Isaac and His Devils by Fernanda Eberstadt

Author:Fernanda Eberstadt [Eberstadt, Fernanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-80731-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

JUST AS ONE NOTICES in surprise that things are sailing along quite peacefully and thinks how pleasant it would be to stick out one’s finger and slow down time, pitch tent forever in this very week—for sometimes Isaac really did feel all these imaginary burdens to be a satisfaction, some weeks he did get up at six and even sometimes in his Jesuitical temperature takings decided he wasn’t going mad or brain dead or astray, but that this troublesome fate of his would work itself out—well, just then, things change, like a troublesome sitter blinking his eyes or wriggling just as the camera clicks.

“Isn’t that your teacher, Ike?”

Isaac and his mother were at Sears buying a new battery for the Matador. Naturally, it had been no joke persuading her: every morning the car conked out, and they got out the cables and boosted it off Sam’s Dart, and every morning she said, “It’s this cold snap. Nothing wrong with the battery.” Finally the boys took the car to their uncle’s garage and got an official verdict, which was a little like being told George Washington too was no longer among the living, but their mother still insisted on doing some comparison shopping, waiting till they went on sale. “Mom, relent. Just buy a new one now,” Isaac pleaded.

This was the difference between his parents: if the Dodge wouldn’t start Sam considered it a personal failure, confirmation of his own inferiority; to Mattie, car trouble was a government plot, with the repairman as chief conspirator.

“Look at the receipt: I bought it from you in June 1977. A dud. I expect a free replacement,” she threatened the man at Sears.

“Well, ma’am, I’m afraid the warranty on this particular model expires after two years.”

“That’s a lot of shit. Where do they make these pieces of junk, Japan?”

“No, ma’am, this battery was made in the U.S.A.”

“We’re living in a second-rate country,” Mattie told anyone who would listen. “If you can’t make a battery that lasts three years, where do you get the nerve to boss around countries half our size? I mean, why send in the Marines—just ship Lebanon a few tons of these goddamned batteries, they’ll be dead on their feet in no time. And this store sucks, too. Let me see the manager,” she wound up.

“You get what you pay for” was the fed-up salesman’s rejoinder. They were sitting in the Sears waiting room doing just that—waiting. Until the manager got back from his lunch break, until the mechanic installed a new battery, who knows what. Mattie was telling Isaac all about Cindy Olszewski’s new boyfriend who must be half her age. “It’s embarrassing. She goes out on the town with him, I bet the bartender cards him. Some people have no shame. Of course, Cindy’s a notorious souse, and this kid—his face is purple and he’s not even thirty.”

“You don’t approve of tippling, Mom?” His mother only got sanctimonious if a grudge was at stake.

“I’m not talking tippling, Ike, I’m talking sick.

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