#142 Peace of Mind- T.C. Boyle
Giselle sells security systems to the rich. She sells fear,
paranoia, anger…peace of mind. She’s very good at it. After all it’s easy to
sell these things in a world as messed up as ours:
“The world was a violent, rotten, corrupt, seething with
hatred and perversion, and there was no escaping it. Everything you worked for,
everything you loved had to be locked up as if you were under siege.”
Door-to-door she goes, answering inquiries about the alarms,
and she herself is armed with horror stories about men in masks, perverts
dressed nicely, and pure woman being violated. She has already made a big sale
and its barely noon:
“It was a few minutes past twelve, crime was rampant, and
she was feeling lucky.”
However, things turn bad when she visits a man looking for
trouble. This man eats salesmen for fun, chews them up and frightens them with
his own horror stories. He ends up becoming one more tale she uses to sell.
What is security, who is dangerous, and what can we do to
protect ourselves? Perhaps the things we fear are the wrong things, and the
places we are looking are the wrong places and security is only a Peace of
Mind.
Notable Passage: “Giselle slid into the front seat of the
Mercedes and cranked up the salsa music that made her feel like every day was a
fiesta.”
Rating: 8-8-8-6 Total= 30
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