Just as we thought it was safe to . . .

Like his kindred spirit and fellow sociopath Michael Myers, the fictional slasher whom Hollywood brings back to life every time it seems opportune to make another Hallowe'en sequel, Mike Tyson just won't go away. Every time you think you've seen the last of his menacing visage, just like the proverbial bad penny he turns up again.

Tyson V: The Sequel to the Sequel is scheduled to open on October 23rd, admittedly a bit early for Hallowe'en, but Iron Mike trotted out the fright mask early last week. In the process of beating the drums for his upcoming bout against the immortal Orlin Norris, Tyson's minders arranged a sit-down interview with Steve Springer of the Los Angeles Times, and when the subject of Evander Holyfield's ears came up, the former heavyweight champion boasted: "I would do it again under those circumstances."

Now, obviously, if he'd said anything of the sort at either of his hearings before the Nevada State Athletic Commission when they were deliberating the matter of lifting his "indefinite" suspension from the sport, he never would have regained his boxing licence. At the time, all I can remember Tyson saying was how sorry he was that he had lost his head and made a meal of Holyfield's ears, one at a time.

You might say that Tyson is feeling bullet-proof, and under the circumstances who could blame him? Two and a half years ago Nevada took away his licence and banned him from the sport, but just over a year later the commission reinstated him despite criminal charges hanging over his head in Maryland.

In January he fought Francois Botha, a portly South African of dubious gifts who was nevertheless belting Tyson all around the ring. After winning the first four rounds of their scheduled 10-rounder, Botha got careless and stuck his chin out just long enough for Tyson to land a haymaker.

A month later he stood trial in Maryland for beating up a pair of small middle-aged men in the aftermath of a traffic accident. When the judge ordered him locked up for a year, the civilised world breathed a sigh of relief. The jail term, coupled with the fact that he was already on probation as a result of the rape conviction for which he had earlier done time, made it seem unlikely that he'd be bothering us again for a while.

But here he is back again, fighting before what promises to be a sold-out arena at the MGM Grand, and on national (but not pay-per-view) television. Moreover, he is not only defending his 1997 act of cannibalism, but seems to have convinced himself that the ear-biting episode wasn't his fault at all, but that of Holyfield and referee Mills Lane.

"I would do it again under those circumstances," Tyson told Springer. "Mills Lane wasn't protecting me (from head butts). He didn't handle the situation appropriately . . . Yes, (I would do it again) if I'm bleeding and I'm cut."

Tyson served just three and a half months of his Maryland sentence, during which his Indiana parole expired. His handlers were originally pointing for a late August or early September comeback fight, but once they got a look at him the timetable was pushed back. Jail food apparently agrees with Iron Mike.

Tyson spent two months in the gym before he would even appear in public. Two days before last month's Felix Trinidad-Oscar De La Hoya "Fight of the Millennium," the MGM and promoter Dan Goossen of America Presents trotted out Tyson and Norris, taking advantage of the presence of the world's boxing press in Las Vegas for the welterweight title bout.

(Bob Arum, who promoted Trinidad-De La Hoya, was so enraged by this ploy that he fired Norris' "adviser" Scott Woodworth, who had been on the Top Rank payroll, on the spot.)

Tyson forthrightly admitted that he'd ballooned up while behind bars.

"I've gone from 280 lb to 235," he told us that day. "They had me in the joint for a minute, but by fight time I'll be right."

When asked how he had allowed himself to become so, well, corpulent, Tyson answered with a question of his own.

"You ever been incarcerated?" he demanded. (Fortunately he wasn't looking at me when he said it.)

"Well, go hit somebody with a car and you'll find out. See how fat you'll be when you come out!"

January's knockout of Botha was the only fight Tyson has won in over three years - since September of 1996. Norris should be even less of a challenge. His record is 50-5, but most of it was accomplished against cruiserweights.

"I'm no fool," chuckles Norris, scheduled to be paid $700,000 for his role as Tyson's foil. "I know why I'm here."

"It's about time I fought somebody my own size," cracked Tyson when we spoke with him last month. "I know this ain't gotta be no walk in the park, but it ain't gonna be a walk in the park for him, either."

Tyson also conceded that day that he had pondered the possibility of walking away from the sport.

"Sure," he admitted. "But I have too many children I've got to take care of. I owe Showtime (which advanced him a reported $14 million to satisfy back tax liens) my life. I've got to keep fighting just to pay the bills."

To be sure, the woods are full of people willing to buy the argument that Tyson is a victim of the system. By and large, they are the same people who argue that O.J. Simpson was innocent, but it is a matter of historical record that while he was in the sneezer in Maryland, one of his visitors was the late John F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy refused to discuss the specifics of his conversation with the imprisoned boxer, but Tyson's version of the meeting, recalled in his interview with Steve Springer, presents a new side of the former heavyweight champion: Tyson as Nostradamus.

Bearing in mind that Tyson has sometimes been known to play fast and loose with the facts, how intriguing must this conversation have been. "We talked about life. You know, he flew up there to see me, but he had (a flying) instructor with him," recalled Tyson of his meeting with Kennedy Jr. "I told him, `You are crazy to fly,' and he said to me `you don't know what it's like up there alone. You don't know what the feeling is like.'

"I told him it was stupid, that there wasn't enough metal up there for me. I said, `If you are going to go up there, don't take anybody you love with you'."