Updated on September 24, 2009

Email to: rbaumann328@gmail.com

"All things must pass" so George Harrison once said. Thanks for visiting. This space will now just be a place for me to store some old materials. It's purpose will change from being about English to being about... nothing.

The Crow Story
[working title of an unfinished project]
Audiobook of this story is done and has been
posted on http://www.runyonsway.net

Posted 7/11/08

Manapefe, New Mexico is not on the map. It is a fly-speck town, really. It has the general store and a cafe/gas station, but not much else. It is farm country for the most part. The town within a town is Ellisville, but that's just a joke. Ellisville is a grain silo that has its own zip code. It stands on farmland outside of the main downtown area, but it's a part of Manapefe nonetheless. I was born here and I'll probably die here. Might even get my ashes spread about because there's no church in Manapefe or graveyard. We ship our dead out of the town over to Semapaw for a decent Christian burial. Those with the energy to make the round-trip drive can attend church there and a few folks do. Town itself has a population well under 100 souls. Like I said, it's farmland.

Most days I like to get up early and head over to the Manapefe Cafe and have some breakfast. Don't need much. My wife used to tell me I was getting fat, but she died a few years ago and ever since then it doesn't seem to matter much. I guess you aren't a married fellow, are you? Naw, you just look too damned happy. We could go there now and the coffee'd be fresh and hot. Might even set down to a bowl of cereal or pancakes, if you'd like. Your flat tire's all fixed and you don't have to rush anywheres so come on along and join me. You can park your car over at the Cafe and get yourself some gas. Oh, I mean from the gas pump, that is. Jurene is a bit waggish with her tongue but she's a pretty damn good short order cook. Been here all her life, too.

Did you say what kinda work you do? Oh, reporter? Well, not much news over here really, but like any small town there's just local gossip. By the way, my name's James but you can call me Jim or Jimmy, either one. You're a Jay? Ha. Well, I'm James. Can be interpolated about a dozen ways from sundown. How do you like people to call you? It's not your full name, but an initial? You say your name is Jesus? That's a pretty good name for these parts. The cafe is not far down the road, Jesus. Well, OK, if you say you prefer just "J", then J it is. You can coast the rest of the way if you're not in a hurry. Save some gas. You'll see the cafe as soon as you see the gas pump. Hah, and that's it on the right. See her? Just slide your car right in. No need to worry. You can park at the pump. Jurene hasn't had many customers since the highway wound through to Semapaw without clearing Manapefe some years back. The small town just got a bit smaller is all.

What kind of food you like for breakfast, J? Jurene'll serve you up just about most anything she has and she has some variety. You like a nice Sante Fe breakfast? Taos? Well, no matter. She can fix it, just about whatever you want... but don't be surprised if she asks you a lot of personal questions, J. In a small town people get nosey. You don't have to lock the car. It looks like there isn't much worth stealing and there's no thieves around these parts. Just follow me.

That was how they had met, these two strangers. The one, a somewhat straggly bearded fellow who looked like he could use a good meal or two and the other an elderly fellow who was like an old country dog. Just about everyone's friend... instantly. They walked into the Manapefe Cafe like they'd known each other for a lifetime, and now that I think about it... maybe they did. At least that is what Jurene had first thought when the two sat at her counter. She took their orders quick enough. It was the usual slow day at the Cafe and no other customers were waiting for their orders. Jurene eyed Jimmy Hall but didn't even have to ask what he'd want. Jimmy was always "two eggs, over easy with whole wheat toast, dry, no butter. A side of hash browns and a small OJ". The coffee was a given. Everyone has coffee in Manapefe. Tea? Downright un-American. Jurene had some old Lipton tea bags around somewheres, but they were staler than the Mayor's speeches. She kept them hid so's no one would even think to ask for tea. It was on the menu of course, but nobody asked for it.

The stranger named J? He had let Jimmy Hall order and then did the diplomatic thing by telling Jurene to just double the order. He'd reached into his pocket and pulled out a single $20 bill that looked newer than the morning sun. Jurene saw it and noted that she'd been wondering if the young man would be able to pay for the food, as clearly Jimmy was not going to have the resources to do so. As she thought this, the stranger had pulled out the bill and put it on the counter. A fleeting thought went through Jurene's mind. Did he know what I was wondering? She put that thought aside. She had four eggs and some hash browns to prepare. She was in the kitchen for several minutes and then brought the order out on two plates. The coffee came next along with the juice. Without so much as an invitation, she joined the two men with her own coffee. From behind the counter she went through a litany of questions, a bit more direct than Jimmy's had been. As he answered her, just for making conversation of course, he had the warmest smile. She felt as if her questions had amused him.

Well, why shouldn't they have amused him? Reporters are like ferrets, aren't they? They love to dig for details, so why shouldn't he have been entertained by the way Jurene went from one personal question to the next without so much as an "excuse me, but" in her method. That was when I came in and was promptly ignored. At least Jurene ignored me. Jimmy had nodded a hello and the stranger turned toward me slightly until Jurene brought him back with some more questions.

I sat just a stool or two over to the left of the stranger, but Jurene paid me no mind. It was with good reason. I'd been drinking, you see. I am an alcoholic. I drink, or at least I used to drink quite a bit. I've been sober now for about a year. Haven't touched a drop since that day. Might never drink again, but you never know. The desire to drink seems to have left me completely. I guess I am supposed to tell you what happened in the Cafe that day... and maybe just a bit more. It's a bit of a story, but at least now you know why Jurene wanted nothing to do with me. Last time I got drunk, I'd cussed her out and broke a few dishes. Paid for them the next day and apologized. Jurene'd forgiven me, especially since I paid her what was due to her... but I was far from her favorite customer.

The cup of black coffee that sailed in front of me was mine without asking for it. I just looked up from it, but Jurene had turned her back to me. I was less important to her than her trash. I thought about that as I sipped from the cup, trying to find in it enough sobriety to get through the day. Nights are pretty hard, but the daytime passes quick enough with a bit of hard labor. I am a farmer. I've been on my family farm since I was a kid. My dad was a farmer and his dad was a farmer, too. It's just about the way things went in those days. You got an education in the fields, not in the schools. There was no question about going to college, not in those days.

It was the stranger who turned away from Jimmy and Jurene. He sat right next to me and looked me in the eyes. He said "You're Michael Voss". It was not a question. It was a statement. "You're George Voss's son, and Jeremiah Voss's grandson." He said all this without so much as a "hello". I figured that he was some kind of tax man or sheriff, to be honest, but looking at his clothes I re-thought about it. It was all rather quick. It had to be a 'yes' or 'no' answer. He spoke as if he knew me. I was half sober enough to realize that. I took a long hard stare at this man and told him it depended upon what he wanted. My speech might not have been too clear, but he understood me.

Jurene and Jimmy just watched him and their mouths opened and shut like they were fish in a fish tank. J turned back to them and told them that he was en route to interview me when his car had that flat tire out on the roadway. "Interview me?", I thought. Why would anyone want to talk with the town drunk, a washed-up, no account, alcohol soaked and good for nothing fellow like me? He explained it very clearly. He wanted to write about John, my son, and suddenly the coffee didn't seem to fit what I needed. I reached around to my back pocket for the flask that carried my medicine, but the stranger touched my arm. "Could that wait a bit?", he asked. I smiled at him and told him that it probably couldn't. "Why you want to write about Johnny?", I asked. That stranger just looked straight at me. His answer baffled me. He told me that I knew why. At that point, I did not know why. I sure found out... but I'll get to that. I raised the flask to my lips and took a swig. Jurene came over and knocked the whole thing out of my hands. Told me she wouldn't allow any drinking in her place. She was right... as right as I was drunk... and I didn't want to sober up right then... not if I had to tell this man about my son.

Liquor has a wonderful way of changing the world and how you see it. It is a filter for those of us not strong enough to take what life dishes out. Self-pity becomes righteousness. Anger and frustrations are justification. A considerably poor self-image becomes blurred enough to make you think you're a heck of a fellow. Ask any drunk if this is true, but just ask him when he is sober.

"I want to know how John Voss lived his life", J said to me. "I think if we both consider that it might help to explain the reason why he died. My editor and I both think there is a story in that. The only one who knows John Voss really well is his father, and that is why I am here to interview you."

Jurene had saddled a bit closer and was listening in. When I looked up she was close enough to be breathing on me. I had to swallow my pride, a thing easy enough to do, and ask for another coffee. The spilled cup that Jurene had knocked out of my hands was still on the floor. She hadn't cleaned it up. There were tears in her eyes. I promised her that I wasn't going to add anything into the coffee, so she went off and brought another cup. She sat down near us to listen in and that's when Jimmy Hall ambled over, not wanting to be left out of hearing a good yarn.

"You want to know how my son lived and you think there is a story in that? Well, I'll give your readers a story all right. It might explain something about my son, true enough... but the story isn't about him. It isn't even about me so much. It is about old Jeremiah Voss himself, a man Johnny never met. Johnny's story begins with him."

J sat there looking at me and listening with his fullest attention. He had his hands folded across each other and leaning a bit on the table. I asked J if he was going to write anything down, seeing as how he was a reporter. J told me it wasn't his style. He said that he'd spent his lifetime listening to people and that he had the kind of memory that captured everything. If I had been in the schoolyard right then, I'd have asked him some dumbass question as a test. I'd have asked him to tell me the color of Jimmy Hall's shirt. I was thinking that and J looked at me without blinking and told me the color of Jimmy's shirt was blue. I was pretty sure I hadn't asked that question, but he'd answered it anyway. I sipped on my coffee thinking I really needed to sober up a bit more. J asked me to tell him about Jeremiah Voss, my grandfather. It was like saying that we should begin at the beginning... so I did. It was long ago and the memories are still clear.

"If you were to ask me what made Jeremiah Voss move from his homeland and settle in Menapafe, I couldn't tell you. His father and mother are folks I never met. They were long dead when I was born. Grandpa had been born some years before the turn of the century. My dad, George Voss, came along in 1905 and I was born 1938. By the time of the story Grandpa was quite an old fellow, but he wasn't about to retire. He was still up before dawn every damn day and that is what he taught my dad to do. My grandad taught that to me too, because my own dad had  passed on when I was young. I took my dad's place by the time I was ten. Around a farm there are chores to do and you begin way early."

I was explaining this to J because he was a city fellow. I figured he did not know much about farm life. He just sat and listened to me, nodded his head, and I allowed as how he understood such things. I continued.

"Grandpa was growing corn back then. He had some tomato vines. He grew grapes. He was magical with zucchini, but the thing that made the best money was corn. Now he'd already learned that some crops have to be rotated or they leach the soil of its nutrition. The dust bowl years had been hard on farmers, but Jeremiah Voss was quick to learn. The year I'm talking about we had planted corn. After I was finished with milking the cows Grandpa expected me out in the fields. He might not have been harvesting the corn, but he checked it every day. He wanted to inspect how it was doing. Never missed a day, either.

"Now the first day in this story, I'd joined grandpa out in the corn fields. He was looking at the husks of corn in one place and inspecting some damage to those ears of corn. When he saw me he looked up at me and showed me the corn. It had been sort of torn apart and pulled about. It wasn't just one or two ears of corn, either. The stalks had looked broken, too. Grandpa told me that the damage was due to the crows that hung about the farm. 'Son,' he said to me, 'these here crows are like flies at a picnic. They scavenge for everything they get and make themselves a damn nuisance. Tomorrow you and me are going to bring our guns and have a little target practice. When we are done, old Mr. Crow is going to be looking for a better and safer place to have his breakfast.'

The next day Grandpa was up early and was ready for me when I got to the bottom of the stairs of our house. He'd made his breakfast right early. He preferred a good swig of whiskey to lubricate his senses. It wasn't enough to make him drunk, but it was enough to hold off the demon until later in the day. Yes, my grandfather was an alcoholic, too... but he would've denied it. I tossed some eggs together and a biscuit, along with a bit of milk. I was all of ten years old at the time. Grandpa was nearing his 60's. He'd lost his wife the year before. My dad passed on back in 1945 toward the end of the war. My mom had passed on from breast cancer. It was just the two of us. An old man trying to be father and grandfather to a kid. He'd have probably gone more deeply into the bottle if he hadn't taken on my care, but as I was growing older he'd been drinking a bit more.

I turned to Jurene at this point and said: "It wasn't pretty to see, so you can understand that I know how you feel, Jurene." Jurene stared back at me. She had not known about Jeremiah Voss, now dead and buried all these years... somewhere over in Semapaw. I turned my attention back to J and continued the story.

"Sonny," Grandpa said, "today we are going to bag us a few corn-stealing crows. We are going to set out in them fields and just wait for them to dare to fly by." We headed out and it was still dark. We took up a place in the fields and Grandpa told me to wait till we heard the sound of their call. Crows are noisy birds. Big voices. Attitude. I think they all are, even today. They love to strut in front of all the bird kingdom with their noisy cries. Maybe, just maybe, they are begging God to pay attention to them. It surely sounds that way if you've ever heard a crow complaining. Maybe it's about the heat, or a marital dispute or a scolding of papa crow to his kids, but they are loud enough to hear at a distance. This day it was silence.

We sat out in that field all day and all afternoon. Not a single crow had shown up. As grandpa was about to give in he'd heard a crow giving a loud call. It was not far from where grandpa had parked his car. When we got to it, we'd seen a crow flying off in the distance. His call sounded like laughter grandpa had said. On the windshield the crow had left his "calling card". It was a bright sized lump that had splattered right across the driver's side of the windshield. Grandpa looked at it and cussed. The bottle came out from his back pocket. He took a swig and wanted to call the bird all kinds of filthy names I am sure. He knew I'd be listening so he toned down the bad language.

"That old crow is a Satan if ever there was one. He knew it was my car. He knew I'd had a gun. He knew I'd be shooting at him and his kin today. That's why he warned them off. He just did this to let me know he knew. It is a challenge now. I'm going to peg that bird tomorrow for sure!". Grandpa let a bit of his liquor do the talking as he told his story down at the General Store.... to any and all who would listen. No one dared laugh about the bird dumping on grandpa's windshield, but a few sniggered over it when grandpa's back was turned. Lucky he never heard that laughter. It would have riled him even more than he already was.

It was with a renewed sense of purpose then that we began our journey the next morning. Grandpa was not about to let a crow get the best of him. No, siree. He fortified himself with something at the bottom of his bottle that morning, just to have the extra strength needed to combat the evils of this crow... and the world in general.

We went right back to the area where we'd staked out the day before. Grandpa went through the corn rows and sure enough there was fresh damage to his corn. Each ear destroyed just seemed to make him angrier. He was cursing that old crow from one end of creation to the other. There was a sound in the heavens, or so grandpa said, of generations of crows looking down upon him and he was going to show them all. A lifetime of crows had stolen the corn of Jeremiah Voss, but today... this day... the score would be settled! Grandpa was laughing to himself and building up his triumph in his mind, you see. The bottle did that to him this day. When the crow arrived he was like a gate-crasher at a party of one. He'd interrupted grandpa's celebration... in advance... over a world of crows. It was time to put them all in their place. Time for them to recognize that stealing corn from Jeremiah Voss had consequences.

I saw Old Satan for the first time that day. He was flying by, observing the scene below. He dived through the air quite majestically. Any crow with an ounce of wisdom should have steered clear of any kind of human being or even a scarecrow. That was the way they were supposed to behave. They were supposed to be cowardly in the face of humanity's superiority of intellect. Never heard of a crow killing a man, but plenty of crows get shot down each year. Right? Old Satan would have none of that. He was not your average crow. He went right into Jeremiah Voss' cornfield that morning and, right in the face of that old man himself, Old Satan began to attack the field to glean his breakfast.

I suppose the art of making rifles had improved considerably since the Civil War. No longer were the days when you had to shoot, re-load and then shoot again. Grandpa had a pretty old gun, but it was trusty enough to do its job. He could take a slow aim, fire, and bag any kind of creature he was aiming for. Ah, but that was when he was sober, you see. By the time he raised his rifle to peg Old Satan grandpa was more than a little affected by the mash he'd been drinking. You could see it in how his fingers gripped that gun. You could detect the trembling in his arms as if the weight of the old gun had suddenly doubled. The barrel of the gun wavered a bit as grandpa steadied himself to take aim. If it had only been three years earlier there wouldn't be a story to tell. Grandpa would've shot Old Satan and the other crows would have fled into the trees for safety.

He fired. He missed, and Old Satan simply ignored him. He fired a second time and missed again. Any other bird would not tempt fate this way, but Old Satan was playing a modified game of Russian Roulette. Each time grandpa fired, by staying right on that cornstalk, Old Satan was returning the challenge. Only a fool would think there was an empty gun after the fifth time the trigger had been pulled on a six-shooter. Was this damned bird born deaf? No, I don't think so. He was just plain ornery.

When Old Satan was tired of playing the game, he flew off. Grandpa was no better an aim at a flying target than he was a stationary one. Grandpa's shots took on an edge of desperation. He was firing shot after shot now, more rapidly seeking to hit the disappearing target.

Grandpa had to find somewhere to direct the blame for his failure to hit Old Satan, and I was the only one around. "Boy," he says to me, "where was your gun when I needed it? Did I drag you out here to watch or shoot? If you'd have gotten off your lazy, good for nothing ass and taken the time, that bird would have been history. You think he was laughing at me? Well, son, he was laughing at the TWO of us. Tomorrow, you are going to go out to this field and bag that bird. It is a matter of family honor now. You come home to me with that crow in your hands!" Matters did not improve much when grandpa got back to the car. On the windshield, not one, but two distinct piles of crow turd. Old Satan left his mark for me, too.

-TO BE CONTINUED-

"Tales of Tossman"-Part 2

Also serialized at http://www.lightmillennium.org/

Never ask my mother to tell one of her jokes to you. She can't. There are some things in life that defy our own natural abilities. We all can't pitch in the major leagues. We all can't perform delicate surgery. We all can't be the President of the United States... ah... no, wait a minute. Most of us could be the President. I take that back.
 
My mother would begin to tell the joke by asking you if you had heard it before. She would proceed to mention the punchline of the joke by way of inquiry. If you had not heard the joke before, the telling of the joke would be ruined by mention of the punchline. That is how my mom kept major comedians from unemployment. Of course, this was just one variation. The other would be if she began the joke and then, as it was being told, she would forget or confuse the ending. A long journey to a dead end or the edge of a cliff. Her success in life was to find a husband so devoid of humor that her lack of ability in this area made the whole issue quite unimportant. My dad would continue, almost immediately, after my mother had failed to arouse cheering gales of laughter with words like "Now, as I was saying....". It was like a good husband might if he was trying to cover up the sound of a loud fart his spouse had just left in the room.

They are a perfect couple, my mom and dad. I think of them when I compare them to Arthur and Yvette Tossman. A neighbor, sharing gossip with me one day, told me that Yvette had actually not been Ms. Tossman's real name. It was Yentl. By choosing to change it, Ms. Tossman wanted the softer sound of French as it had more snob appeal. She would have been far more comfortable to be addressed, I suppose, as Madame de Tossman, were it but possible... adding the honorific "de" much as had Honore Balzac done to his own name.

Yes, among other things, the charming Ms. Tossman [Yentl or whatever] was a snob who did not talk to strangers. She must have talked to someone, however, as how else would the world be led to learn via the grapevine about her true name? Aha! Has it perhaps occurred to you that the long-suffering Mister Tossman may have spilled the beans on his beloved child bride? Listening to the endless litany of taunts, accusations, threats, invective and more that was blasted his way, could this be the only defense poor Tossman had? Hang his beloved, sylph-like treasure to dry on the line of truth? A distinct possibility!

Where did it begin and when? You are indeed bubbling with curiosity, aren't you? I promised to tell you of the battle of the Tossmans, didn't I? My regret is that I had not known at the outset what a great gift I'd been given by merely being fated to live right next door. More than a few of the best matches had gone by before I had the good sense to preserve the choicest of them on tape. Yes, the voice of Yvette Yentl Tossman was loud enough and strong enough to penetrate walls and reach a tape recorder's microphone. I did not need a hidden microphone inside her apartment to capture all she said. As a spy, Yvette Tossman would have been a failure. She was actually better suited to the Mafia.

I will try to recall for you the gist of the first such encounter. It was at 3 am or thereabouts. I had rudely and shockingly been startled awake by the slamming of Tossman's door. The neighbor on the other side of their apartment, Curt Dell'Isola, had similarly been awakened [as he later told me]. The apartment below them was used only by prostitutes for their trade and, by 3 am, was quite empty. The apartment above was being renovated, or so I seemed to recall. Other neighbors did hear the noise, but it was far fainter as the acoustics of the Tossman family seemed to expand outward like a bomb and not up or downward.

Tossman's grunts had begun shortly after his door slam. I'd say it took about as long as it might take to remove a jacket and pants comfortably. These were of a lowing nature. If you'd ever heard a cow groaning at a childbirth and then amplified the sound, this was what Tossman had sounded like. The noise penetrated not only his own bathroom door (assuming he had the decency to close it... but then there had been no accompanying door slam so maybe not), but I could hear each little burst of pain through my apartment walls as well.

"OYYYYYYYYYYYY. UNNNNNNNNNN. VVVVVVVVVEYYYYYYY. EH. EH. EH."

Do you get the idea? Such a child-birth pain had poor Tossman. He must have had an extremely infant-like colon. Our bodies grow as we mature. Everything except the head increases much in size, but what if poor Tossman's intestines had remained the size of a baby but his impactions had not? It would be like trying to roll a grapefruit through a straw!

Never wish pain on someone. It will only come back to you. My mother told me this. I felt sorry for the poor man, even though he had woken me up. I could hear him almost screaming. Dell'Isola was less charitable. I could hear him knock on the wall to remind the Tossmans of the time. Dell was a graphic designer. Interesting fellow actually. It was his job to design all the labels you see on mattresses and the back of shirts. Yes, someone has to do it, and Dell had been doing it for umpty gazillion years... starting at 9 am promptly. Dell would have loved to sleep right up until his 8 o'clock alarm. Waking up five hours early made him a tad grumpy.

Ms. Tossman must have woken up or had been awake, lying in wait for hubby to come home. At the first knock on the wall from Dell, I heard her loud voice screech at him "Get Cancer and die, you son of a bitch!". At first, I thought this was directed to Dell. It would have made sense at that point to think so. Now, a little later on in time, I am not so sure it was. I think Ms. Tossman would have ignored Dell. She did not talk to strangers, even ones who made contact through the wall.

Dell knocked on the wall in response and I think the second blast of Ms. Tossman may well have been directed to him. "Stick your head up your own ass and fart to death!". Charming. Ms. Tossman was trying for humor at 3 am. Little did I know at this point how sincere her wishes were. As this dialogue continued for a while longer, there would be periodic grunts, wheezes and gasps of a decidedly male Tossman nature. These would continue for a near quarter hour and would conclude with a very strong and decidedly conclusive expression of relief. To cap off the event and put a period at the end of the sentence, the toilet would flush. It would be like the fanfare of an orchestra that was about to conclude a musical.

What was lethal to me was the encore. All this sound and fury was the prelude for what would carry on for hours to come. Non-stop. No commercial interruption. A rat blast of fury like I had never heard before in all my given days. If you had asked me that very morning what color I thought was in the interior of the Tossman apartment, I'd have said I did not know. Whatever the color might be it would surely look scorched.

Complicating things even more was that Ms. Tossman once had a dog. She had to put the dog to sleep, I was told. The dog was named Arthur, same as Mr. Tossman. I sensed a bit of grim humor in that because every other generation of Tossmans named their male child Arthur. Arthur's grandfather was an Arthur, as was that Arthur's grandfather. The practice came about apparently because each Arthur had the good fortune to die upon the news of a pregnancy, thus resulting in the naming of the baby after the deceased. The current title holder apparently was named for his grandfather because the good man was hit by a bus and killed. I wonder if, being in good health, he jumped. At any rate, history would never be repeated as Ms. Tossman was not about to have a child, let alone raise it. She was still mourning Arthur, the dog, not the grandfather.

How do I know so much about this crazy couple? Gossip, of course. People love to share things about Ms. Tossman. Everyone leads into the gossip with some sort of revealing tid-bit they've discovered. No one has compiled these until now. Lucky me. I am the chronicler.

The morning in question was a chill one. I suspect the windows of their apartment were open wide. In addition to a need for ventilation, the audio effect of the open windows merely increased the volume of the already none-too-silent household. Mr. Tossman had arrived home, slamming doors. I was instantly awakened and trying to slow down the pace of my startled heart. Ms. Tossman did not wait to lace into her spouse.

        "I put the wrong one to sleep, God," said Ms. Tossman to the ever present deity. "Forgive me. I know you wanted poor Arthur [the dog] to have a longer life. I just did not want him to suffer... unlike the thing that lived, my Arthur was a gem. Do you hear me Arthur?"

At times I couldn't figure out which Arthur fit. When I have, I will try to place a helpful guess in parenthesis for you. Whenever there are no parenthesis, I think she referred to the husband. There are also times when Ms. Tossman used vague references. I will leave these do your own judgement.

        "My poor baby. Did you know it has been almost a year, Tossman? What? You could say that to me, you monster, you horrid nightmare? You have no heart Tossman. You are just a huge and slowly leaking pile of shit. If you had been the one who died, Arthur [the dog] would have visited your grave. Maybe Arthur would go just to pee on it, but he'd have gone. You sure you won't go with me? You would need a day off from work? So? Take the day off. They have to allow you time to grieve, don't they? Stop laughing, Tossman. Listen to me. Hurry up and drop dead, will you... God forbid. God is letting you die slowly, Tossman. Slowly. Every time you go to that bathroom it's a reminder. God wants you to die slow. Did you hear me?"

Who could not hear? Curt had pounded Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the wall all during Ms. Tossman's shouting lecture. She ignored it. Tossman himself was grunting out, in pain from what must have been a sizeable return to the universe of used Tossman meals.

        "You hate that job anyway. Missing one day would be such a tragedy? What? So you took a day already for moving. So what? You don't have any days left? It is not like we go on vacation anywhere. Look in a mirror Tossman. That is my vacation. I get to look at that face. It would be easier to look at that face if I was in Paris... but here????"

I had been thinking of how much easier it would have been for everyone, God included, if the Tossmans were somewhere else. Is there any place at all for God to hide from that voice? Did He love it? The Bible tells me He does, but then there are no accounts of anyone resembling either Tossman in scripture. Not even Job resembled them, but as this was not the first such shouting match, I could relate a bit to Job.

"I am telling you. Do you listen? Bread. You eat too much bread. You look like like a stack of pancakes that were dropped on the floor, Tossman. Burt Reynolds you aren't. Shut up [directed either to the incessant hammering of Curt Dell'Isola or directed to Arthur] ! Fall off the planet, and disappear! Die scratching at an itch you can't, God forbid, reach!

"As for you, Mr. Tossman. You are taking me to the grave of our beloved Arthur [the dog, not the grandfather]. You'll tell your boss today that you are not coming in on Monday. What? Drop dead yourself. You'll do this or God help you when you walk through the door on Monday if you don't. You don't take that day off and I'll fix you. You may not be broken, but I will fix you but good. You think you're not broken? Well, I will break you into pieces and then fix you. Do you hear me?"

Dell had shouted through two walls at this point, aided by open windows, something to the effect that the United Nations could hear Ms. Tossman. She actually replied. She told Curt to find his penis and, having searched for this microscopic organ, by mistaking it for a pimple, give it a good squeeze.

Things did not settle down until Tossman had gone to bed. I could hear him snoring through the window until Ms. Tossman slammed the door to go out. He awoke, I guess, as the snoring stopped briefly. It began again all too soon.  Ah, no rest for the weary. I had looked forward to Monday. With the Tossmans at the graveyard, I thought, there would be one short, divine moment of silence. Thanks, God. There would not be many, but this is the first such match I put on tape. There were others.