The moment seemed picture perfect. After signing scores of autographs and posing for just as many pictures as part of an ongoing community service stint at Brooklyn’s legendary Gleason’s Gym yesterday, Mike Tyson was asked to pose with a portrait of himself from when he was 20 years old. It seems so long ago now, that time when Tyson became the youngest, and perhaps most devastating, heavyweight champion in history.

Tyson did not embrace the painting of himself with the same tenderness as the kids he worked the training mitts with, patting their backs in gestures of support and kissing their sweaty heads with gentle adoration. Tyson merely pushed the image of his former self away, as if the oil on canvas was a plate of spoiled food.

“I don’t want none of that, man,” he said.

Among Tyson’s many eccentric virtues, introspection has on some days seemed the most pronounced. At 38, with flecks of gray stubble dotting his chin and torn ligaments in his knee (among a host of other ailments),Tyson suggested yesterday that his boxing career was miles behind him – save for the appetizing prospect of conquering a barren heavyweight division and the intimidating specter of more than $30 million in debts.

“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t,” Tyson said, when asked if would like to fight again. “Most of the time, I don’t. I’m just not into it. I don’t care.”

He declined to comment on a proposed March comeback bout, saying only, “I’m just training.” As for his injured knee, damaged in the first round of an upset at the hands of Danny Williams in July, Tyson said only, “I haven’t been to rehab in awhile.”

So, if Tyson hasn’t been preparing to fight or even re-working the knee, what has he been doing?

“Just living,” he said.

And training. For two hours yesterday, a gaggle of young boxing aspirants took their turns at Tyson, who shadowed them around the ring and barked instructions.

“Dig into me, champ!” he told 9-year-old Sherif Younan Jr. “Double hook! Turn it over!”

“You got me, you got me now,” he told Sueshona Norville, also 9.

Tyson’s services come as part of a plea deal struck with the Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes, in exchange for expunging leftover misdemeanor charges stemming from an early-morning altercation with two unruly fans last summer in the lobby of the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel. This week Tyson will continue training at Police Athletic League locations around the city. He also plans to attend hearings in bankruptcy court.

After that, Tyson suggested yesterday, his future is as uncertain as it was before he first started to box. He has been living in the environs of Phoenix, Ariz., and has said he is unsure if he will return there after completing his service in New York.

“I’m living wherever I can these days,” he said.

The statement was dark, although Tyson, as he has stated before, can be “one dark dude.” One reporter asked Tyson to address the perennial rumors around boxing circles that he is dead.

“Whatever death is,” Tyson said, “it’s got to be better than living.”

The enigmatic former heavyweight champ then looked around the sweat choked gym, at the reporters quizzing him, his crowd of fans, and the other fighters training. Many had stopped skipping rope and shadowboxing to stare at Tyson in mass admiration. Many would do anything to trade places with Iron Mike, to have a name that’s recognized across the world, even if that name is a tarnished one.

If that couldn’t happen, the fighters would settle for a picture with him. Tyson seemed troubled by the moment.

“Sometimes,” he said about his career, “you wonder if it’s all worth it.”