Slap-happy Amos

Amos was one of me Grandpa Joe's good friends. I know I've spoken about him before: he's the gent who would always stop by and shake my ten year old hand as he shuffled along to visit me grandparents. One of me Pops favorite tales about him is as follows.

Amos had once owned and maintained an apartment building. He was in his fifties, maybe sixties, at the time. Anyway, at one point he had a tenant who was notorious for getting loud and obnoxious, arguing with his wife, and generally causing trouble. Amos threatened several times to throw him out if he didn't behave himself.

One afternoon Amos was dealing with a plumbing repair on the old building, carrying a ten inch pipe wrench. He was on a landing of a stairwell between floors when he heard the loudmouthed renter yelling at his wife. The next instant the man burst out of his apartment on the floor above Amos, screaming vitriol at his old lady. Amos ordered him to calm down. "What are you gonna do about it, old man?" he demanded loudly. Then he leaped at Amos.

Amos swung the wrench and cracked the guy on the side of his head. Stepping to his left, Amos smacked the other side of the guy's skull as he flew past onto the bottom landing. The fella crashed into a heap.

A woman in a lower floor apartment looked out and, seeing the trouble, grabbed some towels and bandages to attend to the profusely bleeding attacker. "What happened?" she asked incredulously.

"He called me an old man, so I slapped him," Amos explained. He then went about his business.

And whether he moved out or became a better man, Amos had no more trouble with the bad renter.