Playboy Magazine South Africa November 2013 November 2013 | Page 78

FEATURE IT'S MACHO TIME
by bob drury

MACHO
VS

CAMACHO

Héctor “Macho” Camacho slugged his way to fame but couldn’t shake
the life that led to his murder.

“Always like this?”

where the Bruckner Expressway runs up to the Throgs
Neck. Shake their heads and laugh at the madness.
She snaps half a dozen shots of the Beemer, says, “No
cortege like I’ve ever been in.”
Last night she’d staked out St Cecilia’s for the public
viewing. Bitter November wind whipping off the East
River as Macho’s body rolled down 106th Street in a
glass carriage pulled by two white stallions. Showman
to the end. Coffin draped in the Puerto Rican flag, his
three championship belts polished for the occasion.
Four, five deep on the sidewalks, the roses of Spanish
Harlem all weeping.
Jennifer, all the cameras, hoping for a scene like the
one a few days earlier at the wake in Puerto Rico. Open
casket, the mortician having spackled over the bullet
hole in Macho’s head. One of Macho’s girlfriends on the
receiving line bent and kissed the waxy corpse on the lips.
That set off another girlfriend, and they got into a brawl
right there in the chapel. In New York they knew enough
to keep all the girlfriends separated.
Back on the Hutch a dozen or so Harleys blow past me,

SKRWRV E\ DIS

“Dunno,” I say. “He only died once.”
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