USA. Tennessee. The hostess called me “hon” before I crossed the threshold.
Twelve rocking chairs on the porch. An old man in overalls sat in the third chair from the door.
“Forgive the intrusion. Are these chairs assigned by rank?”
“They’re just rockin’ chairs.”
I sat in the twelfth. The farthest from the door. The chair a man of no rank takes on his first visit. We rocked for one minute. The chairs creaked at slightly different rhythms.
“You eatin’, son?”
“Am I permitted?”
“Door’s right there.”
Inside, a woman named Mary smiled at me with the warmth of someone who has been smiling at strangers for thirty years.
“Welcome to Cracker Barrel, hon. How many?”
I had done nothing for this household. I was still in the doorway. “Hon” had arrived before I did.
“In my country, a family name is not given to a stranger until he has performed at least one act of service.”
“Well, sweetie, you came in the door.”
“Sweetie.”
“Hon, sweetie, honey, sugar. Pick one.”
“Are these different levels of kinship?”
“They’re all the same, baby.”
I had been given five names. I had not yet sat down.
She led me to a small wooden table. On it sat a triangular board with fourteen pegs in fifteen holes.
“Play that while you wait, hon.”
I bowed to the board.
A test, placed on the table before the food. The Cracker Barrel evaluates the mind before feeding the body. No one stated this because no one needed to. A waitress named Brenda arrived.
“Can I start you with somethin’?”
“I am in the middle of the trial.”
“Hon, the peg game is just for fun.”
“No test placed on a table before food is for fun.”
“Kids play it.”
“Then the children of Tennessee are examined before every meal. This is a disciplined people.”
“Sure, hon. Coffee?”
“After I solve.”
I focused. I jumped. Three pegs. Two. Both stranded on opposite ends of the triangle, unable to reach each other.
I bowed to the board.
Brenda put a hand over her mouth.
“Two pegs. That’s pretty smart, hon. Says so right there in the corner.”
“I will accept the rank of pretty smart.”
I ordered pancakes and hash brown casserole. The casserole arrived in a black iron skillet, cheese crisped at the edges. The kind of food a grandmother makes when she doesn’t know how long you’re staying and cooks for a week.
The boy at the next table jumped his last peg.
“GENIUS.”
His father slapped the table once.
I stood. I bowed to the boy, from the waist, deeply.
He stopped breathing for a moment.
Then he bowed back. The bow of a nine-year-old who has just been honored by a samurai goes nearly to the floor.
I returned it deeper.
He returned it deeper still, forehead level with his plate.
His mother said, very quietly: “we’re going to be here a while.”
On the way out, I bought a peg game from the store. Earl was still in the third chair. I bowed to the eleventh chair, then the tenth, all the way down to the second, leaving his third untouched, because the third-ranked man was still in it.
“That was a lot of bowin’, son.”
“Eleven bows. I left one chair empty beside yours. I cannot take the chair next to the third-ranked man on my first visit.”
“That’s not how rockin’ chairs work, son.”
“Then I will return.”
I drove east. The peg game on the passenger seat.
A triangle ranked me pretty smart. The boy at the next table was genius. The man on the porch was third rank. The pancake had one survivor. The casserole fed me like a grandmother’s house.
In America, a restaurant feeds a stranger from an iron pot and gives him six names of family before he orders. In my country, we call this a ceremony.
The chair waits.