by Stan Rogal
A ROGUE’S
DECAMERON
ESSENTIAL PROSE SERIES 143
Guernica Editions Inc. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. The Ontario Arts Council is an agency of the Government of Ontario.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.
A ROGUE’S
DECAMERON
STAN ROGAL
TORONTO • BUFFALO • LANCASTER (U.K.)
2018
Copyright © 2018, Stan Rogal and Guernica Editions Inc.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.
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Errol F. Richardson, cover design
David Moratto, interior design
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First edition.
Printed in Canada.
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2017964539
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Rogal, Stan, 1950-, author
A rogue’s Decameron / Stan Rogal. -- First edition.
(Essential prose series ; 143)
Short stories.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77183-105-5 (softcover).
--ISBN 978-1-77183-106-2 (EPUB).
--ISBN 978-1-77183-107-9 (Kindle)
I. Title. II. Series: Essential prose series ; 143
PS8585.O391R64 2018
C813'.54
C2018-900138-0
C2018-900139-9
This book is dedicated to Jacquie, by far the more venturesome —
“What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
—GRATEFUL DEAD
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
THE BUTCHER WIFE’S TALE
THE DETECTIVE’S TALE
THE ONLOOKER’S TALE
THE STALKER’S TALE
THE CRIMINALS’ TALE
THE TRAVELLER’S TALE
THE MARRIAGE COUNSEL’S TALE
THE NEWLYWEDS’ TALE
THE MISSING PERSON’S TALE
THE REEVE SISTERS’ TALE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.”
—GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
“I will eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity.”
—GEOFFREY CHAUCER IN A KNIGHT’S TALE
A ROGUE’S DECAMERON:
PROLOGUE
It was an evening adult course run June/July through George Brown College, eight Thursday night sessions of study and comparison: Boccaccio’s The Decameron to Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The course comprised reading and discussion of the two original texts as well as investigating adaptations, whether stories, stage, film or art. What began with twenty eager souls had dwindled to a migratory twelve to fourteen by week seven, out of which six or eight of us might gather afterward at a local pub to knock back a few pints, share plates of fries, nachos and wings and chat about the latest developments. Tonight had been an outing to catch Pasolini’s film version of The Decameron playing at the indie Royal Theatre in Little Italy, so a very a propos setting. The film was hokey, but entertaining enough, and the stalwarts headed to the Café Diplomatico afterward where we had a reservation on the patio and where we could order beer pitchers, wine carafes, pizza slices and immerse ourselves in conversation.
There were seven of us from the class plus two partners who had tagged along for the movie and a third partner who joined us later on the patio for refreshments. This third partner didn’t appear too thrilled to be there and pretty much remained glued to his cell when he wasn’t otherwise leaned back in his chair rolling his eyes in a bored manner at the sky or else checking out the female action parading the patio and surrounding area of College and Clinton streets, an exercise that didn’t go unnoticed by his … what? Friend? Girlfriend? Wife? Relative? His first appearance among us and I wondered: Why now? The woman — early thirties, Asian, real estate agent by name of Karen — generally tried to ignore his behaviour and I guessed she’d only invited him as a polite gesture and was maybe surprised he’d actually shown. She’d introduced him as Mark. That was it, nothing more: “Hey everyone, meet Mark.”
Hi Mark, et cetera, from the gang.
Karen liked her red wine, but it didn’t like her and — as a rule — by about glass number three, she’d be shitfaced, laughing for no particular reason, talking loudly and leaning on anyone in close vicinity. Perhaps it was because she only weighed about ninety-eight pounds soaking wet, or maybe it was simple DNA. Whatever, she could either be a whole lot of fun or else a whole lot of headache. At this point it was too early to tell, though I was betting on the latter, given her friend. Mark ordered a double bar scotch straight up, gave it a taste, twisted his lips and complained about the quality — or lack thereof — just loud enough for all and sundry to hear. Karen tore the glass from his hand, banged back the contents herself and told him not to be such a cheap bastard next time and order a better brand. He could afford it.
“Maybe I’ll do that,” he said, and sloppily poured some beer from a nearby pitcher into the whiskey glass.
He struck me immediately as a first-rate asshole.
I knew as much — or as little — about the others at the table. Our conversation generally centred around the course content and maybe got a tad more personal as we became more lubricated, though, by that time, who remembered much beyond name, job and the odd detail such as dog or cat owner, vegetarian or omnivore, kids or no?
If push came to shove, I knew that Paula and Gail were a lesbian couple in their fifties, Gail working as an Arts Administrator with the Toronto Arts Council and Paula a social worker specializing in street youth. They took classes together as a night out. Gail drank red wine and Paula enjoyed the local craft brews, organic whenever possible. They were both vegetarian.
Monica was in her early forties, worked in retail selling appliances at the Bay. Her partner, Aaron, was in construction, didn’t belong to the class but showed up most nights for drinks, his preference being bottled Molson Canadian. Nice guy and the two seemed to get along well.
Another couple was Anthony and Portia, early sixties, the only ones here with honest-to-goodness Italian backgrounds and who visited the heritage country with regularity to spend time with friends and family. Both retired public school teachers. Thank God for that, Anthony would cross himself. The way things are today — the violence, the sex, the drugs … He’d pause here and toss us all a look. And that’s just the parents! He’d belly laugh and slap his thighs and Portia right along with him. We’d all heard this line, of course, like, a million times before. Anyway, Anthony took the class and Portia would always be waiting
for the group at the assigned rendezvous spot, sipping a gin and tonic through a straw before switching to a glass of white wine. She was always eager to hear the complete details of the lecture and the surrounding discussion. Anthony was happy to oblige —along with embellishments — as he shared in the beer pitcher with Paula.
Naomi was early fifties, fancied herself an actress, though appeared to earn most of her income teaching French immersion and ESL. Always seemed to be taking a different acting class or voice class or movement class with the latest brilliant instructor, until it was time to find a different class with the next latest brilliant instructor. She somehow let us know early on she did not want to be referred to as Afro-American as she was born in Scarborough and had never even visited the “dark continent,” as she called it. Also a red wine drinker.
That left me, and the less said the better, except to say, red wine was also my beverage of choice.
The evening progressed with the usual banter to do with the course and much time spent going over scenes from the film and laughing, mainly, at the absurdities of the time and how things have changed, specifically in terms of the Church, which had been a mainstay of humorous attacks by writers, the subject now grown far too serious given the court cases concerning sexual misconduct, whether improprieties within the flock at large, or worse, abuse of the children. Also, even, the manner in which the characters of the film so easily fell into bed with one another and no thought of either the moral or ethical implications nor the consequences of such rash behaviour, nor the need to wear protection.
“Yeah,” Anthony said smiling, “all good fun until someone loses an eye.”
“Willing suspension of disbelief,” Portia said. “That’s why we go to movies.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sounds just like the sixties to me,” Aaron said laughing.
“Sounds like the nineties to me,” Monica said.
“Uh-huh?” Aaron leaned in to her. “And what were you doing in the nineties that you didn’t tell me about?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said, purring, and we all laughed.
“Face it,” Gail said. “Same shit, different day. Nothing really changes. As a race, we’re still driven by our appetites.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Karen said.
“Speaking of which,” Naomi said. “Isn’t it odd how our attractive young professor hasn’t made it out for a drink with us since the first couple of weeks? He always has to hurry away and, I wonder — does he, in fact, use the night as an excuse to hook up with someone for a bit of hanky-panky on the side, the gold band on his wedding finger notwithstanding?” We all gave it some serious consideration. “I mean, don’t you remember that sort of attractive bleached blonde among us at the start with the duck lips and silicone tits, also flashing a large rock on her wedding finger and who was always cornering him with questions, and who suddenly disappeared? What happened there, do you think? After all, how often can you teach a course that has infidelity as a major theme and not want to experiment with the notion?”
An intriguing speculation, I thought. We all nodded and, I’m sure, did our own quick mental check of the group and, while the idea appeared somewhat amusing, I don’t believe anyone was prepared and/or motivated to make the leap. I could be wrong. In fact, Karen was a real cutie, though too young for me — beyond blaming the booze — and Naomi had a rather evil sense of humour, which I found attractive. Still, not attractive enough to pursue, especially as she’d given me no provocation or hint to suggest otherwise.
“You don’t really think …? Do you? The two of them?” Karen was still back trying to puzzle out the professor and the blonde. I didn’t know if it was the two of them per se she couldn’t envision together between the sheets, or the concept of an affair in general. People took sidelong looks at each other, nodded, grinned and so on. We all raised our glasses and drank, pondering.
It was getting late and the inevitable subject of “too bad the course was coming to an end” and someone — I think it was Portia — wondered if there wasn’t some way to keep the group together a bit longer as it was always fun to meet up and share stories. Naturally, we were all fairly warm and fuzzy with the alcohol by this point and already feeling vaguely nostalgic, so we all agreed. Slightly earlier in the evening, slightly more sober, perhaps a couple of us might have pointed out what a truly wrongheaded idea this was and why it could never work — why it DOES never work — and history has proven time and time again that it’s always best to allow things to live out their natural span, then let it go.
As I said, we were not of our right minds and, in fact, it was me who proposed an idea. What if, I offered, we set up a situation akin to that of the characters in the books we’ve been studying?
All eyes focused on me and everyone was attentive. No one spoke but the looks on their faces said: Tell us more. I continued. As it stands, there are ten of us gathered, a mix of male and female, same as in the books. What if we decided to each write a story based on the major themes of The Decameron and/or The Canterbury Tales? Meaning: lust, cunning, deceit, revenge, jealousy, love, sex, deception, adultery, religion, bawdy humour, literary allusions and so on and so forth. Meaning: pretty much the same major themes of any time or place. We make Toronto the central setting, though characters can come and go from the city to engage in whatever adventure, from the normal everyday to the odd to the fantastic — such is the nature of the tale. Next week is the final class, so we can plan to meet back here at the Dip in two weeks with our completed stories. We make the stories anonymous, read them aloud to each other and try to figure out who wrote which story. Then we repeat the process every two weeks until we run out of steam. Or stories.
“Mark knows SFA about Boccaccio or Chaucer,” Karen said. “He thought the Pasolini film was a gangster movie.” She leaned back and laughed hysterically.
“We can ask someone else from the class,” I said. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You think I can’t write a story?” I wasn’t sure if Mark directed this at Karen or at the table in general.
“I know you can’t,” Karen said. “All you can do is fucking text.” She mimed him pounding the keypad.
“That’s okay, we can get someone.”
“No way,” Mark said. “I’m in. What’s the big deal? I know a thing or two about jealousy and deceit, don’t I, Karen?”
That comment made our ears prick. We looked to Karen for her response.
Karen made a rude sound with her lips. “You think you do. But then, you think you know everything.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said, wanting to keep the peace. “We’ll ask someone else.”
“I said I’m in! I’ll write a fucking story. You think I can’t? Piece o’cake.”
Karen mimicked Mark: “I’ll write a fucking story. Right. He’ll pay his secretary to write it for him.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll write it, alright. Watch me.”
Everyone was uncomfortable and things got pretty quiet for a moment. Paula jumped in.
“Great then! Mark’s okay to contribute a story. You heard him. What about Aaron and Portia? Are you guys okay?” The two nodded. “Everyone else?” There was mumbled approval. “Terrific!” She turned to me. “How do we make it anonymous?”
I pulled a deck of cards from my shoulder bag, separated the spades, eliminated the face cards, shuffled the remainder and dealt them out face down.
“Here we are,” I said. “The cards run one to ten. When you finish your story, tuck the card under the paper clip. In two weeks we all write our card and our name on a slip of paper and put them on the table. At the end, we turn them over to see which person belongs to which story.” I gave them all my email so they could get hold of me if there were any questions or problems.
Around eleven we finished our drinks, finished our goodbyes and everyone sailed out into the night.
Next morning I sat with a coffee over the computer and was met with my first response. I che
cked the time it was sent: 12:32 a.m. It was from Karen and stated very simply and succinctly: Mark and I are out. I sent his dumb ass packing so it’s over. I likely won’t be at class next week either. Sorry.
Anthony and Portia emailed a few days later, claimed there were family matters they had to attend to and were flying off to Italy ASAP so would also miss the final session. By Wednesday Gail and Paula had pulled out due to “unforeseen circumstances” and Naomi sent a note saying she’d scored a commercial being shot in Montreal, so au revoir and bonne chance!
When I arrived at the class Thursday, Monica and Aaron admitted that maybe they’d been a tad overconfident at the café — or maybe a tad drunk — and soon came to realize they had neither the ambition nor the skill set to write a story. They handed me their cards. Aaron joked they wanted to be sure I was playing with a full deck. Perhaps the others felt the same because the professor met me with several envelopes either dropped off or mailed in to the college, which I assumed contained the rest of the missing cards. I stuck them in my shoulder bag and sat through the slimmed-down class wondering if the excuses were all real or if the notion of writing a story had actually filled everyone with so much dread that most dared not even show their faces. To be completely honest, I was also feeling a sense of relief as I was having great difficulty coming up with even a single story idea that might warrant serious pursuit and figured it was probably for the best that the others had bowed out.
Afterward, several of us headed to the bar. We were joined by the professor this time. The blonde woman with the duck lips and silicone tits also joined us, apologizing for her long absence, saying it was due to her father having had a heart attack and her needing to fly to Florida to help take care of him as the wife/mother had left him years ago to take up with a plastic surgeon in California. Her father doing better, she returned to Toronto and wanted to show up at the bar to say goodbye to everyone.