Yeah, he probably did. If he was anything like Decker’s father, he knew the store inside out. Ask Lyle Decker where anything in his hardware store was, he’d tell you.

Two-prong plug converter? Third aisle, left side…’bout two thirds of the way down, third shelf, right next to the threeway light switches.

Randy telling him, One of these days we should take inventory, Dad. Really organize the place.

You do that and I won’t be able to find a dern thing.

The air had turned biting, a bank of gunmetal clouds trying to block out the heat and light of the sun. But the mighty orb was fighting back, a burning white disk simmering in a sea of gray. The temperature was hovering in the low thirties. Decker blew hot breath onto his ungloved hands, turned up the collar on his overcoat, and moved on.

GITTEL’S BAKERY—HALAV YISROEL.

JERUSALEM GLATT KOSHER MEAT MARKET—CHICKENS FOR KAPPAROS.

The ritual of Kapparos—symbolically transferring sins to a chicken. A cock was used for a man, a hen for a woman. The chicken was swung in the air three times, special words were recited, then the bird was slaughtered and given to the poor as an act of charity. Some used money in lieu of chickens. The ritual was just custom, not law. In Decker’s mind, it seemed like a very primitive custom. Yet these old rituals had become part and parcel of the religion.

Just a hundred years ago, thousands of Jews had poured into America, working ninety hours a week for a better life, for a chance to get out of the ghetto. But for some, so much freedom had seemed too frightening.

Solution: Why not bring the ghetto into America?

And Rina chose this voluntarily.

In all fairness, Decker knew that American affluence had brought on a host of trouble. Teenage children with adult problems—alcoholism, drug addiction, abortions, divorce. Confused adults running for cover.

Some of the assimilated Jews dealt with the pressure by going inward, seeking a God higher than a BMW. They joined the cults, est, environmental groups, or the society of animal activists and spray-painted fur coats in the name of Good. A handful went back to their roots and became traditional. The “Orthodox from birth” Jews seemed to go it one step farther, deliberately shutting out the modern world altogether.

Almost none of the ultra-Orthodox families owned TVs, few read Time or Newsweek because some of the pictures featured women in “prurient” attire. U.S. News and World Report was the big periodical around these parts. Movies were out, as was popular fiction. Too explicit, though Decker was sure there was a housewife or two with a Danielle Steel novel squirreled away.