At the door is a pest man with a clipboard and hungry eyes. He tells me the roaches come out of the sewers and into our homes. I tell him this whole town is a sewer. No, he says, it's a lovely place where hardworking Americans can raise a family. I say there are roaches in my living room, in the pantry, in the drawers of my dresser. We can stop that, he says, and we are having a sale. I tell him that the ground is quicksand and the house is sinking, that gravity tugs like a hand from the grave and the sewer's stench grows stronger every day, that the rising ocean will start dripping over the Altamont and the whole valley will become damp and swampy, that soon this will be the roach's land, that we will have to flee or become subservient to their rule. Maybe, he says, maybe, but we might have a few good years left and we have to fight while we can, and did I mention we are having a sale? So I sign the papers, and the next day he comes with his Chernobyl suit and sprays the cracks in the ground while the burning sun moves west. It is a lovely place, I say to him, and he smiles back, his breath fogging the shield on his face.