The Legend of the Tire House

I got the newspaper from back home in the mail today. I subscribe to the Caudill County Gazette so I’ll have some connection to the place where I grew up.

The picture on the second page caught my eye-a tall,skinny man with white, shaggy hair and a drooping moustache. He wore a pair of bib overalls and a plaid shirt. The clothing hung on him like he was a scarecrow. The man stood in front of a chicken wire fence. He didn’t smile for the camera, but stared stoically ahead.

I wondered why he was in the paper. The headline explained it all…

LOCAL CHARACTER PASSES AWAY

Character-I reckoned that word described him as well as any. I read the article:

Walter Denham, a 71 year old resident of Candy Creek, passed away yesterday. He was known in Hickmanville and the rest of Caudill County as “the Tire House Man”.

Deputy Robley Watts responded to a call from a neighbor requesting a wellness check on Denham.

“The neighbor said that Mr. Denham was out and about every day, but he hadn’t seen him and he was getting concerned,” Watts reported.

Deputy Watts said that there was no response to his knocking on the front door.

“I looked through a front window and spotted what appeared to be somebody laying on the floor,” Watts continued.”I hollered out that I was coming in. I did and found Mr. Denham lying on the floor. There was no pulse and he wasn’t breathing I called for an ambulance and the coroner at that time.”

Coroner Jason Spivey arrived and pronounced Denham dead at 11:43 a.m.

Deputy Watts stated that when he found Denham, he was clutching a book entitled “UFOs: Angels of Light or Demons of Darkness?”. According to Watts, he was “holding it like A Freewill Baptist preacher holds a King James Bible.”

It was a strange ending for a man who was, by most accounts, very strange.

Denham moved to Candy Creek forty years ago after his marriage ended in divorce. He had inherited the house and property from his maternal grandmother.

“The house was a wreck when he got here,” Dan O’Neal, a neighbor, remembered. “Roof caving in, floors were bad, bad plumbing, you name it. He fixed it up real good, I have to admit.”

Denham had lived there for only a few months when he started bringing in the tires.

“At first, it was two or three at a time in the back of his truck,” O’Neal remembers. “Then, it was truckload after truckload of old tires. I never could understand why he did it. Some people put brick or stone on their house. Some people use siding. Ol’ Walt used tires. He even had’em on the roof of his house.” \

The front yard was also covered by tires and the storage shed behind the house was, too. Denham seemed consumed by the project. As he continued to add tires, he became more and more reclusive. He erected a chicken wire fence around the perimeter of his property. He gave up his job as a part time mail carrier and also stopped doing odd jobs for various people in the community.

“He never was the most outgoing cuss,” O’Neal recalls, “but he got to where he wouldn’t speak to nobody!”

Jim Oldham, the owner and propreitor of Farmer’s Pantry grocery store in Hickmanville was one of the few people who interacted with the reclusive Mr. Denham over the years.

“He’d come in once a month and buy very basic groceries,” Oldham recalls. He wouldn’t say much to me. Just comment on the weather maybe or ask me how my folks were doing.”

The fame of his unique home spread beyond our community. Oldham’s daughter, Jill, who works as a cashier at Farmer’s Pantry recalls an incident from a few years ago.

“Some folks from Minnesota were passing through on their way to the Smokies. They stopped here for some ice and snacks. The husband asked me for directions to the tire house. Said he’d heard about it from some friends here in Kentucky. I told him he could drive by and look at it, but that Mr. Denham wouldn’t appreciate any visitors.”

Not everybody was as kind, the Oldhams recall.

“Last year at Halloween, somebody, probably a teenage punk kid found a sign from Tire World and propped it against Walt’s fence out there. I guess they thought it was a big joke,” Mr. Oldham recalled.

“Yeah, that got his goat!” O’Neal said. “He came out here with a sledge hammer and busted that Tire World sign!”

However, most residents of the county will have positive memories.

“The Tire House is what I reckon you’d call a ‘local legend’”, Deputy Watts admitted.

“I don’t know what will become of the place now that Walt’s gone,” O’Neal admitted. “Sure, I reckon you’d call it an eyesore, but it’s a landmark, too. Most of us would miss it if they tore it down.”

Walter Denham’s obituary appears on page 12 of this edition of the Caudill County Gazette.

Well, I can solve their little mystery. I got the information from the man himself.

It was a cool Saturday night in October. I was 17 years old. He and I were sitting at his kitchen table in the local legend and landmark they called the Tire House. He sat on one end of the table, drinking Boone’s Farm wine right out of the bottle. I sat on the other end, drinking a pint of chocolate milk and eating a donut. The donut was homemade and Walt had made it himself. It was sticky, sweet, and put anything Dunkin Donuts ever mass produced to shame.

Walt took a long swig of wine and I started the conversation.

“You know that Boone’s Farm is the wine that teenage kids at the high school buy when they skip school and go down to the creek to hang out.”

He peered at me over his reading glasses. I don’t know why he was wearing the glasses. He wasn’t reading.

“How do you know anything about playing hooky, boy? I thought better of you.”

I had worked up my courage by that that time. Another bite of donut and drink of milk and I got started.

“If I ask you a dumb question, will you get mad?”

“You’re a young kid. Dumb questions is something you’re gonna do. Why should I git made when you do what comes natural?”

I laughed.

“OK, here goes: Everybody in the county wonders about this and I’m no different-Why all the tires? Can you tell me that?”

He sighed.

“I ain’t mad, but I might git mad if you say I’m full of crap after I answer the question.”

Another bite and another drink for me.

“Fair enough.”

“ I used to coon hunt quite a bit. Had them two redbones and we’d go out in the woods a lot. You ever been up on Copley Mountain?”

I nodded.

“We was out there one night. Was doing pretty good, too. You know how there’s that clearing near the top of the mountain? Looks like a good place for a ballgame. Like they took heavy equipment up there and cleared it off?”

“Yeah, that’s another place where they go to drink when they skip school.”

“You must worry your mother somethin’ awful, boy!”

I snickered as he sighed and had another long drink of wine.

“OK, as we came upon the clearing, I seen somethin’ weird a comin’ through the trees. It was a glow and it was sort of a purplish bluish color. It was like I was scared to go any further and I was scared not to, all at the same time! Weird feelin’, I tell ya!”

“I can imagine it was!”

“Well, just then, as I was a standin’ there, this thing just shows up, floating a few feet above the ground! One minute it wasn’t there, the next minute it was there! There’s a big word for one something just comes out of thin air, but I can’t remember it!”

“Materailize?” I offered.

“Yeah, it materialized! I’m glad you’re doing more at the high school than skip school and drink cheap wine!”

Sarcasm dripped from his comment like glaze dripped from my donut.

“Anyhow, this thing that materialized looked sorta the same way my house here does. It hung in the sir a few minutes and then it landed with a thud on the ground. I wanted to run back down the mountain, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it!”

He took another sip of wine before he continued. Liquid courage, I thought.

“There was this section on the front of that thing that looked kinda like a garage door. It went up very slowly and there was somebody standing behind that door. He came out and started walking toward me. Weird looker, I tell ya, boy! This...I don’t know whether I should say “man” or “thing”, anyhow, he had to be at least eight feet tall! His body was thin, I mean I’m skinny, but this dude looked like his body was a twig or somethin’! He had a huge head! You remember that Hawkins boy who lived in town, the one whose head was way too big for his body?

“Jody Hawkins,” I said. “He had hydrocephalus.”

“Yeah, only this thing was even bigger! And he had no yes, just sunken in places of his face! No nose or mouth either! He had long arms that almost came down to his knees and only four fingers on his hands, too! And them fingers was long and bony. He was barefooted and only had three toes on each foot. He was wearin’ somethin’ that looked like a pair of shorts, only they looked like they was made out of some kind of rawhide, so I could see almost his whole body. He didn’t have any hair, on his head or nowhere else! And his skin was some sort of a grayish color except for around where we would have a ribcage, that part was kind of a pink color.”

“So, he started coming toward me. He had kind of a funny gait when he walked, like he was tryin’ to keep his balance. My dogs had sort of hid behind my legs. I could feel them against my legs and they was shakin’ like a couple of chihuahuas! I’d never been that scared!”

“ I can’t blame you for that,” I admitted.

“It gets weirder!” he warned me. I hollered “Who are you?” Really slowly he pointed one of them long, skinny fingers at me. I got goosebumps and felt a chill go up and down my back. Then, the weird thing happened. Them sunk in places he had instead of eyes started glowing. It was like when you see a Coleman lantern coming at you in the woods. I couldn’t hear nothin’ with my ears, but I heard a voice in my head!”

“I think they call that telepathy,” I mumbled.

“I call it plumb weird! He said, “I am Zadoc the Necromancer. My world is many light years beyond the farthest star you can see in your sky. I am a leader on my world. My world has too many of my kind. We must find other worlds where we can live together with those who are already there, but it must be a worthy place. If it is not, we will wipe out the inhabitants and take it as our very own!”

“What about my planet?” I asked.”

“Before I respond, drop your primitive weapon!” and, Johnny boy, I didn’t want to, but my hands lost their grip and I dropped my rifle onto the ground! The dogs started whimpering behind me!”

“Wow!” was all I could think to say.

“He said that Earth was not worthy! Too much pollution, corruption, and violence. He said that in the future that he would return and wipe us all out! I said that we wouldn’t go down without a fight! At that point, my whole body started tinglin’ and then, I started achin’ all over! The pain brought me to my knees, boy! I was on my knees and paralyzed!”

“I asked if there was any way for us to get out of it. He said there was. He said that when he returned that if any of us had made our domiciles to resemble his craft that he would spare them people. I had to ask what a domicile was and he told me. Then, just like that, him and his craft just vanished into thin air.”

I let out a deep breath and said “Wow!”

“And that’s why ol’ Walt’s house looks like it does!” He sighed deeply and took another long drink.

“So, why haven’t you warned anybody about all of this?” I asked.

“Zadoc was right about the Earth. I don’t know that many people who are worth savin’! Of course, when the time comes, you and your sister will be welcome here. Even your mother, I reckon.”

“Did he say when this would happen? How long have we got?”

I was genuinely worried. It was a crazy story, to be sure. I’m not sure I believed it, but I believed Walter Denham believed it!

“He gave me some things to look for. The deserts will flood. Tropical places will see freezing temperatures. The ice at the North and South pole will melt. Men will be elected to high office with the majority of voters in both parties. He said that would be the time to hunker down and take cover!”

I take a long look at his picture in the paper and I wonder how they convinced him to pose for a photo. Then I spot the credit. “Photo by Dana Cole”. Yeah, my little sister would be the only one he’d cooperate with.

My phone buzzes. It’s Rodney Neal, my old high school buddy. One of the few from back home who I ever hear from. A guy who I’ve shared bottles of Boone’s Farm with. Many times.

“What’s up, Rod?”

“Look, I just heard. I wouldn’t do this if we weren’t old friends, but I need to strike while the iron’s hot. I know a developer who’s been buying up the properties on Candy Creek. He says he can build some places out there that rich folks from Lexington and Louisville will want as summer homes. The Tire House property is the only thing standing in his way. We can make a ton of money on this deal, old bro!”

My emotions get the best of me and I fly off the handle.

“Don’t call me bro when my old man’s body isn’t even cold and your’re already swooping in like a buzzard!I’m ashamed of you, but not nearly as ashamed as you should be of yourself! Have a nice life, Rodney!”

“Good Lord, you barely knew the man. He abandoned you and your mother. I didn’t think…”

I hang up. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears and I just can’t handle that right now.

The Tire House is going to stand just as it is. When the time comes, we’ll find shelter there from Zadoc and whatever he intends to unleash on this world.

Don’t worry about us, Daddy. We’ll be just fine.