Worn by cold weather and eternal gray days I leave Des Moines and move to the Virgin Islands where a friend from college tells me the weather’s always great except for high humidity and occasional hurricanes. I don’t worry much about climate. I just do what locals do. I like the Virgin Islands but better not say which one I live on. It’s probably okay to reveal I’m a teacher and enjoy my job. You really don’t need to use my photo. I’m a thirtyish lady who still feels pretty good in a bikini and that’s helpful around here.

Really, I at first think I’ve found the perfect place but start reading the local newspaper and learn people in this little paradise are getting murdered once a week. Old folks are shot, stabbed, or hacked to death in their homes. Far more often, in downtrodden housing communities, young people die of gunshot wounds. Gangs and drugs, locals tell me. The bad guys also eliminate enemies in bars and nightclubs.

Don’t let them drive you away, my friend tells me; I’m only leaving for a better job. She moves back to Des Moines. I buy a handgun and apply for a concealed weapon permit and take shooting lessons and now I’ve got a rod in my purse everywhere I go. I think I feel safer. I’ve also posted a map on my kitchen wall and use a marker to highlight locations of the latest murders. And I read statistics online to remind myself other places are worse. Depending on the year, El Salvador suffers more than a hundred murders per hundred thousand people and Honduras about ninety while the Virgin Islands sustain around fifty. I should note, however, that New Orleans and Detroit have less than half as many as here. And, as a whole, my gun-clotted native land registers a relatively moderate four point seven murders per hundred thousand, so I’m eleven times more likely to be murdered in the Virgin Islands.

Why are you asking all of these questions, anyway? No, I don’t want to have a drink with you. Keep your hands where I can see them. Don’t make me reach for my purse.