One evening, Mr. Park went looking for the boom box. He had considered wearing his minister’s uniform but decided against it lest it appear he was using the Lord’s authority to settle petty scores. He walked back and forth past ten different houses before he found what he hoped was the correct one. It was hard to tell because of the rush-hour traffic whizzing past on Lake Ave.

Under the roar of the cars, he practiced over and over his opening words, “Excuse me, Sir, Madam, I am your neighbor,” improvising a series of friendly gestures and a facial expression approximating a smile. During a lull in the traffic, he took a deep breath and entered the property. It was a Craftsman bungalow, just like his, but desperately in need of two new coats of paint. Under his breath, he practiced, “Excuse, Sir, Madam, please, I am your neighbor,” as Christina Aguilera’s singing vibrated through his skull, threatening to mix up his words.

He walked up the driveway quietly and peered into the backyard. Shivers. Propped up on a couple of apple crates, speakers aimed at the back fence, was the Mystery Boom Box. Booming. The rest of the yard was a patchwork of junk—dented aluminum siding, rusted barrels, rotting fruit from a dying grapefruit tree. Yet on the back of the old Mustang resting on cinder blocks was a gleaming Jesus fish, a reassuring sign that he would find common ground. He jogged to the front of the house.

Before he got to the porch, a fat woman in a red housecoat pushed open the screen door and bellowed: “What ya want?”

“Excuse me, Madam, please, I am your neighbor,” he began. He gave her a little wave.

“Git outta my yard!” The woman’s orange hair was slick from the shower and her thick glasses made her eyes emphatically huge.

“Please, your music, Madam. I live over there.” He waved vaguely toward a bunch of houses, not wanting her to know where he lived. An overweight teenage girl in shorts joined the woman at the door. She had her mother’s freckles and square jowls.

“Music too loud for ya?” the girl said, in the same jeering tone her mother used.

Mr. Park nodded and started to back away. He felt that he had registered his point, and gave them a quick wave goodbye. As he walked briskly off their property, he heard one say something to the other. The mother started cackling—the throatiest, most lurid laughter he’d ever heard coming out of a woman.

Approaching home, he half expected his daughters to sprint out and give him a hero’s welcome, the kind of lapping affection they’d routinely showered him with when they were younger. Instead, it was his wife who came out the front door—scowling.

“What’s matter? You don’t find house?”

“I found house,” he said, his pride wounded. “Of course, I found house!”