Eventually, Hamm’s parents, Nell and Nagg, appear from two trash cans at the back of the stage. Hamm is equally threatening, condescending and acrimonious to his parents, though they still share a degree of mutual humor. Hamm tells his father he is writing a story, and recites it partially to him, a fragment which treats on a derelict man who comes crawling on his belly to the narrator, who is putting up Christmas decorations, begging him for food for his starving boy sheltering in the wilderness.