Decameron 2020: Lester Duncastle

By on April 11, 2020
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Lester Duncastle
by Art Cerf

If you were looking for a single word to describe Lester Duncastle, it would be annoying. He wasn’t bad or evil, just annoying.

He’s the fellow who stands too close to you, speaks too loudly, tells rambling, pointless stories and laughs at his own jokes. If you had a middle seat on a plane and he was seated next to you, you might bolt to the emergency exit and try to jump out of the plane.  People who would enjoy his company probably also like mosquitoes.

As you might imagine, he had no male friends. He had no girlfriends. He had no friends, period. All of which means he was a very lonely person.

And when the pandemic hit, he had to stay in place in his studio apartment, the only place he could afford in the city.

Driven out of his mind by the isolation, he started going to supermarkets in an attempt to strike up conversations with elderly shoppers. But of course, they backed away. Then he tried the stock boys and the checkout ladies but to no success.

Store after store, it was the same.  No one wanted to be close enough to have a conversation.

As he sadly ambled home, he stopped by a park bench, placed his head in his hands and started to sob. His crying was no more attractive than his personality but he couldn’t help it.

Suddenly, there was a soft touch on his shoulder. When he looked up, there was a young woman asking, “Are you all right?”

Snuffling back some mucus, he said, “No, I am not. I’m so damned lonely.”

She nodded and said she was lonely, too. She had just moved into the city and knew almost no one.  She added, “I’m Cynthia.”

He smiled, saying, “I’m Lester.” He thought that she wasn’t really pretty but also realized that he was no prize either.

They talked and talked and finally he asked if he could have her number.

She said that she didn’t have a new phone yet but he might reach her by calling her flatmate’s phone.

Lester almost flew home. He hadn’t been this happy since he hit a double in Little League almost 20 years ago.

The day wore him out so he settled in for a nap. But when he awoke, he had a pounding headache and a fever. Hours later, the fever spiked and he feared that he had contracted the coronavirus.

He hurried out of the building heading for the hospital but collapsed on the stairs.

Three days later, he awoke in a hospital bed, breathing through a ventilator. A doctor looked in and said, “Ah, you’re awake…the worst is over.”

Still, he remained in the hospital for another eight days before he was released.

Once at home, he hurried to his cell phone which he had left behind in his fevered rush to the hospital. And he found Cynthia’s phone number.

He called and a stranger’s voice answered.

“Hello,” he said. “May I please speak to Cynthia?”

There was a pause on the line and then the voice said, “Who’s this?”

Lester explained how he and Cynthia had met in the park almost two weeks ago but he had been hospitalized since.

Again there was a pause. Then the woman said, “I’m sorry to tell you that Cynthia caught the virus. She died last week.”

Lester dropped the phone and then fell down beside it.

They say a broken heart can’t kill you.

They were wrong.

Decameron 2020: Starlight

By on April 7, 2020
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Starlight
By Nancy Bach

It was a steamy Chicago night when I pulled the thread of her unravelling.

I squatted beside the dumpster in the alley, my eyes glued to the back door of the gallery where I had worked for the past five years.  A car’s headlights chased shadows across a brick wall, and I shrank back, but the vehicle passed by, turned out of the alley and onto the street.

I relaxed.  A little.  Ten minutes more, I thought, consulting my watch.  The guests at tonight’s show had already faded into the sweaty darkness, the catering staff had packed their truck and left.  Even Janine, the gallery’s owner, had climbed into her Mercedes and gone home, four-inch heels clacking on the pavement as the metal fire door to the Gallery de las Palmas clanged shut behind her.  Soon the bitch who had stolen my life and the woman I loved would come out that back door, too.

I knew the routine, you see. Knew every step of it because it used to be my routine until that stranger who looked exactly like me had taken over my life.

It was June when I first spotted her.  A glimpse of someone with my curly auburn hair and a pair of embroidered jeans just like ones I owned passed by, her on the way out and I on the way in, to the laundromat I used.  A week later, I saw her again, in a cab with someone who looked like my friend Cal, as I was hoofing it to the El one afternoon for my shift at the gallery.  Soon after, an acquaintance I’d known in art school ran into me, asked me how I’d enjoyed my dinner at the Italian Village the previous Friday.  I told her I hadn’t been there, and she’d looked at me like I was crazy.

“But we talked,” she said.  “You were with that crazy musician we used to hang around with back in the day.  Chet something?”

I shook my head, told her she must have made a mistake, but I wondered.  I’ve heard that everyone has a double somewhere.  Clearly, mine lived here in Chicago.  It was weird, but I put it out of my mind.  I was helping Riley Kincaid, a young artist on whom I had a huge crush, set up her first art show.  I had more important things to worry about than some look-alike.  I went back to my quiet life, in my tiny efficiency apartment on a backstreet.  When not working on the new installation at the gallery, I spent quiet evenings reading and eating Chinese take-out.

Nine more minutes.  Sweat made slick the grime on the back of my neck.  Four days since my last real shower and I wasn’t sure whether I or the dumpster I crouched beside smelled riper.  Traces of spoilt bananas, some decomposing thing, dog shit and other foul odors wafted past me as a faint breeze stirred the rank air of the alley.  

I gritted my teeth, anger nipping at memory’s heels.  June became July and things got weirder.  I stopped getting texts from friends and when I saw them to ask them, they acted odd, told me they knew who I really was and I should stop trying to impersonate my sister.  I had no sister.  Two weeks later my debit card stopped working.  The bank manager told me he would call the cops if I came in again, and to get a job and leave my sister alone.

Last week, my boss locked me out of the office and called our security company.  I was escorted off the premises and threatened.  As they led me away, I could see a woman through the glass front door, watching me, smiling.  It was me.  Only it wasn’t.

Three days ago, the manager of my building changed the locks on my apartment.  The only thing I had left was my car and the clothes on my back.

Finally, yesterday, as I spied on them having a picnic in Grant Park, I saw my double propose to Riley.  The kiss Riley bestowed upon the creature who had stolen my life belonged to me.

Seven minutes.  Rage coiled in my belly like a hissing serpent and my blood throbbed in my head.  I straightened out of my crouch.  Stretched.  My back and shoulders ached from sleeping the last two nights in my car, the only thing of value in my life the bitch hadn’t managed to claim.

Five minutes.  She’d be locking up the office now, setting the alarm on the front door.  Riley had left just after the caterers, and I’d watched the two of them linger at the back door, kissing.  The bitch’s hand was under Riley’s thin summer blouse, massaging Riley’s small breasts.  I’d dug my fingernails into my palms to prevent myself from interrupting them.  I had to be patient.

I rolled my neck.  The black shaft of the tire iron stuck to the sweaty palm of my left hand.

Silence.  The sounds of cars on the street beyond.  The occasional sound of chatter or laughter far away.  More silence.

The back door snicked, pushed open and the other me stepped out and turned to make sure the door was secure.

I would have hit her then, I had the chance.  But I needed answers.

“Why?”  I stepped up behind her, planted my feet, my left hand held down in the shadows behind my leg.

The other turned.  There was no surprise on her face and I felt cheated.  “Why?  Why what?”  Peach tinted lips crept upwards.  Her hair was stylishly cut in a bob, her clothes more boho than my own.  She wore just a touch of make-up.  She was me.  Only better.

Damn her. 

She shrugged.  “You wished upon a star for a clone. Someone to do all the things you didn’t have time to do.”

Butterfly memory fluttered past.  A night under the stars, a rare walk in the park with my friend Chloe, in the spring, after Chloe had been dumped.

I made this happen?  No.  “That’s not possible,” I said.

Another shrug.  “Your wish, my command.  You weren’t doing anything with your life.  With your friends.  With your job.”  She smirked and pointed.  “With your hair.  So I did.”

Something inside me burst, like a pressure cooker exploding. I raised the tire iron and swung.  A crack, wet and dull, and the other me crumpled to the patched pavement of the alley.

Eyes the same green and gold as my own stared in fixed astonishment in the general vicinity of the dumpster.  Blood pooled beneath short auburn curls, reflecting in ruby the lights of the alley.

My heart pounded.  I squatted down, prepared to strike another blow, but the thing was finished.  She was finished.

I moved quickly now.  First, I wrapped the still leaking head in cling wrap, then pulled the tarp I had scavenged that morning from some painters out of the dumpster and rolled the body onto it.  I used my key fob to pop my trunk and dragged the body to my car, parked a little further down the alley.

It took all of ten minutes for clean-up.  There would be bloody drag marks and that little lake of blood, but it was due to rain later, and my hope was that at least some of the blood would wash away into the sewer grate.

My hands shook and my teeth chattered as I got behind the wheel of my Jetta and pulled carefully out into traffic.  Thirty minutes later I was idling near a deserted stretch of the Cal-Sag Channel.  I climbed out, and opened the trunk again, reaching in to wrangle the body out.

I froze.  The tarp was still there, but lay there like an empty burrito, all flat and lumpy.  I touched it, felt around in the dark.  No matter where I laid my hands, I could not find the body.  It was gone.

No.  No, no, no, no.  Damn it, she’d been dead.  I was certain of that.  Nor was there a way she could have gotten out of the trunk, even if some how she’d still been alive.

Frantic, I gripped the tarp, yanked, unrolled it.  The gruesome plastic wrap was there, where the head had been.  A pair of black dress pants, a peasant blouse, stained dark with gore rested inside the canvas.  Shoes too, and a small straw purse on a long strap, inside of which was a wallet.  What wasn’t there was that damned woman’s body.

I picked up the blouse and a quantity of gold dust, like glitter, sparkled down from it onto the tarp.  I leaned into the trunk, ran my hands along the bottom of it.  There was more of the glittery stuff, little piles of it like sparkling sand.

My chest constricted and my vision tunneled.  I dropped into a squat, lowered my head until that sense of receding passed.  I sat there, resting on my heels for maybe ten minutes, trying to piece it all together.  I’d made a wish.  Now I’d undone it.  She was gone.  Nothing now but stardust.

I sucked in a shaky breath, grinned.  At least there would be no body to wash up later.

When I was sure my legs would hold me, I retrieved the purse and the wallet, reclaimed my debit card, the new key to my apartment, and the cell phone.  The tarp, the tire iron, and the clothes, shoes included, I dumped in the canal.

Rain spattered as I closed my trunk.  Drops fell, got fatter and faster.  I raced around to the front, climbed back in and eased along the canal towards the gravel area that led up to the road before the road got to muddy and I got stuck.

My thoughts raced along with my engine.  I’d need a haircut, I thought, and a shower before I dared to go see Riley.  But I’d worry about that tomorrow.  Because there would now be a tomorrow. Many, many more tomorrows.  I wouldn’t waste a one of them.

***

The stars blazed against a black-satin sky.  The desert air was dry, the vault of the heavens high, as Riley and I sat on the hood of my Jetta on a scenic stretch of the road through a park just outside of Santa Fe.  It had been a year since our move.  Riley hadn’t been keen on it at first, but now she loved it here.  The Muse, she said, spoke to her more clearly in this place where the sun shone and the stars burned brightly.

Her hand shot out, pointing towards the deepening dark of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.  “Look!  A shooting star!”

I followed her gaze, shuddered.  Turned away.

Her eyes were starlit.  “Let’s make a wish.”

My heart thundered in my ears.  I leaned towards her, pressed my lips to hers, capturing her mouth as well as her attention.

I relinquished her lips a few moments later and slid off the hood of the car.  Beckoning her with a grin, I said, “Let’s go home.”

“But we didn’t make our wish.”

I tugged her off the hood, pulled her close, tucked my hands in her back pockets.  “No need for wishes.  I already have everything I could ever want.”

Somewhere to the east, the shooting star fizzled out behind the mountains.  It left a trail of stardust behind.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Read and learn more about Nancy Bach on her website: http://www.nancybach.com and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyBachAuthor/. Be sure to give her a “like.”

Decameron 2020: Love Against the Odds

By on April 2, 2020
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“Oh my God, Ray,” said Valentine, sliding into his side of their usual booth with a tumbler of craft bourbon. “I just had the worst date of my life.”

Ray cooly swirled his bourbon around an impossibly oversized single ice cube.

“Worse than the blind date your boss set you up on with a high school student who had never been on a date and showed up with her mom?” Ray asked.

“Technically, she had just graduated,” Val corrected. “But, yes, even worse than that horror show.”

“This ought to be good,” Ray sipped. “Who was it with?”

“Remember that teacher we met at Josh’s New Year’s party? Lexi, his sister?”

Ray laughed, “Yeah. The party that ended when it turned into a drunken vomitorium.”

“That’s the one. But, if you will recall, you, me and Lexi were the only ones who didn’t spew.”

“Yeah,” Ray agreed. “But, I thought you said she could be the one.”

“I did,” said Val, exasperated. “She’s pretty, outgoing, smart, helps people, loves movies and literature. Nobody reads any more, but we spent hours talking and texting about not just books but the classics from the 20th century back to ancient Greece.”

“She sounds perfect for you, so far,” Ray said. “What happened?”

“Well, I set up a nice dinner on the town for our first real date. I put on a jacket and tie. The works. Then, just as I’m walking out the door, she texts that she is at some party her brother is hosting at a sushi place and wants me to meet her there.

“I can’t stand sushi, but I want to look spontaneous and fun. ‘Sure,’ I say.” Val took a sip before continuing. “I stroll into the place like I own it, and a party of two dozen people start cheering me on and welcoming me to the party with handshakes, hugs and encouragements like ‘Go get her, Tiger,’ ‘She really likes you’ and ‘Great to finally meet you.’

“At the end of the gauntlet sits Lexi, red-faced but beaming.”

Ray shrugs, “Aside from the venue-change ambush, not hideous, yet.”

“Hang in there,” Val reassures. “I sit down, and, before I can order a drink, Josh is like, ‘Hey, we should go dancing.’

“You know I’ve got some moves, so I’m down and we all pile into a bunch of cabs. I’m with Lexi, some blonde chick and her boyfriend. Lexi and the blonde are smashed out of their minds and giggling at total nonsense. Me, the driver and the boyfriend are just hopin’ the girls don’t puke before we get to the club.

“Once there, some 60-something-year-old guy with our group gets us all in for free, which is great because the cover was insane, like 50-bucks a head. The inside of the joint is more like a movie night club than a real-life-people-spillin’-drinks-all-over-the-dance-floor night club. It’s clean, swank and chill.

“Before you know it, Lexi’s got me on the floor, and she’s ridin’ my thigh like a derby horse and rubbin’ her breasts on me like she’s trying to set my shirt on fire. Then comes some deep French kissing, and I’m thinking this has to be the best first date ever.”

Ray’s smiling. “That’s what I’m thinking. So, what’s your problem?”

“Well,” Val explains. “The music stops and she whispers, ‘Hey, that guy who got us in looks a little lonely. Mind if I have a dance with him to thank him for getting us in, and then we can get outta here.’

“She gave me a naughty grin, and I said sure with a naughty grin of my own.

“I head for the bar and order a double to catch up a little to her. When I get back to the edge of the dance floor, she starts mackin’ on the old guy.”

“Uh-oh,” Ray interjects.

“Yeah,” spit Val, incredulously. “The dude I rode over with in the cab with the girlfriend is the old guy’s nephew. He looks nervously at me and starts trying to peel Lexi off his uncle.

“Before you know it, Lexi is all over the nephew, and he clearly is not into it as he looks back and forth between me and his girlfriend.”

“Why aren’t you doing anything, man?” Ray asks.

“By now it is like a train wreck, where I can’t stop staring. So then the nephew’s blonde girlfriend intervenes. She and Lexi start dancing like girls sometimes do to ward off unwanted guys…and then they start makin’ out like some kind of porn movie. Deep kissing and aggressively groping each other.

“The nephew and I exchange befuddled what-the-fuck glances, and Josh walks up with his girlfriend and absolute astonishment on their faces.

“Josh says, ‘Oh my God, Val. I have never seen my sister like this before. I swear she talked about nothing but you all dinner.’ His girlfriend agreed with a stutter, ‘It’s true. I’ll, I’ll dance with you if you want.’ But mostly the four of us just stood there staring in disbelief.”

Ray interrupted, “I don’t know, man. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. I can see you going with a nymphomaniac.”

“I wouldn’t mind a nympho,” Val explained, “as long as she was exclusive. Remember, I went into this thing thinking she’d be my future wife and soul mate, not the main attraction at the Playboy mansion. Anyhow, there’s more.”

“There’s more?” Ray asked, signally to the waitress for another round.

“Lexi and the blonde walk over, and Lexi grabs me by the belt and takes me to a table. I knock what’s left of my double back as she catches her breath. ‘I guess nobody puts Baby in a corner,’ I said, regaining my senses, and she laughs. ‘You’re the coolest guy ever,’ she said. ‘Get our coats and take me home.’

“I get our coats, with every intention of pouring her into a cab and sending her home alone. I don’t have a big enough medicine cabinet to cure all that she might be carrying.

“When I get back, our group has put a bunch of tables into an oval for everyone to sit around. It is dark in the club, and I don’t see Lexi at first. Her brother–a dude–holds my hand and asks that I be a gentleman. I promise, he lets go and I spot Lexi with the blonde at the other end of the oval. As I get closer, it is obvious they are Frenching. Standing next to them, I see the blonde has her hand up my date’s sweater, fondling Lexi’s left breast.

“Lexi opens her eyes in near ecstasy and just whispers, ‘Ice.’

“Yes, she’s getting an ice-cube nipple massage in front of a table of 24-people and whoever else is in the club.”

“Holy shit,” says Ray, snorting out a laugh. “Happy wife, happy life. What did you do next?”

“I was kinda still letting it all soak in, when Lexi grabbed my tie, pulls me down, Frenches me and purrs, ‘I hope that wasn’t too weird for you.’

“‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Happens to me all the time. Here’s your coat. I’m outta here.'”

“You didn’t,” Ray cackled. “You coulda had the freakiest sex of your life that night.”

“I didn’t want the freakiest sex of my life,” Val said, still injured from the experience. “I wanted this to be true love. I was in wife-hunting mode not porn-star hunting mode. I was really pissed and hurt.”

“Man,” Ray explained. “That’s your problem. You’re always looking for true love and a wife.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, but you’re looking for perfection, a fantasy—not a real woman.”

“I am not,” Val protested. “I have tons of quirks, and I want a quirky woman who matches my quirks while being perfectly funny, charming, brilliant, hard-working, carefree and witty.”

“Right,” said Ray. “You want a character in a movie—someone played by Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon or Drew Barrymore—not even the real women who play those characters—you just want the characters.”

“Hey, if somebody can write and portray those types of characters, there has to be some basis in reality for them,” Val countered.

“No there doesn’t,” Ray disagreed. “Only Germans go to movies to see hard, cold reality. Most people want to escape. They want fantasy. Those romantic comedies are huge hits because they are about what we all want to experience and believe.”

Val gave Ray a dubious look, so Ray pressed ahead.

“Did you ever study psychology in college, Val?”

“No. Not really.”

“It was my major,” Ray explained. “The number one thing it taught me is that we’re all crazy. Crazy isn’t a girl thing. It isn’t a guy thing. Everyone is bat-shit crazy. I kinda like the term, fith. Fucked In The Head.”

“No we’re not,” Val blew Ray off.

“Seriously,” Ray said. “Who knows? Lexi and that blonde probably think that you’re off your rocker. Why? Because you are crazy. I’m crazy. Everyone in this bar is crazy in some way or another.”

Val looked around the intimate setting of the trendy, urban bourbon distillery and shook his head. “The only insane person here is you.”

“Emotionally disturbed would be the more politically correct phrase to use, but to counter your point: No. We all are.”

“How?” Val asked.

Ray finished his drink and ordered another round, thinking about his answer. After a minute, he asked, “Let’s say you can magically find true love in this bar tonight. Okay?”

Val shrugged. “Sure. I’ll play along.”

“Okay,” Ray said. “Let’s calculate the odds. First, it should be noted that this a not a well-represented selection of the American public at large. While it is close to a 50/50 split of men and women, they range from their late twenties to early forties, appear single and affluent enough to blow $15 per rocks glass on hand-crafted bourbon in a major American metropolis.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” Val agreed.

“How many people do you think are in here?” Ray asked.

“Maybe around 100.”

“Perfect,” Ray said. “Now, can I assume you’re still straight?”

“Be my guest,” Val invited.

“Great. Let’s get started,” Ray began, while scanning the room. “Right away we can eliminate 50 people from this room as mates because you don’t want to sleep with a dude. But, the odds are that roughly 10% of people are gay. That eliminates 5 women who would never want to sleep with you.”

“My gaydar isn’t perfect,” Val confessed, surveying the bar, “But, you haven’t lost me, yet.”

“Did you know that reports show and predict between 25% and 75% of women and 10% to 50% of men will experience sexual abuse in their lifetimes. That alone will mess with anybody’s mind, but that doesn’t even begin to factor in other forms of abuse and issues with somebody’s parental upbringing, religion, peer-to-peer problems and simple biochemistry. That doesn’t mean that anybody who experiences any of these problems can’t love, enjoy sex or be the perfect lover for you or me—or we them. BUT, most people aren’t going to be the problem-free people we see portrayed on screen in rom-coms.”

“Really? That many people are abused?” Val asked, squinting to see if he could identify the people in the crowd who might be victims.

“Sadly, yes, the numbers are high, but it isn’t as if everyone is going to wear a badge proclaiming what happened to them.”

“Huh,” was all Val said, letting the information sink in.

“Of course,” Ray said, with a dark little laugh. “The statistics get pretty outrageous when you do the math.”

“What do you mean?”

Ray took a deep breath and wound himself up.

“I love stats, and, well, I’m kinda obsessed. In fact, did you know that about 1 in 100 people have obsessive-compulsive disorder, 2.5% have Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, 2% are bipolar, nearly 10% are dealing with some other clinical form of depression, up to 2% have separation anxiety, up to 1% have selective mutism where they won’t talk under various circumstances, up to 9% have a specific phobia like spiders or heights, 7% have social anxiety disorder—they likely self-selected out of this sample set, up to 3% of people have random panic attacks, nearly 3% have general anxiety disorder, 1.7% agorophobic—again, self-selecting out of this bar, 9% have post-traumatic stress disorder and up to another 20% are dealing with a milder form of PTSD, 1.5% have multiple personalities, nearly 2% of people have some sort of amnesia, up to 7% are hypocondriacs, roughly 3% of people have eating disorders, up to 10% have insomnia and 1% are hypersomnolent, 3.6% sleepwalk, up to 15% have sleep apnea, oh, this one’s fun…1% of American adults pee on themselves at least 3 times a week when there is nothing wrong with their urinary tracks…like bedwetting or even peeing on themselves in the middle of the day.”

Ray took a breath before rattling off more. “3% are oppositional defiant, up to 7% have clinically significant anger issues, 1% are pyromaniacs, 4% have addicitions—again, we might have a skewed sample set here, up to 4% are paranoid, roughly 13% have anti-social issues, up to 6% are narcissists, up to another 6% are impulsive and unstable to the point they can’t maintain a consistent, meaningful long-term relationship of any kind, up to 30% of men are frotteuristic, up to 30% of people get off on sexual sadism and it is estimated that up to 33% of Americans have at least one sexually transmitted disease.”

Ray took a drink. “And don’t get me started on diseases. Did you know that 10% of Americans have toenail fungus, 10% diabetes, up to 15% irritable bowel syndrome and 23% arthritis. I’ve also read that 7% of Americans don’t bathe, 6% can’t ride a bike, 33% of adults sleep with a comfort object like a Teddy bear or security blanket, 15% honestly believe that the world will end during their lifetime, 45% believe ghosts and demons are real, 25% still think the sun goes around the earth and, for Christ’s sake, 2% of Americans really think Sen. Mitt Romney’s real first name is Mittens!

“Do you know how many percents of America all of that adds up to?” Ray asked, cooling down and taking another sip of bourbon for effect.

“A lot of percent,” Val said, still trying to catch up.

“That’s 443.3%,” Ray stated.

“How’s that even possible?” Val asked. “I thought you can only have 100% of anything.”

“There are more problems and diagnoses than people,” Ray explained. “Maybe that blonde over there is a sexual sadist with irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia and explosive anger issues. Perhaps that redhead is a hypochondriac who is terrified of bunny rabbits and sets fires while losing control of her bladder. Maybe that brunette is a depressed alcoholic who will fight you for the next 4 hours, insisting that Mitt Romney is really Mittens Romney, not Willard.”

Val laughed.

“Okay, Ray. What’s the point? True love doesn’t exist?”

“That’s not the point,” Ray replied. “While I admit Lexi probably isn’t the right girl for you, you’ve got to stop looking for perfection and accept that everybody if fith in one way or another. Look for the crazy that matches your crazy, and you might find some lasting happiness.”

Author’s Note: The statistics cited in this story come from the American Psychiatric Association, Centers for Disease Control, National Institute of Health and other reputable sources. Also, if Val’s dates sound too unrealistic, although the names and places have changed, those really were dates I went on. No other details were changed. Thank goodness I’ve finally met a woman as charmingly crazy as myself to marry.

Decameron 2020: Mr. Hobbs

By on March 31, 2020
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MR. HOBBS
By Art Cerf

This is a story about Mr. Hobbs.  Not Roy Hobbs, the baseball phenom played by Robert Redford in “The Natural.” And not Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Hobbs in “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation.”  Robert Redford is handsome. Jimmy Stewart was charming. Our Mr. Hobbs was neither.

He was a solitary man, an only child who lived his entire life with his mom and after she passed away, he continued living in their home.

Hobbs was a teller at the local bank for 37 years until a bank merger forced him into an unwanted retirement. Still, he had his Social Security, a small pension, his mother’s house and a small amount of money that she had willed to him. Altogether, it wasn’t much but it was enough for his needs.

Hobbs would sleep in late and go to bed early. During his waking hours, he would watch the news and old movies, thumb through about a hundred books in the house although he had read each multiple times. And he would pick up and hold his mother’s possessions.  Some of them were probably worth some money but it never crossed his mind to sell them.

He seldom went outside and then, only late at night, so he could roam the neighborhood without running into neighbors.

And then, the pandemic.

It started in Washington state, then New York. Soon it spread to Chicago, Los Angeles and New Orleans. And then tendrils of the virus reached out around the heartland.

Finally, it arrived in Pennyville. He saw that Sue and Walter Borowicz had died. They had been regular bank customers for decades.  A few days later, Harvey Ingle succumbed.  While they weren’t friends, Harvey had been in grade school with him.

But Hobbs had not fear of the virus. For one thing, he was socially distanced from everyone. And second, he had been dead for seven  years. And ghosts seldom get viruses.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For those of you who wonder where I get my macabre sense of humor, this story by my father might be a good clue. And to her credit, my mom can get pretty dark, too.

Decameron 2020: The Pangolin’s Lament (or, The Birth of Covid-19)

By on March 28, 2020
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Author’s Note: A.) I’ve always enjoyed short-story contests of 50 words or fewer. B.) As of this writing, pangolins are one of the animals most suspected of giving humans this strain of coronavirus.

The pangolin hunter smiled, looking at his wriggling snare.

“Listen,” the defiant pangolin said. “I’ll make you a deal: Let me go, and I’ll let you live.”

The hunter said nothing, reaching to strangle the little anteater.

“Okay,” the pangolin resigned, blowing a juicy sneeze in the hunter’s face.

The Decameron 2020 Project

By on March 25, 2020
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Even under the age of 10, I was one morbid kid with a dark sense of humor that would have suited me to be leading member of the Addams family. Among my youthful obsessions was the Bubonic Plague that wiped out a third of Europe in the middle of the 14th century. It terrified and fascinated me. I comforted myself as a kid that a pandemic like that could never happen in my lifetime. It has been about 100 years since the Spanish Flu pandemic and modern medicine and sanitation have come so far. Oops. How wrong I was.

Since when did a respiratory disease need this much toilet paper? People be crazy, but you can help keep your sanity by following our project called “The Decameron 2020.”

As yet, Coronavirus is no Black Death, but it doesn’t look pleasant, either. The 24/7 coverage of the disease sure isn’t setting many of our minds at ease.

To alleviate our stress and worries, I want to completely take my mind (and hopefully yours) off the dreadful subject.

To do that I want to turn back to the Black Plague for guidance. More specifically, I want to rekindle the memory of a brilliant Italian author named Giovanni Boccaccio. Not only did he survive the Black Death, he wrote one of the most modern, journalistic narratives of it to survive. He included it at the start of his famous book, “The Decameron.”

After the first 80 pages of the book describe the lead-up, duration and aftermath of the plague, he wrote the European equivalent of “101 Arabian Nights.” The remainder of his hefty tome is the story of 10 young nobles (7 women and 3 men) in Italy who decide to survive the plague by sequestering themselves together, feasting at their various estates for 10 days while telling each other stories. Every single day, each person had to tell one story. 10 stories a day for 10 days.

I finally read the complete “Decameron” in my 30s and was stunned by its humor, honesty and humanity. So much classic literature from that era feels stilted and formal but not Boccaccio. While I only found about 15 of the 100 stories to be profoundly entertaining, I was amazed how dirty and hilarious some of those stories were. (The book was mostly completed by the end of the Black Death in 1352, but Boccaccio’s revisions of 1370-71 are what got saved and handed down.) Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen would have actually been a huge hit in the late 14th century, just as they were in the beginning of the 21st century.

I spent my early years yearning to be a professional writer. I earned my master’s in journalism and worked in newspapers. I wrote a novel that got published and 2 that didn’t. I’ve been missing my storytelling ways for the past couple years. And, well…

I want to flex my storytelling muscles, once again. As we ride out our sequestrations and quarantines, I hope to entertain you with some brand new short stories. I also hope to entertain you with some short stories from my talented friends and parents—both of whom made their livings as professional writers.

With luck, my project will take your mind off your worries for a few minutes and make these days a little brighter.

As I’m no Boccaccio, I won’t be able to come up with 10 stories a day or even 1 story a day, but I hope to keep these Drippy Musing updating on a somewhat regular basis with fiction and fun for everyone. Pen news and research will continue once the crisis has abated.

In the meantime, check in regularly, be safe and stay well.

Arkansas Pen Show Cheats Covid-19

By on March 20, 2020
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Have you ever lived through a hurricane? I was visiting my grandmother in Cocoa Beach, Florida, in 1995 when Hurricane Erin struck. It was a minor, catagory 1 hurricane, but it was impressive for this Midwestern boy to witness and experience.

Whereas hurricanes strike a much smaller location than a global pandemic, hurricanes were all I could think of as I drove from Wausau, Wis., to Little Rock, Ark., and back.

Keeping busy with friends at the Arkansas Pen Show in 2020. It was a great show in spite of the pending pandemic.

There was a nervous tension and anxiousness in the air. Everybody knew what was coming, but nobody knew exactly what, where or how. Panic buying. Cautious interactions between strangers bracing for the worst and some remarkably kind and gracious interactions between others. And, yet, a hollow sense of dread and waiting persisted in the quiet moments or as people listened to or watched broadcasts of the latest news.

The pending pandemic of coronavirus felt a lot like waiting for Hurricane Erin to strike that coastal community 25 years ago.

And like before, during and after that hurricane, the folks at the Arkansas Pen Show rallied for one heck of an experience. Tim Joiner and the other folks who helped at the Arkansas Pen Club kept a steady hand on the tiller for a smooth operating show that was a lot of fun. The vendors and attendees pushed past their concerns about the pending pandemic to enjoy the passion for pens that brings us together through thick and thin.

Lisa and Mike Vanness, of Vanness Pen Shop, hosted an incredible after-party Friday. Taking much stricter health precautions into account, they still delivered great food and drink for a genuinely joyous evening dedicated to pens and, especially, ink.

Good friends from as far as San Francisco, Houston and Memphis stopped by to say hello and/or share a drink.

Little Rock, itself, was greening up beautifully. The temperature upon arrival was 70-degrees Fahrenheit. The grass was green. Flowers were blooming, and trees were blossoming. After a cold winter with up to 5-feet of snow on the ground, Little Rock was enchanting.

As Covid-19 now sweeps the country, it looks as if the Arkansas Pen Show might very well be the final pen show of the season. While we hate to see the other shows go dark for the year, we appreciate the courage of the show owners for making the wise decision to keep their vendors and patrons safe, and we can’t wait to return when the disease has run its course. In the meantime, I want to thank every single person who made the Arkansas Pen Show such a fun show to slip in ahead of the pandemic.

Arkansas Pen Show or Bust!

By on March 10, 2020
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Honestly, I haven’t even caught my breath from the Baltimore Pen Show, and now I’m heading out the door to attend the Arkansas Pen Show in Little Rock! Wowzers!

If you are anywhere within a few hundred miles of Little Rock this weekend (March 13 – 15), you have got to come out and see the Arkansas Pen Show. It is the biggest little pen show in the world! It is

A.) Hyperfriendly
B.) Very Well Organized
C.) Loaded with Amazing Vintage & Modern Writing Instruments & Ephemera
D.) Chocolate Bacon! Vanness Pens, who is the most famous ink seller online, hosts an after-hours party in its shop every year, and they always have a healthy supply of chocolate-dipped bacon. If you have never had such a delicacy, I can understand if you are skeptical. But, once you’ve had one bite, you will be addicted and a choco-bacon believer.
E.) Springtime! Every year I attend, flowers are blooming in Little Rock. Greenery is coming back to life. If you’re tired of winter, get your frozen butt down here to enjoy a little of what us northerners won’t see for another month or two.

As for pens, we’ve reloaded with dozens of new pens not yet available online. From vintage third-tier pens to Sheaffer TouchDowns and Snorkels to Parker Vacumatics to preowned luxury Waterman and Yard O Led, we’ve got tons to please pen lovers in the western portion of the American South.

I told you. I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath since the Baltimore Show. And Baltimore put on a fine pen show, indeed. This was my first year in attendance, and I was amazed by the organization, friendliness and crowds. Bert Oser and his crew put on a delightful event that was great for shaking off the winter rust as pen show season springs back to life.

Customers I’ve known for years but have never met in person came to say hi. We met a lot of new-to-us pen lovers. And it was great seeing so many younger, newer-to-collecting pen enthusiasts at the show. It was a blast introducing people to vintage pens, while learning about the tastes of more seasoned veterans in the world of pens.

Thanks to all those who made Baltimore so special, and I can’t wait to see y’all in Little Rock!

Baltimore Pen Show, Here We Come!

By on February 25, 2020
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For the last several years, we have heard about the splendor of the Baltimore Pen Show. This is what we’ve heard: It is well organized by our buddy Bert Oser. It is a premier place to buy and sell premier luxury pens. It is well advertised to the public, and it is becoming the premier pen show in the country.

This year, we are going to experience it for ourselves to see if it is all true. We have spent the past month restoring dozens of vintage pens and prepping never-before-seen-on-our-site luxury pens.

PLUS, for showgoers, we have dropped some of our prices to clear out some of our luxury inventory.

On a personal level, this is my first trip to Baltimore. I bemoan the fact the Orioles aren’t yet playing, as I’d love to see a game at Camden Yards, but I hope to have some fun exploring the waterfront and old Fort McHenry, home of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” if there’s time.

And, of course, the very best part will be getting to hang out with old friends at a new location, while also making new friends at a show I’ve never seen before. Please be sure to come check it out and say, “Hi.”

Search by Nib Size

By on February 16, 2020
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You can now search for our pens by nib size. Although this box is just an illustration, the one near the top left column of the vintage pens or pre-owned pens pages is live and will show you the way.

Size matters…at least when you’re writing and want to use a specific nib point.

Following the advice of my brilliant and beautiful fiancée, we’ve added a new way to search for pens on our site by virtue of the nib size and writing qualities.

Clicking on a blue letter is all you need to do to pull up all of our pens with the nib you want. You’ll still need to read the description to find out how wet, dry, smooth or scratchy a nib might be, but this new nib-search box will help you winnow down your options much more quickly. The only other detail to look for is whether the pen is a tweener pen—a fine-medium or a medium-broad, that sort of thing.

All of our vintage pens and preowned pens will get pulled up by nib together! Who knows what treasures you might find that you weren’t initially looking for! You can find the nib search box on the top of the left column on our home page, vintage pens pages and preowned pens pages.

In case you need help translating the letters into nib sizes, here’s our guide:

XF = Extra Fine
F = Fine
M = Medium
B = Broad
BB = Double Broad
Stub = Awesomeness
O = Oblique
SF = Semi-Flex
FLEXI = Flexible, somewhere in the vicinity of wet noodle