It's not like my parents didn't warn me to be careful around strangers, but since my

dad sells job was, in his words, the only thing keeping us off the streets, I had to be

very careful who I treated as a stranger.

Auntie Lynn for example.

We only saw her a few times a year, but since she'd given my dad some kind of loan, I had

put up with a funeral pile of perfume, Smoker's breath, and near constant cheek-pinching

and rib poking from a knalled, creepy old fingers.

Or dad's boss, Mr. Rainier, with his booming voice in bright red face and weird way of walking.

He looked like the kind of big, sloppy drunk who just might toss a kid in the air for kicks,

then tried to catch him and miss.

And so, it was, yes, Mr. Rainier, and thank you for teaching me to shake hands properly,

Mr. Rainier, each time he came around.

Strangers, I learned, could be people who dressed weird or lived on the other side of town.

They could be people who smelled funny, or whose skin was a different colour than ours.

They could be people who talked too much, or too little, or people who had a lot of

bumpers stickers on their car, but they definitely weren't people with money.

When I told my grandpa about my parent's odd definition of strangers, he just scoffed.

Sounds like a bunch of crap to me.

I remember how much my mouth popped open at that word.

Grandpa never cursed, he was a strict southern Baptist, as skinny and hard as the hickory

he whittled on his trailer's front porch.

That day, he put down his carving and bent down till his weathered blue eyes were looking

...