The Magical Stranger by Stephen Rodrick Page A

gives me a sandwich and pats my head. They disappear into another room, and Grandpa emerges precisely one Lumpy Rutherford episode later with a grin and sweat on his forehead.
    He is cashless on the drive home. Grandpa Gentry pulls up to an automated tollbooth and fake-tosses coins into the collection box. He acts shocked and angry when the gate won’t open. I can’t stop laughing. The gate opens.
    He golfs all the time and keeps soft-porn novels in easily accessible drawers. I read them behind paperback covers of Johnny Tremain . His humor is rough and crass, full of mugging and jiving, which seems strange since he calls blacks “the colored” and prides himself for no longer using the n-word. The older I get, the sadder he looks. Mom laughs at his jokes but worries behind his back. The message is clear: don’t be like him.
    Mom has one sister and no brothers, so her father is her only male reference point. Well, except for Mel. Sarah, Mom’s mom, got sick of Grandpa Gentry’s silly ways and set her sights on a more grown-up guy. That would be Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant Melvin Gunter. He fought in three wars, has two Purple Hearts, and drinks Budweiser like I drink cherry Kool-Aid. Mel and Sarah moved to his Alabama hills after he retired in 1973. We visit every spring. They raise pigs and peaches, tomatoes and cows, on sixty acres. Their home is near the end of a road that pitches and winds like crazy. Mel’s momma lives up the road and shucks corn and green beans barefoot. She smiles without teeth and tells me about a no-good welfare cheat collecting from two counties.
    â€œHe’s just trash.”
    Northerners are not welcome around here. Not even us, really. A man in overalls stops by one morning and tells Mel that he saw our Massachusetts license plates and wants to make sure he was okay. He then jokes about slashing our tires. Or maybe he isn’t joking.
    Every morning, Mel works in his peach orchards in a white T-shirt and army surplus pants. Down comes his ax; up goes a Budweiser tall boy. It is 7:30 a.m. After breakfast, we go fishing in his catfish pond. One afternoon, we catch a giant one, maybe three pounds, throw it in the now empty beer cooler, and drive his blue tractor back to the house. He gives me a wink and gets a hammer and nail. He pounds the catfish to the wall and skins it. I puke in the driveway.
    He is asleep in his lounger by 2:00 p.m. I lift a Marlboro out of his hand and snuff it out in an ashtray. I sneak into his living room and stare at snapshots of dead Korean boys preserved behind cellophane in a dusty photo album. He wakes up and thumps me on the head.
    â€œYou’re not old enough to see these things.”
    My glimpses into a man’s world vanish as quickly as they happen. Mostly, I’m around women all day and night long. Mom’s mom flies wherever we are and visits for weeks at a time. The good news is she makes me chicken and dumplings and a chocolate cake with golden filling for my birthday. The bad news is she’s the most scared grown-up I’ve ever met. She doesn’t drive and hasn’t been to the movies for twenty years. That seems like a long time. Grandma only likes to talk about two things: how dangerous Dad’s job is and how men are jerks. She seems only to be happy when she’s talking about being unhappy. She wants everyone to be as scared as she is. Then, Grandma tells Mom that Dad is doing men’s work and there’s nothing she can do about it. She works Mom into a panic and then seals the exits.
    How a boy and a girl from different sides of the Mason-Dixon line come together is a story I can’t hear enough. Here’s how it goes. Dad starts at the Naval Academy in 1960. The following year, he goes down to Virginia with the academy’s brigade to watch Navy play Duke in a football game called the Oyster Bowl. There is a dance after the game filled with crew-cut boys and nice girls from