There were a bunch of terrible words being said and I was feeding the snake down the pipe an inch at a time. I stopped and wiped off my hands and got another drink of the schnapps. I was wondering what she was going to come back with. I hated to hear all that. Nobody should have to hear things like that between a woman and her husband.

Something broke up there. There was a big crash.

He said: “Why goddamn you!” And he must have hit her. She fell on the floor with a thud that shook the joists.

“You ran them off!” she yelled. “You ran every one of your own children off!”

“Don’t you say that! I didn’t run them off! You smothered them, every one of them! You wanted them to be perfect!”

I could see it. Her on the floor, maybe with blood running out of her mouth, and him standing over her, yelling. A very dramatic scene. Boy, what a mess. There were gobs of toilet paper and crap and something that looked like a used cereal box coming out on the snake. Things were heating up. I was beginning to wish I’d just gone on to Ireland’s. I could have been beating Tommy at eight ball right then.

“He’s dead!” she screamed.

“Yeah! Dead because of you! You drove him to it! Twenty-one years old and in his grave because of you!”

I had to stop. What could she possibly come back with against that ? I tell you, you can find out about the intimate lives of people just by staying under their houses.

“What about you? You never sympathized with him. Oh no, not you. He had to be a pro linebacker, didn’t he? Calling him Nancy in front of his friends. Don’t you know what that did to him? Don’t you know how that made him feel?”

I can tell you that I wanted out from under that house right then and there. I didn’t care about the $47.50. No sir.

“How do you think I felt? Everybody knew it!”

“So what? He was your son!”

“He was your son too! Don’t you lay it all off on me! If your mother hadn’t been so crazy …”

“Don’t you bring my mother into this! Don’t you blame my mother for your mistakes! You sonofabitch!”

That was the end of it. It couldn’t go any deeper. It was a good thing, too. I only had about a foot left. Any more and I’d have had to go back to the shop for the Roto-Rooter.

“Don’t you call me that! Don’t you ever call me a sonofabitch!”

“Sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch!”