943: The cistern . . .
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 23 continues
THE CISTERN was empty. There had to be a leak somewhere. It would have to be fixed, but that would have to wait until the storm had passed. Half of the inmates spent the day on the island with Albertine and me, battening the hatches, while the other half went to Babbington with Lou and bought supplies, including all the bottled water they could get. In the odd twilight and preternatural calm that precedes a storm, I read “Driving a Bargain,” the twenty-third episode of Dead Air, and in the pauses we could hear the wild cats roaming the island, anxious and confused, seeking shelter, caterwauling.
AMONG THE LIKELY PROSPECTS for a flying-saucer detector in my neighborhood was Mr. Leary. Mr. Leary was retired, and, as my father liked to say, he was making a career out of it. When he was still working, he had been tall, slim, and nervous, but upon retiring he went to bed for an entire week, and when he emerged from his house he had metamorphosed into a short, bald man with a paunch who wore suspenders and cardigan sweaters, chuckled more or less constantly, issued epigrams about the absurdities of life, and preferred the company of what he called little nippers to the company of adults, whom he called damned fools. I figured he was good for a sale — a pushover, in fact.
I walked around to the back of the Learys’ house, and I was on my way to the back door when I heard Mr. Leary whistling in the garage. I found him there, surrounded by wood shavings, whittling away at something.
“Hi, Mr. Leary,” I said.
He looked up. “Say there, nipper,” he said with a chuckle, “what brings you all the way over to this side of the street?”
I knew that there was no point in beating around the bush with Mr. Leary. If you did, you were likely to fall into a conversation, and if you got into a conversation with him, you would learn a great deal about linoleum flooring, his business before he had retired. I had found that, as far as I was concerned, when it came to linoleum a little learning went a long way, so I got right to the point. I held the saucer detector out in front of me and said, “I came to see if you wanted to buy a flying-saucer detector.”
“A flying-saucer detector?”
“Yes, sir. They relieve your anxieties. Before my mother got hers she had trouble sleeping because she was tormented by worries about flying saucers and thermonuclear warheads.”
“Flying saucers and thermonuclear warheads?” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at the thought that life should have become so absurd overnight.
“A lot of people are worried about them.”
He took the detector from me and looked it over from all the angles. “Do I get a discount for buying the demonstrator?” he asked.
“The demonstrator?”
“What I’m holding in my hands here. You take this one around to show to people, to demonstrate how the thing works, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. I see. The demonstrator.”
“Your grandfather gave me a discount when I bought my Studebaker.”
“You bought a demonstrator?”
“Sure. I’m driving a bargain.” He chuckled and shook his head to indicate that he was about to issue an epigram on one of the absurdities of life. “Some people throw their money away,” he said, and then he just went on shaking his head.
“But?” I said.
“Huh?”
“Aren’t you going to say ‘but’ and go on?”
“Go on?”
“Maybe — ‘but a wise man drives a bargain’?”
“Hey,” he chuckled. “That’s pretty good. For a nipper you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Tell you what — I’ll take the demonstrator.”
“It’s not really a demonstrator,” I said. “It’s new. I just finished it this morning, and I haven’t really demonstrated it to anybody. I’ve just been showing it to people.”
“I’d call that demonstrating,” he said.
“What do you figure the demonstrator’s worth?” I asked.
“Well — how about — half price?”
I had set my price by simply doubling what the parts of a detector cost me, right down to the lengths of wire and nails. Half price would wipe out all of my profit.
Mr. Leary reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “What do you say?” he asked, with his wallet still closed. There was a twinkle in his eye, and I recognized it for what it was: the old man was going to cheat me, and he was going to enjoy it. He was already enjoying it. “Half price for the demonstrator?”
“You know,” I said, taking the demonstrator from him, “a lot of people are willing to sell themselves cheap.”
“But?” he asked, and when he chuckled I saw that the chuckle had become involuntary, that he was stuck with it forevermore.
“But only a fool would sell at cost,” I said, and, chuckling and shaking my head, I turned and left, chuckling involuntarily at the astonishing discovery that what people said was true: there really is no fool like an old fool.
[to be continued]
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