F. Scott Fitzgerald didn’t live to see Darryl Strawberry or Steve Howe or Richard Nixon or even Madonna, for that matter. Imagine if he had lived to experience Mike Tyson.

If he had, he never could have written his greatest line, the one about there being no second acts in American life. Welcome to Mike Tyson, Act II.

In point of strict fact, this is more like Act IV of the Tyson saga. Stretching into its third decade, Iron Mike’s career has survived two prison stints, a yearlong suspension for biting off a man’s ear, and a self-imposed 17-month exile that ends tonight when the former heavyweight champion enters the ring to fight English heavyweight Danny Williams in Louisville, Ky.

What makes this one different is that for the first time, Tyson says he is going to try to separate the monster in the ring from the man outside of it. And that will not be as difficult as it sounds, because according to him, what came before was all an act.

“You have to understand, the guy I was, was basically a show,” Tyson said this week in an exclusive interview on 1050 ESPN radio. “Even though I’m sincere in who I am, that was basically all to sell tickets. I’m not truly a monster, even though I put a good message out there and had people convinced that I was. But I have children, I love my children, I love my nieces and nephews. I’m just a normal person but I have a bizarre job and I have to do that to the best of my abilities.”

Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Jack Dempsey, Oscar de la Hoya, and thousands of others who have earned a living in the same bizarre line of work seemed able to do their jobs without issuing grandiose threats or devouring body parts, but hey, it takes all kinds to make a boxing world.

Tyson is one of a kind, a strange amalgam of insecure little boy/highly dangerous man who often lapses into a lingua franca of comic-book bravado. Some of his most oft-quoted proclamations – “How dare they challenge me with their primitive skills!” – came straight out of action hero movies.

In the beginning, his persona seemed contrived, but over time, the line between the man and the character blurred and eventually disappeared. Often, it seemed as if the person Tyson most needed to convince of his ferocity was himself.

By the time Tyson chomped Holyfield’s ear in the ring, or took a bite out of Lennox Lewis’ thigh at a press conference at the Hudson Theater, he had become the creation, a Frankenstein’s monster of his own making.

Now, at 38, Tyson says he doesn’t need that anymore.

“I realized that what I been doing in the past, it wasn’t really who I was. I didn’t accomplish anything by doing it. The only way I accomplished anything was by being consistent in what I was doing from the start of my career, and that’s fighting. And that’s all I’m interested in doing.”

In fact, the old Tyson accomplished plenty. In addition to becoming the youngest man ever to win the heavyweight title, he accomplished the rare feat of amassing and blowing three fortunes, the smallest of which is conservatively estimated at $100 million.

He blew two marriages, countless personal relationships with managers, trainers, friends, family members, and the media. He took what could have been a memorable and uncommonly lucrative career and turned it into an international joke.

Over time, the awe with which fight fans regarded Tyson gave way to the kind of fascination that draws gawkers to freak shows. Now, the fascination has given way to curiosity, less about what Tyson might do in the ring than about what he is still able to do.

No doubt, that curiosity will draw a healthy number of people to gamble $44.95 that tonight, Tyson will give them some reason to believe he can be the monster who captivated the sporting world for a few years in the late 80’s before devolving into a circus act.

Danny Williams is no real threat – he passed his audition by splitting two fights with Julius Francis, who Tyson easily knocked out in January 2000, in a previous comeback fight.

“I don’t know Danny Williams,” Tyson said. “My objective is just to go in and win. I’m not worried about what Danny is gonna do, I’m just thinking about what I’m gonna do.

“I no longer have to talk about eating people’s children or smashing their skulls in. They saw what I can do over the last 20 years. I’m just here to let my fists do my talking.”

The question is, will fists alone be enough to carry Mike Tyson, Act II?