Tales of Tossman
Part 2

by Robert J. BAUMANN

Ms. Bircan requested a new photo, so I thought my image should reflect the opinion of what I write. I am seen here either:
    * after reading what I sent THE LIGHT MILLENNIUM
    * after viewing the last game of the Yankees
    * after viewing the last game of the Mets
    * after voting last year
    * how I will look after voting this year
Life is not meant to be taken seriously. Those who do will surely die. Those who do not take life seriously will also die... but they will die happier creatures. It is true, dear Reader, simply because I said so.

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.

TO BE CONTINUED

For Part 1>