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.

Years before Amos had 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 busied with a plumbing repair on the old building, carrying a ten inch pipe wrench. He was between landings on the stairs when he heard the loudmouthed renter yelling at his wife. He burst out of his apartment on the landing above Amos, screaming vitriol at his old lady. Amos ordered him to calm down. "What are you gonna do about it old man?" he asked loudly. Then he leaped at Amos.

Amos pulled up the wrench and cracked him on the side of his head. Stepping to his left, he cracked the other side of the guy's skull as he flew past Amos 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, he had no more trouble with the bad renter.