Michael Vito Tosto
Bio
Michael Vito Tosto is a writer, jazz musician, philosopher, and historian who lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and two cats. A student of the human condition, he writes to make the world a better place.
www.michaelvitotosto.com
Stories (15/0)
The Lord of Sudmoor Hall
I stood at the window and looked out at what had lately been my father’s estate. The sprawling park, the stables, the manicured gardens, the ponds and fountains—they were all mine now, though nothing was official. Not yet. But it was mine all the same, the estate, the house, the investments—everything that came with Sudmoor Hall. My brothers didn’t know it yet. But I did. It was destined to pass to me, as the eldest son. Flushed with contentment at the thought, I ran my eyes over this one small corner of the Earth that belonged to me and me alone. The trees were dead and spindly with the winter (an especially cold one), and all the ponds and fountains were frozen. One of those ponds in particular, guarded by a great, barren elm tree, demanded my constant attention. I just stood at the window… staring at that pond, while the others talked behind me.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Criminal
Fountainhead
I had seen him at the café maybe six or seven times. He always sat at a booth in the far corner, toward the back window, divorced from the din, as though he was intentionally segregating himself from the rest of us. I’d never seen him without a book in his hands, and as far as I know, he never ordered any food. He just drank black coffee in his booth and read by himself.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
The Wisdom of the Barber
I walked through the rain, weaving between the tombstones, until I came to his. I’d been here before. Many times, in fact. No, I never knew the man in life. He died eight decades before I was born. But we were connected. He was my great-great-grandfather.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
Coffeehouse
This essay is being written in reverse. I had the title in mind long before I sat down to write it, before I even knew what the content would involve. I just love the word “coffeehouse,” and I love the idea of the coffeehouse, so I decided to name one of my essays “Coffeehouse.” I did this last week, and I felt pretty good about it. I just didn’t have the essay yet. So I brought my laptop to a coffeehouse, where I now am, at this very moment, sipping some coffee and examining the scene around me with eager, interested eyes. In a few moments, I intend to write the essay. But I still don’t know what it is going to be about.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Humans
Confessions of an Obsessive Writer
I. Today, my wife and I find ourselves at home. This isn’t at all strange; we’re quite regularly to be found at home, even when there isn’t a pandemic happening. Today’s no different. As the coronavirus drama continues to develop in the world, Valerie and I are relaxing comfortably in my study, contentedly doing what we always do on a lazy Sunday afternoon: self-isolating.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Journal
On Foot in Downtown St. Louis
I woke up this morning thinking about some words penned by D. H. Lawrence in his wonderful but forgotten 1920 novel, "Women in Love." The quote, which I think suitably depicts the human experience for all of us, goes like this: "One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere."
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Wander
Random Exhibits
Braving the chill of this December afternoon, with both my hands stuffed deep in my pea coat pockets, I climbed the steps of the art museum with the words of van Gogh on my mind: "I have nature and art and poetry, and if that’s not enough, what is enough?"
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Beat
Feline Observations
The act of owning cats, the act of even deciding to be the sort of person who could stomach the possibility of owning cats, is proof that humans aren’t always the best judge of what is good for them and what is clearly very bad. I say this as a cat owner. I say this as someone who not only loves cats, but needs them in his life, someone who, without cats, would probably whine for the rest of his days, bereft of the feline presence and hating it, like Norma Desmond grieving her career. I’m the guy in the neighborhood who leaves cat food out on the porch, hoping to attract a stray or two, knowing full well that the nearest shifty opossum will eat the food if it can. I’m the guy who can’t sleep if there’s a known stray shivering in the cold outside, and who will, even in inclement weather, throw his coat and slippers on and search for it in the snow. No cat left behind. And yet, I say again, the act of owning cats is proof that humans possess an unhealthy obsession with dysfunction, for what is a cat if not the most mischievous, devious, manipulative creature ever to be invited into our homes?
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Petlife
The Bookstore
The age of the corner bookshop is over. In the long-lost days of yore, when something still remained of the America depicted in the works of John Steinbeck and William Faulkner, and there were still people alive who remembered what the 1920s were like before the Great Depression, and a bomb that could blow up the planet was the farthest thing from people’s minds, there were such oddities as the corner market, the corner drug store, the corner barber, and the corner bookshop. One might call this the “Great Age of Mom and Pop,” a grand time for the American economy and the American spirit, a moment in our history when people could go to bed with their doors unlocked and never think twice about it. I weep for those days, though I was mostly too late to experience them. Today, when you want a book, you go online, likely to Amazon, and have it shipped to you. Or, if you’re especially despicable to crabby old-schoolers like me, you download a digital copy and read it on your fucking device, whatever that happens to be. It makes me sick.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
Conversation with an Owl
Our backyard butts up against a small copse of trees. I’ve marveled at the many forms of wildlife which, from time to time, can be spotted and heard in our backyard. I have seen two deer so far, plus a brown fox, a beaver, a snake, and a rather large, repugnant toad which, I suspect, makes his home under my deck, behind the marigolds.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
Meanwhile, in Lower Manhattan...
The streets were empty. And cold. And desolate. Tall, crumbling buildings rose up from the concrete like derelict gods, still scraping the underbelly of the sky. Bruner walked through the dead city at midnight, barely noticing the biting chill. This had once been the center of the world. Fortunes were made and lost here. Dreams came true in these buildings, while other dreams slid away forever. A mass of people lived, died, and then died again in the veins of this place. Long ago. Few were left who remembered. Bruner wasn’t one of them. He was born too late.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
Rocking Chair
She’s buried on a hill at the southernmost edge of my property, beneath a Bradford pear tree. I did that on purpose. I know she loved Bradford pears, especially in spring. I’ve always thought they smell like something dead, but she couldn’t get enough of them. So, in accordance with what I suspect her final wishes might’ve been, that’s where I laid her to rest. I visit her grave now and then, though not as much as I used to. I might go soon and pay my respects. Or maybe not. I walk with a cane now, and movement doesn’t come as easily as it once did.
By Michael Vito Tosto3 years ago in Fiction
