Now Here's A Macho, Macho, Macho Man

Connies Gym on 125th Street is across the street from Soul on Wax and right next door to This Bitter Earth Restaurant. Everything in the gym looks abused: the ceiling, sagging from the weight of a huge ugly heating unit; the walls, covered with old posters and torn photographs; the few chairs; the buckled wood floor. The room is now full of people who are watching Camacho pummel the heavy bag and the speed bag.

After Camacho finishes his workout and is on his way out, a man who's a foot taller and about a hundred pounds heavier lets him know that he isn't everything he thinks he is. Camacho, inspired and gleaming, rails at the man, angering him. As the man's ire grows, so does Camacho's audacity. He looks like a boy taunting a dragon and having a helluva time. Someone whisks him out the door.

"We could have had him," he says later on the street to Tito, Edwin and his 5-year-old son, Hector Jr., who lives nearby with his mother, Myra Oliva. (Hector Sr. has found a new leading lady, 18-year-old Keesha Colon.) "My son would have grabbed his leg, and we would have taken the rest of him. I don't fear nobody," he says calmly, grabbing hold of little Hector's hand and heading home. The 15 years between them somehow diminishes when they walk away along the darkening street.

Camacho is now back at his mother's apartment, lounging on the couch. "Hey," Edwin says, tossing a foot-long stuffed moose towards him.

"That your teddy bear?" Tito asks, grinning.

"This is no teddy bear," says Camacho, "This is a moosie." He put the moose, a present he was given when he fought John Montes in Anchorage, Alaska, on his chest. "My pillow, man." The moose's stomach is flattened in the middle where Hector rests his head on it.

"The best is yet to come," he goes on. "And when the best is over I'm going to retire, have a restaurant, a club maybe, something nice. Have my mother cooking in the back; my sister taking care of the dishes. A lot of boxers squander their money. Not me. You put money in the bank, after a while it works for you."

"Hey," Tito says. "Look at the moosie's face. He got a crooked jaw. What'd you do? Break his jaw?"

"Nah," Camacho says, stroking the moose's head, "I'm a macho man, but then again, I'm a sweetheart."