Is Tyson's New House In Order?

LAS VEGAS - The mailbox at the $3.7 million house is broken.

The front end has snapped off, so the day's delivery is there for all to see. It consists of a single advertising circular. There is a certain satisfaction in this discovery. Because it means that not even $3.7 million can buy you immunity from junk mail.

One of the two large front doors of the $3.7 million house is wide open. It is early afternoon in the desert and the wind is blowing forcefully, and across the street from the $3.7 million house is, well, desert. Sagebrush and runty scrub trees and sand. Lots and lots of sand. Lots and lots of wind.

And the wind is blowing sand through the wide-open door and into and through and all around the magnificent innards of the $3.7 million house. And you think: A Dust Buster salesman could make a killing here.

On the roof of the $3.7 million house, just above the palm trees that have been trucked in and transplanted, perches a stuffed owl. The owl does its job well. No birds venture near the roof of the $3.7 million house.

Still, the owl does look like something out of a carnival midway. Knock down all the milk bottles and win a stuffed owl. And, frankly, on a $3.7 million house, with its palm trees and its beige stone exterior and manicured driveway, and even with its broken mail box and gaping door that's letting in desert by the ton, a stuffed owl looks downright cheesy.

You would like to mention this to the new occupant, and you take one step forward to do just that. But almost immediately you learn that he isn't home today.

"Cleveland," shouts the formidable-looking man who suddenly materializes out of the sand and the wind. "He's in Cleveland."

And then he adds this: "Go away."

His appearance suggests that he has had a lot of practice saying, "Go away." His appearance also suggests that he never has needed to say "Go away" a second time.

You take one step up the driveway and the iron gates, three of them, begin to close. It is not the wind that is closing them. The Go-Away man has one hand in his pocket.

The forefinger of the other hand is wagging at you and the head of the Go-Away man is shaking from side to side. No-no, it is saying. No-no.

You take one step back, and then the gates click shut.

And you look up and the Go-Away man is gone away. The front door is closed. The sand and the wind will be kept out for now.

And so will you.

The $3.7 million house is at 6740 Tomiyasu, in the Green Valley subdivision, maybe three miles off The Strip. The immediate neighbor is Casa de Shenandoah, home to Wayne Newton, beautiful Arabian horses, and a sullen, gray wall that reminds you of a prison. You wonder if it reminds the new occupant of 6740 of a prison.

The new owner of 6740 is Mike Tyson, freshly sprung from his gray, sullen dwelling of the last three years. As a guest of the Indiana penal system, Mike Tyson's cell was smaller than most of the closets in his $3.7 million home.

"I know it don't look like much from the outside," Heath Melendez is saying of the house, "but it'll blow you away on the inside, man. Sunken dining room. Wine cellar. Gym. Tennis courts. Guest house. Nice pool."

You mention to him: And seven bedrooms, from what I hear.

"I didn't count 'em," he says, shrugging. "But there's a bunch."

Heath Melendez works for Prime Cable. He and his crew and their two trucks are hooking up Mike Tyson and his $3.7 million house to cable.

Ten TV sets worth.

The once and future heavyweight champion of the world, convicted rapist and ex-con, now on probation for the next four years, was alleged to have gotten religion while in prison. He supposedly converted to Islam two years ago and forswore all of the appetites that he used to indulge so promiscuously, so ravenously.

When he hurried away in the pre-dawn dark on the morning of his release last month, he wore a white knit prayer cap and was driven to a nearby mosque, where he reportedly prayed with a number of Muslims, the most prominent being Muhammad Ali.

But he left in the familiar escort of Don King, enmeshed again in that sly, silken web, and this was your first thought: So much for religion, so much for abstaining. A $3.7 million house, with 10 cable hook-ups, is hardly a monastic retreat into denial and cleansing deprivation.

In a perverse way, though, you can feel a twinge of sorrow for Mike Tyson. Because everyone seems to want him for "what" he is, and no one seems to want him for "who" he is. They came to see him in prison in unending waves. Some came selling religion and some came selling themselves. Every religion wanted him for a trophy and half a dozen promoters wanted him for the money.

But it was always Don King. All the other stretch limos never really had a chance. Mike Tyson is helpless, mesmerized. Don King is Mike Tyson's Svengali.

And now Mike Tyson will be stored away in splendor inside the $3.7 million house with the broken mail box and the stuffed owl on the roof and the dining room with a painting on the ceiling that took the artist a year - "one entire year!" - to complete. And he will try to work his way back to the fury and the ferocity of before.

And up and down Tomiyasau, the pilgrims and the tourists come, gaping, stopping, getting out and aiming their Instamatics and driving away.

It has started already, the caravans, the processions. The gawkers have a new shrine now.