A restaurant off Interstate 40 in Lebanon, Tennessee. Yellow log cabin walls. Stone chimney. Twelve rocking chairs in a row across the front porch. A wooden sign nailed above the door: CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE I parked the rental car between a pickup truck and a minivan. I stepped onto the porch. An old man in overalls sat in the third rocking chair from the door, reading a Field and Stream magazine. He did not look up. I bowed. "Forgive the intrusion. Are these seats assigned by rank." He looked up. "You what now." "In my country, the seats nearest the threshold are reserved for the most senior retainers. Those farther away seat the younger men. I wish to ensure I do not sit above my station." "Son, they're just rockin' chairs." "Then they are assigned by no one." "They're assigned by who sits in 'em." "I see. Then you, in the third chair from the door, are by your own authority a man of the third rank." "I'm Earl." "Earl. The third-ranked man on this porch." "Sure." I walked to the twelfth chair, the farthest from the door, the chair a man of no rank would take. I sat. I rocked. Earl turned a page. For a full minute we rocked together. The chairs creaked at slightly different rhythms. I did not speak. A man at the twelfth chair has not earned the right to begin conversation with a man at the third. Earl folded his magazine. "You eatin', son?" "Am I permitted." "Door's right there." "Then I have been given leave by the third-ranked man on the porch." "Sure, son." I walked to the door. A hostess inside, gray hair, clean apron, a name tag that read MARY, smiled at me with the warmth of a woman who has been smiling at strangers for thirty-one years. "Welcome to Cracker Barrel, hon. How many?" "Hon." "Yes, hon?" "Hon was not your question. You called me hon." "That's right, hon." "A stranger is not addressed by an affectionate name until he has performed at least one favor for the household." "Well, hon, I'm sure you've done plenty." "I have done nothing for you." "You came in the door. That's plenty." "I have been called hon for the act of entering. I am not halfway across the room and I am already family." "That's how we do it, sweetie." "Sweetie." "Sweetie, hon, honey, baby. Pick one." "Are these levels of intimacy." "No, they're all the same." "I have been admitted to four levels of family at once." "Right this way, sugar." "Five." She led me to a small wooden table near the fireplace. On the table sat a wooden triangle with fourteen pegs in fifteen holes. "Here you go, hon. You play that while you wait." She left. I bowed to the triangle. The triangle was a checkpoint. The peg game is the intelligence test of the Cracker Barrel. The diner is not permitted to dine until he proves his mind worthy of the meal. This was clear. The hostess had not stated the rule because the rule was understood by every man, woman, and child in Tennessee. Only a foreigner would need to be told. I would not be told. I picked up the first peg and began. A waitress arrived, brown hair pulled back, a name tag that read BRENDA. "Hey, hon, can I start you with somethin' to drink?" "I am in the middle of the trial." "The trial?" "The peg checkpoint." "Hon, the peg game is just for fun." "No test placed upon the table before food is for fun." "Honey, kids play it." "Then the children of Tennessee are tested before every meal. This is a disciplined people." "Sure, hon. You want coffee?" "I have not earned the right to drink before I solve." "It's free refills." "Then I will drink after." "After what." "After I solve the peg." "Hon, the peg game is hard. Most folks leave at least three pegs on the board." "How many remain when a man is called a genius." "One." "Then I will leave one." "Hon." "Brenda." "You ain't gotta." "I have come a long way. I cannot order the food until I have passed the checkpoint of the genius." "Okay, hon. I'll come back." She left. I focused. I jumped one peg over another and removed the jumped peg. I jumped again. The board began to thin. I was at four pegs remaining when Brenda came back. "How we doin', hon?" "Four remain." "That's better than most." "Then most are not samurai." "That's fair, hon." I jumped. Three pegs. "You want to order while you finish." "Speak." "Pancakes are real good. Two dollars more, you get hash brown casserole on the side." "What is the casserole." "Potatoes, cheese, onion, baked together in an iron skillet." "A peasant's dish." "Yeah, kind of." "Then it is honest. I will have it." "Pancakes too?" "Pancakes too." She wrote it down. I jumped. Two pegs remained, both on the far side of the triangle, both unable to reach each other. I had failed. I bowed to the triangle. Brenda put a hand over her mouth. "Two ain't bad, hon. Says right here in the corner, two pegs is pretty smart." "I will accept the rank of pretty smart." "That's the spirit, hon." The pancakes arrived. Three buttermilk discs the size of saucers, butter melting in three separate pools. A small pitcher of syrup. Hash brown casserole in a black iron skillet, the cheese crisped at the edges. I ate. The pancakes were sweet without insisting on it. The casserole was the kind of food a grandmother makes when she does not know how long the grandson is staying and so cooks enough for him to stay a week. "In my country, when a household feeds a stranger from a black iron pot, the stranger is no longer a stranger." "That's nice, hon." "I am no longer a stranger." "Aw, sugar." "Six." A boy of nine at the next table was playing his own peg game. He left one. He raised both hands above his head. "GENIUS." His father slapped the table once. "That's my boy." I rose from my chair. I bowed to the boy, deeply, from the waist. The boy stopped breathing for a moment. "Mom." "Yes, baby." "The samurai bowed." "He did." "Why." "Because you got genius." The boy bowed back. The bow of a nine-year-old who has just been told he is a genius and is being honored by a samurai is one of the most committed bows in the world. It went almost to the floor. I returned the bow, deeper. The boy returned it deeper still, his forehead now level with his plate. His mother said, very quietly, "we're going to be here a while." I sat. I ate. I finished the casserole. I left one wedge of pancake on the plate. Even a samurai who has finished seventy-two ounces of Texas cannot, on a different day in Tennessee, finish three buttermilk pancakes after the casserole. The board does not always clear. I bowed to the pancake. Brenda came with the check. "How was everything, hon." "I have eaten from the iron pot of a household I do not know. I have been called by five names of intimacy by a woman who has not asked mine. I have been ranked pretty smart by a triangle. The boy at the next table is a genius. The man on the porch is third rank. The pancakes have one survivor." "You want a box for that?" "Yes." She brought the box. I bowed to her. I walked toward the door. The path passed through a country store. Shelves of cast iron skillets, Moon Pies, peg games in small wooden triangles, t-shirts that read I FAILED THE PEG GAME AT CRACKER BARREL, candy in jars, an old metal sled, a full-size rocking chair, a miniature rocking chair for a doll. The store sold everything a man visiting a household might wish to bring home from the visit. The placement was deliberate. No household releases the guest without an offering for his own house. I bought a peg game. I bought a Moon Pie. I picked up a cast iron skillet, looked at the price, and put it back. A samurai does not carry iron in a rented car. The cashier was a woman with a long braid. Her name tag read SHIRLEY. "You drivin' far, hon?" "East." "You drive safe." I stepped back onto the porch. Earl was still in the third chair. He had finished the magazine and started another. I bowed. "I have eaten. I have left one pancake. I have been ranked pretty smart by the peg. I have purchased a peg of my own. I will take it home and try again until I am a genius." "That's a long visit, son." "It was sixty-three minutes." "That's long enough." "Earl." "Yeah." "May I rock with you for one minute before I leave." "It's a free porch." I sat. I rocked. The chairs creaked at slightly different rhythms. After one minute I stood. I bowed to Earl. I bowed to the chair I had sat in. I bowed to the eleventh chair, and the tenth, and the ninth, all the way down to the second, leaving Earl's third chair last and untouched, because the third-ranked man was still in it. "That was a lot of bowin', son." "It was eleven bows." "Yeah." "I have left one chair standing on the porch. The chair next to yours." "That's not how rockin' chairs work, son." "Then I will return. The chair waits." I drove east. The peg game in the passenger seat. The Moon Pie unopened. Hash brown casserole still warm in the styrofoam box. In my country, when a man visits a household for the first time, he is given a name by the household, an evaluation of his mind, a seat in a row of seats, and a small gift to take home so the household will be remembered. Here, the household is a restaurant off the interstate. The name is hon. The evaluation is the peg. The seat is on the porch. The gift is bought. It is the same ceremony. The chair waits.