A Dusty Tires Short Story

By Ken Drenten

Elmer sat in a graying wood shack on a street corner looking over a small collection of evergreen trees. The trees were propped up by metal stakes driven into the hard-packed ground. He sold trees at the lot every November and December.

Inside the shack, he kept warm with a small wood stove in the corner, which he kept fed with pine scraps from the trees in his lot. He sat on a rickety three-legged stool in the shed with one elbow on a makeshift desk. His right hand held a stubby pencil which was poised over a sheet of paper to write down the name of the customer who had just bought a Douglas fir for $25. He held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his other hand.

Looking out a frost-edged window onto the lot, he wore a black toboggan hat, ancient green rubber boots and a faded, dirty blue pair of insulated overalls that fit loose on his stringy frame. He moved with the care that betrayed an arthritic back. His hands were calloused and rough, but his eyes were clear and blue.

It was starting to snow on a dismal, chilly December morning in the Ohio town of Rendville. It was fairly large as towns go. Residents preferred to think of it as a small city. 

The 10,000 or so who lived in Rendville enjoyed two grocery stores — an IGA and a Food Land — fast food restaurants McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Hardee’s and Dairy Queen, a Chevrolet dealership, as well as a railroad switching yard just outside of town north of Route 20.

The tree lot was situated along the same Route 20, known as Main Street within city limits. It sat next to a coin-operated car wash on one side and Smitty’s Pizza across the corner street. For most of the year the lot was empty, but from mid-November until December 24, Mr. Harry Ziegler used the lot he owned to sell live Christmas trees. He also owned the car wash next door.

Elmer had been working the tree lot for 17 years for Mr. Ziegler. During the remainder of the year he got temporary work washing cars at the Chevy dealership, cleaning at a fast food restaurant and doing other odd jobs.

He eventually stood up to stretch in the dilapidated shack, fished out a Winston cigarette and put down his coffee cup. There had been no customers since an early one but his job required him to be at his post from morning until long after dark. He opened the door of the shack and walked out.

The job he had wasn’t a difficult job, merely a tedious and usually uncomfortable one. Today, it was cold and snowy in addition to being tedious. He shuffled slowly from tree to tree, checking each one for loose or brown needles, and moving some into better position, brushing off the snow from branches from time to time.

He was also thinking about something else as he worked. Someone had been leaving him sacks of leftover food from Smitty’s Pizza – it had happened yesterday, and two days last week. He suspected it was his friend Joe who had been coming around a couple times recently. Joe had worked with him washing cars over the summer at the car dealership. 

He had asked Joe about the food the day before but his friend was noncommittal. “Maybe, maybe not,” Joe had said.

Elmer sold a Norway spruce to a man and his little girl who selected it right away. He baled it for them with twine and helped them with it back to their car. He wrote out a receipt for the $25 for them and wrote himself a note: “$25. Norway Spruce. Jim Bailey and daughter Susie. 12-15.” He went back into the shack and put the money in a metal box on the desk. The receipt went into a Dutch Masters cigar box, stuffed with similar pieces of paper.

After several hours had passed, it was late morning. Joe returned and found Elmer. Elmer had gone in and out of the shack several times. He’d sold three more trees and was now re-checking the lot and the trees.

“Hey, Elmer,” Joe called out. “What ya doin’ outside when it’s so cold out?”

Elmer shook his head. “It’s just my routine,” he said. “I like to check my trees after I sell one. I like to make sure they’re arranged just right or else no one will buy them.”

Joe cackled. “Whaddya care if people buy ‘em? You just work here.”

“Yeah, I know. But I have two things I need to take care of here – my trees and my customers. They’re both my responsibility.”

Joe hooked his thumbs into his jean belt loops and wandered off while Elmer continued his tree patrol duties.

Nearby, a dingy yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulled up in front of Smitty’s Pizza. A young man with longish straw-colored hair and a denim jacket hopped out and closed the car door with a creak. He cast a long look toward the tree lot as he walked a few steps into the pizzeria.

Then he called out. “Hi, Elmer!”

Elmer called back. “Howdy, Danny!”

Elmer didn’t look at his watch until he had sold a few more trees to some customers, rearranged his trees a few more times, and returned to the shack. By then, he was starting to feel hungry. It was past lunchtime. 

On the snowy ground outside the door of the shack was a brown paper sack. Elmer opened it. Inside he found half of a sub sandwich and two slices of pepperoni pizza, still warm.

It wasn’t until he had finished his serendipitous lunch sitting inside the shack that he realized something was missing. That item was the tree lot’s metal cash box, which had been sitting on the desk next to the receipt box and a roll of twine the last time he had looked.

He spent a good 15 minutes frantically looking all over the desk, the shack and the tree lot, but found nothing. With shaking hands, he pulled out his cellular phone and called Mr. Ziegler.

When Harry Ziegler arrived, they both looked again, all over the shack and the lot for the missing cash box. “I’m sorry, Elmer,” the owner said. “I’m going to have to call the police.”

A police cruiser pulled up a few minutes later, and a Rendville Police Department officer got out. He asked a few questions, then murmured something to Ziegler. 

“Elmer, this officer is going to place you under arrest unless we can find who else might have stolen the money. Can we call some of the people who bought trees today?”

Elmer nodded. Ziegler and the officer exchanged glances as Elmer opened the cigar box and looked through receipts. The police officer helped to track down phone numbers to match the names on the scraps of paper, and Elmer began making calls.

Pretty soon, a sizable number of people had gathered at the tree lot. Most of them acknowledged that Elmer helped them with their tree purchases that day. But no one saw anyone take money or a box out of the shack. The cash box was still nowhere to be found. 

The police officer nodded at Joe. “I understand you come around here pretty often,” he said. “Did you see anything?”

Joe shrugged and said he had seen Elmer in the shack that day. When asked if he thought Elmer had the opportunity to take the money, he said, “Maybe, maybe not.”

Then another witness came forward to testify. His straw-colored hair was longish and he wore a denim jacket.

“I’m Danny, the pizza delivery guy from Smitty’s, the place across the street. I have a confession to make,” he said. The police officer folded his arms and arched his eyebrows. Ziegler was about to say something but held back.

“I see Elmer just about every day, usually from a distance. That’s because I leave a sack of food from the pizza shop for him every now and then. I did that today, too,” he said.

“And did you take anything from the shack? Maybe in payment?” the officer asked.

Danny shook his head. The officer moved toward him. “You’d better be telling the truth,” the officer said.

But Dan reached into his pocket.

“Hold it!” the officer shouted, reaching for his holstered gun. “Don’t move!”

He shoved the scruffy young man up against the side of the shed and put handcuffs on his wrists. He searched him, removing what the man had been looking for. It was a cell phone.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“That’s what you’ll want to take a look at,” Danny said. “Uncuff me and I’ll show you.”

The officer slowly did so, handing the phone back to him. Danny pushed a few buttons and handed it back to the police officer. The officer took it, nodded and showed it to Ziegler. Then he looked over to where Joe had been standing. 

“Where did that man go?” Someone pointed. Joe was sprinting across the street.

The police officer ran over to his cruiser and got in. The chase was over in a few minutes, a short distance away from the small crowd that had gathered at the tree lot. The officer gripped Joe’s shoulder.

“You’re under arrest. Where’s the cash box?”

Joe hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re . . .” Then he stopped as he saw a picture of himself on the cell phone, holding a small box as he walked across the street.

He hung his head. “I didn’t mean to . . . Well, I’ll show you where it is.”

Elmer adjusted his old tobaggan hat and walked up to Danny as people began leaving the tree lot. 

“Hey, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving me them sack lunches?” he asked.

“Aw, sorry, Elmer. I just didn’t want you to feel embarrassed or anything,” the young man said.

“Well, thanks, kid. Looks like I owe you supper. I guess my shift is nearly over now.”

Danny smiled. “Sounds good. Let’s make it a cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. I’m kind of tired of pizza.”

Elmer grinned back. “Sure. Just let me check on my trees first.”

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