleaning up diarrhea. Freeda kept saying, 'I gotta tell the police this is my daddy,' and 'I want a Big Mac and french fries.' "
The driver had another idea. He pulled away from the airport and headed toward the sea. An old 50-foot boat with a two-man crew was about to leave for the nearby island of St. Vincent. A government official had already stamped the list of departing passengers, but for $5,000 the captain stashed Foreman and the children in the boat and added their names to the list.
The boat shoved off, and soon Freeda became seasick. She would vomit, then look up and sing, "George Washington, George Washington, we honor you today," and "Lincoln, Lincoln, I've been thinking." Foreman hugged her and cried and they sang a duet of America the Beautiful, with George III squalling in accompaniment.
Finally, Foreman poked his head up to look around. He saw St. Lucia becoming a brown speck, and the crew, two half-naked Rastafarians, spreading marijuana out on the deck to dry. The fundamentalist in him wanted to snarl at their dirty nakedness and drugs. The human being in him wanted to embrace them. Something inside him began to melt away.
Eight months later George Foreman sat on the grass next to the pond on his 200-acre ranch in Marshall. His battered boots made a V for his fishing rod to rest in as he patiently adjusted the reel. Then he lifted the rod and zinged a baited hook into the water, near the fleet of honking geese. His 16 horses were spread across the pasture behind him, and his little partner, Reddie—a sheepdog trapped in a poodle's body—made mad barking rushes at the horses when they came too close.
The bass weren't biting, but Foreman didn't care. He was explaining how the experience in St. Lucia had changed him.
"The people who helped me were ones I used to call devils," he said. "The Rastafarians were sitting there with drugs. But they all cried with me and protected me. It hit me—converted or not, people are the best creation I've ever seen.
I wouldn't trade the human race for nothing, whether they're holding Bibles or not. Before I was so tucked away into religion, all I could see in other people was a threat to it. Now I don't want to share Heaven with no angels—just people.
