In Judgment of Iron Mike

By RICHARD CORLISS

He looks straitjacketed in a dark suit. He seems caged in his chair in an Indianapolis courtroom as a demure 18-year-old from Rhode Island, a contestant in the Miss Black America Pageant last July, testifies that he raped her. But in his natural habitat, the boxing ring, Mike Tyson is a creature in - implacable forward motion. He just keeps coming, and you go down. He cuts you like a buzz saw, crushes you like a tree falling on a sleepy squirrel.

In a way, this Tyson, the Tyson of legend, is on trial here, as much for his behavior on the job as on the town. The heavyweight champ in title or spirit, Tyson is an imposing villain, for he seems beyond evil or humanity -- soul- free. Look for the black heart beneath the black stare, and find the creepiest thing: nothing. Punishment without guilt. After a 1986 TKO of Jesse Ferguson, Tyson said matter-of-factly, "I tried to punch him and drive the bone of his nose back into his brain." Nice analysis, Professor Death.

Purged of moral compunctions, Tyson is what scholars of the blood sport call a pure fighter. This is atavistic manhood, stripped of all weapons but fists, guile and will. A man-beast-machine: hunter, warrior, conqueror, terminator. Even lover. The other guy in the ring is Tyson's partner -- a heavy date -- as well as an opponent; Iron Mike must find the man's rhythms, whims, indulgences, weak spots. A fight with Tyson at his physical and emotional peak is like a brisk courtship that ends in slaughter.

The question now facing 12 Indianapolis jurors is this: What is a real Tyson courtship like? For a living -- oh, and a lavish one -- Tyson hurts people. What does he do for fun? According to tabloid tabulations, he has been cited as a pincher, threatener and "serial buttocks fondler" of women. His ex- wife, actress Robin Givens, accused him of brutality. His former friend, New York State Athletic Commission chairman Jose Torres, said Tyson boasted of all-night sexual marathons with two dozen prostitutes. The popular take on Tyson is that he sees women as nothing more than trophies, punching bags, meat; that for him, romance is boxing with the gloves off.

Give Tyson a break for a second and hope he can make the distinction between life and sport, between what he is and what he does -- what he has been trained, molded, programmed to achieve since he was a 13-year-old reform- school rehab project for fight manager Cus D'Amato. Tyson can't be convicted for the role he plays or the work he chooses. And in the half of his life devoted to boxing, he has attracted mentors, sportswriters and, yes, Givens with evidence of softness, hints of heart: the odd fluty pitch of his voice, the stabs at elaborate rhetoric, even his love for pigeons -- a fancy he shared with another damaged boxing hero, the Marlon Brando coulda-been contender in On the Waterfront. It was Tyson's mention of the pigeons that briefly beguiled Miss Rhode Island, she testified last week.

When the tiny, very pretty freshman from Providence College took the stand, Tyson finally had to cede his searchlight-spotlight to a co-star. At that moment the sense of the procedure finally shifted from a test of a celebrity's mettle, or the dilemma of Tyson the legend vs. Tyson the man, to a familiarly tragic story of men's dangerous urges and women's rightful fears.

In a voice even more childlike than Tyson's, but with a rarely wavering poise, the accuser told of the boxer's invitation to "go around and see Indianapolis"; of his abrupt change of mood in his hotel room, from chatting to rutting; of feeling "excruciating pain" as he "jammed" his fingers into her. "He was laughing, like it was a game." She said he performed oral sex on her, and then "I was trying to get him to move so I could get away. He just said, 'So we'll have a baby,' and he jammed himself in." Later, she testified, he withdrew and ejaculated. "I told you I wouldn't come inside you," she quoted Tyson as saying. "Don't you love me now?"

Any rape trial lacking conclusive physical evidence can be reduced by the jury to a case of "he said, she said." Since the presumption of innocence clings to the defendant and the burden of proof to the state, it's tough to get a conviction. But Tyson's accuser is no Patricia Bowman fraying under cross-examination; she effectively deflated the defense's suggestion that because she removed her panty shield in the hotel bathroom, she was a ready and willing sexual participant. Nor has defense attorney Vincent Fuller, with his brusque questioning, proved himself the equal of Roy Black, William Kennedy Smith's barrister. Finally, Tyson is not expected to make many converts on the witness stand. If convicted on all counts, he could face 63 years of prison workouts.

The trial promises more perplexities. The defense may argue that Tyson was unable to inflict the deep vaginal injuries that the prosecution claims because of the "modest proportions" of his penis. By trial's end, all the contentious testimony may be reduced to a new twist on age-old gender imperatives. Either: a star thinks he can take anything he wants. Or: inside every good girl beats a groupie's concupiscent heart.

The latter prejudice must animate the Tyson fans who cheer the fighter each ! day and have paid $100 for scalped tickets to the trial. Or perhaps they already forgive this Baryshnikov of boxing's classical choreography if he did practice his art on a reluctant opponent. Innocent or guilty, though, Tyson is more to be pitied than feared -- not because he may lose his freedom and his livelihood, but because he seems an exemplar of all those sad studs who are prisoners of manhood.

With reporting by Sophfronia Scott Gregory/Indianapolis