Hey, Trash, Sheriff Greeley cut your old man down just like a mad dog, you know that, ya f**kin weirdo?
His father had been in O'Toole's and there was some bad talk, and Wendell Elbert had a gun and he murdered the bartender with it, then went home and murdered Trashcan's two older brothers and his sister with it - oh, Wendell Elbert was a strange fellow with a badass temper and he had been getting flaky for a long time before that night, anyone in Powtanville would tell you so, and they would tell you like father like son - and he would have murdered Trashcan's mother, too, only Sally Elbert had fled screaming into the night with five-year-old Donald (later to be known as the Trashcan Man) in her arms. Wendell Elbert had stood on the front steps, shooting at them as they fled, the bullets whining and striking on the road, and on the last shot the cheap pistol, which Wendell had bought from a nigger in a bar located on Chicago's State Street, had exploded in his hand. The flying shrapnel had erased most of his face. He had gone wandering up the street with blood running in his eyes, screaming and waving the remainder of the cheap pistol in one hand, the barrel mushroomed and split like the remains of a novelty exploding cigar, and just as he got to the Methodist Church, Sheriff Greeley pulled up in Powtanville's only squad car and commanded him to stand still and drop the gun. Wendell Elbert pointed the remains of his Saturday night special at the sheriff instead, and Greeley either did not notice that the barrel of the Saturday night special was ruptured or pretended not to notice, and either way the result was the same. He gave Wendell Elbert both barrels of his over and under.
Hey, Trash, ya burned ya COCK off yet?
He looked around for whoever had yelled that - it sounded like Carley Yates or one of the kids who hung out with him - except Carley wasn't a kid anymore, any more than he was himself.
Maybe now he could be just Don Elbert again instead of the Trashcan Man, the way Carley Yates was now just Carl Yates who sold cars at the Stout Chrysler-Plymouth dealership here in town. Except that Carl Yates was gone, everyone was gone, and maybe it was too late for him to be anyone anymore.
And he wasn't sitting against the wall of the Scrubba-Dubba anymore; he was a mile or more to the northwest of town, walking along 130, and the town of Powtanville was laid out below him like a scale-model community on a kid's HO railroad table. The tanks were only half a mile away and he had a toolkit in one hand and a five-gallon can of gas in the other.
Oh it was so bad but -
So after Wendell Elbert was underground, Sally Elbert had gotten a job at the Powtanville Café and sometime, in the first or second grade, her one remaining chick, Donald Merwin Elbert, had started lighting fires in people's trashcans and running away.
Look out girls here comes the Trashcan Man, he'll burn up ya dresses!
Eeeek! A freeeak!
It wasn't until he was in the third grade or so that the grown-ups found out who was doing it and then the sheriff came around, good old Sheriff Greeley, and he guessed that was how the man who cut his father down in front of the Methodist Church ended up being his stepfather.
Hey, Carley, got a riddle for ya: How can your father kill your father?
I dunno, Petey, how?
I dunno either, but it helps if you're the Trashcan Man!
HeeheehahahaHawHawHaw!
He was standing at the head of the graveled drive now, his shoulders aching from carrying the toolkit and the gas. The sign on the gate read CHEERY PETROLEUM COMPANY, INC. ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN AT THE OFFICE! THANKS!
A few cars were parked in the lot, not many. Many were standing on flats. Trashcan Man walked up the drive and slipped through the gate, which was standing ajar. His eyes, blue and strange, were fixed on the spidery stairs that wound around the nearest tank in a spiral, all the way to the top. There was a chain across the bottom of these stairs and another sign swung from the chain. This one said KEEP OFF! PUMPING STATION CLOSED. He stepped over the chain and started up the stairs.