Tom Comes A-Knockin'

I was awakened this morning by a rap-rap-rapping at my front door.

Stumbling, fumbling, for I am very near of sight, I could barely make out the long staff and the crazy hair in the morning light.

He was shouting even before I got the door open.

"SLOTHFUL SLUMBERER! WASTER OF THE DAWN! RISE FROM THY COUCH OF DEBAUCHERY AND DESIGNER SHEETS!"

I'm not in much of a mood when forced to wake early, and here was Old Testament Tom, bane of the neighborhood and the ears of canines, howling on my front stoop, bearing false witness against my morals and bedding.

I noticed the woman across the street peeking out her window.

Tact, I fear, escaped me.

"Tom, you raggedy bastard. Get off my godd*mn porch!"

The SOB didn't back off an inch.

"Not till ye cast of your indolent ways, Idler, and take up thy pen!"

"What are you talking about? I write every day."

"NAAAAAAAAY! Not on the Magic Screen! Not on the Papal and Circumcision!"

"Papi & Circumstance? My blog? What do you care if I blog? That's on my time, Jack, and I've got a baby's room to get ready and a garden to plant and --"

He cut me off. "IT SEEMETH YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN TO THE PLANTING!"

I was shutting the door at that point, but he wedged his staff into the narrowing divide and lowered his voice to an urgent, conspiratorial whisper.

"You must blog anew, my friend."

"What for?"

"I am in need. I am in need of -- wissssssssdom."

I swear the bastard hissed.

"What for?"

"For material. Mute fell I upon my last tour stop, in Madawaska, Maine, and I was pelted with rotten potatoes and all means of farm refuse and French-sounding epithets. They threatened to hang me from the wind turbines atop Mars Hill, where the sun and crows would unkindly play upon me, if I failed to offer full refunds."

This got me chuckling and got Tom fired back up.

"LAUGH NOT, YE SLACKER! Scott Boras himself has sent me hither to tell thee, to order thee, back to thy keyboard. We have a show this weekend in TURNERS FALLS, MASSACHUSETTS! You must provide me material and means for a bus fare."

"Boras, huh? Well, he's not going to like what I've got to say about his client."

"The falsely denounced Emmanuel? The Righteous Ramirez? The Right Arm of the Chosen Ones? He who has been exiled for games 10 plus 40?"

"I told you last summer when the Sox finally unloaded his circus act that it was a good move, one long overdue. I liked Jason Bay from Day 1. Funny, ain't it, how he's exploded at the exact time Manny has imploded?"

"Manny hath been contrite."

"Looks like he used steroids, Tom."

"Nay! NAY! A poor prescription of a fumbling physician."

"A female fertility drug, Tom? The sort of thing guys use coming off a steroid cycle?"

"An elixir for the manly pursuits!"

"Well, even if that's true, Tom, it still means Manny wasn't swinging real wood."

At that, Tom spat. He stammered and he swore. He dropped his staff, slipped and fell upon it, fumbled 'neath his nether robes and flung it limply once it was retrieved.

Then he grinned and pointed both fingers at it in a lame attempt to save face.

"I bet you're not much for running out come-backers to the mound either, Tom. Push any traveling secretaries down lately? You're lucky I'm the only one in the audience today. Sooner or later, the curtain comes down on the sham show."

And with that, I turned my back on the fallen idol, and it was easy to do.