Tom’s Store was right on the edge of town, where the dirt roads ended and paving appeared. It was a fair trek on foot.  Looking back, it seems remarkable that my mother would let me traipse off that far by myself. But truly, the worst that could happen was that I might come across a rattle snake, and I knew how to be wary of such critters. Occasionally a car or truck would come down the dirt road, and invariably it would be someone I knew. I thought I was hiking off to New York City.

The only thing that cast anything close to a shadow on going to Tom’s Store was dealing with Tom himself.

Tom was tall and thin. His face was craggy, lined and leathery. His hair was dark, wavy, flecked with gray, and he combed it straight back. He always reminded me a little bit of what I thought Abraham Lincoln’s evil twin brother would have looked like if he had had one.

Tom never smiled, never laughed, and absolutely never participated in small talk with kids. I observed him interacting with adult customers in his store from time to time, and his expression softened as he exchanged bits of conversation. I had long concluded that Tom thought childhood was a waste of time and ought to be skipped altogether.

His dour attitude became exceptionally apparent if a youngster came up to the counter to pay for something and was even a penny or two short. Now, if your parents had called ahead and authorized the purchase Tom would just ‘write it on the wall,’ as they used to say. Your folks would take care of it later.

But if you were a sprout buying what was clearly kid stuff, like a cola or a chocolate bar, well, then if you came up short, you just came up short. Tom wasn’t writing anything on the wall. Your soda went back in the cooler and the candy bar returned to the shelf. That was the end of the story. Very humiliating. I’d seen him do it. Consequently, I never went into the store without being certain I had the money to cover my purchase.

It was a small store. When you walked in the door, the check-out counter, behind which Tom was always seated, was to your left. After coming through the door, you could either walk straight ahead down the aisle that presented in front of you, or turn left, walk toward Tom a few steps, and turn right to pass down the one double shelf that ran the length of the store. In addition to Tom, the coolers lined the far-left side of the store.

A lot of my buddies would go in and proceed straight down the aisle in front of them. They would go all the way to the end of the store and double back around to the cooler. They would pick up their soda and then present themselves to Tom to pay out. This meant they had to deal with being close to Tom only once.

I could understand this. There was something about being real close to Tom that was intimidating. You could feel the beam of his eyes on you the whole time you were in the store. The closer you got, the more his eyes kind of made your insides jiggle. But he seemed to give the kids who avoided him an extra fierce and disdainful gaze that I didn’t like. He would tilt his head ever so slightly to the right as he watched them cut a wide berth around him.

On the other hand, when I came through that door, turned left, went straight toward him, and then turned right in front of him, he wouldn’t tilt his head to the side. He would just look straight at me and nod ever so slightly as I went by. I’m not saying it wasn’t scary, but it felt a little better. More respectful.

One day I walked through the front just like usual. The little bell attached to the top of the door jingled out an alert. He looked up and, predictable as the rising sun, fixed his eyes on me as I approached. I met his gaze. He nodded.

The issue occupying my mind at that moment was whether to add a Dreamsicle to my intended purchase of an RC Cola. I finally decided that the RC was enough. I was going to amble over to the park after my stop at Tom’s. Toting along an ice cream bar in one hand and a soda in the other seemed a challenge to my main goal: to look cool.

I put my soda on the counter and went for my change to pay up. Tom didn’t say a word. He knew that I knew how much the soda was. I got my coins out and handed them to him. He said, “Thank ya,” and hit the keys on the old register. The door popped open and he dropped in the money.

Suddenly, I got focused on a dime and a nickel laying out there on the edge of the counter, a little off to the side and out of Tom’s view. Fifteen whole cents!  In 1958, that was an amount worthy of some note. I was frozen with indecision for a moment.

When Tom looked up from closing the cash register, I was still standing there. He seemed a little surprised. And just like that, I knew what to do. I pointed with my index finger toward the coins.

“There’s some money there,” I said. “It isn’t mine.”

Tom leaned forward a bit and looked at the coins. Then he looked back at me.

“See ya,” I said, turned and went out the door.

The next little while, whenever I came in Tom’s Store, things were just like they always were, and he was just like he always was. Our exchanges at the counter were sparse and direct.

Finally, a day arrived when, despite my caution about never coming into the store without the necessary funds, I did just that. I got to the counter with an RC Cola and Snickers bar, put the items on the counter, reached in my pocket, and instead of encountering metal, found nothing but the soft cotton of my jeans pocket. Quickly I reached over into my left-hand pocket. I knew that was no use though. I would never put money there. I also checked my two back pockets and the pocket on my t-shirt. Nothing. Now I could see the money lying on the top of my chest of drawers.

I took a sigh, and collected the soda and the chocolate bar to return them to stock. Tom had been watching me as I went through all this pocket grubbing. “Change your mind?” he asked as I pulled the items towards me.

“No. Don’t have my money. Left it on the dresser.”  I now had the soda in one hand and the Snickers in the other. I was a couple of paces from the counter headed back for the cooler and the candy case.

“Hold on there,” Tom commanded. I froze. “It’s pretty hot out there. You look a little wilted. Go ahead and take that soda. The candy too. Give you a little energy.”

I turned and stared at him dumbfounded. “But I don’t have any money with me,” I stammered.

“I heard you.” And he scowled a little. “You owe me 27 cents. Bring it by next time you come down the road.”