“It’s beauty or safety, take your pick,” the man said. “Our boxes are highly sensitive. The alarm goes off half a second after the magnet on the window loses contact with the magnet on the frame. That’s a half second faster than our leading competitor.”

“I choose beauty.” Raymond trailed after the guy, smoothing out his drapes.

The guy gave him an estimate for the downstairs doors and windows, and said he would include a motion detector in the entry hallway “for free.” Raymond thanked him and asked to schedule an installation ASAP. They shook hands coolly, and parted.

Ever since Raymond bought his house, he’d been exposed to the world of Guys—the lawn guy, the tree guy, the drywall guy, electricians, plumbers, these very interchangeable manly men who knew how to fix things and work things, and therefore kept people who couldn’t fix and work things themselves at their mercy. The Guys he employed were straightforward, hardworking, life-loving men who played with Tonka trucks as little boys and grew up knowing they wanted to tear things down, blow things up. They were the ones who caused bottlenecks on the interstate when they vegged out at the wheel, gazing at construction zones; Raymond imagined that most of them emerged from the womb operating forklifts. They made huge investments in the American dream by breeding and buying, and constituted a formidable market force that sucked up a gazillion bucks’ worth of gas, porn, NASCAR tickets and freedom fries. Even their toddlers were champs—running marathons on Home Depot wall-to-wall. One could never fault these Guys for thinking that someone like Raymond, with his funny accent and Persian rugs, was phony or marginal, or a serial killer. Every TV show they watched trained them to think so. The USA was theirs and they knew it. Raymond was merely visiting until his visa expired.

As long as they did their job and charged honest rates, Raymond couldn’t give a rat’s ass what any of these subliterate lunkheads thought of him. He didn’t even need them to like him. No, as long as his house was comfortable, and safe, he didn’t care if they took their sons to the shooting range instead of the ballet. Let them get ass cancer on deep-fried pizza.

With his home security system installed, Raymond came and went with greater peace of mind. He began to enjoy locking himself in at night. It was poetry: Armed to Stay, No Delay. Beep-beep! The decals the security guys stuck on his windows became protective talismans, and the yard sign poking out of the flower bed was his secular crucifix.