Trashcan Man

[close] Donald Merwin Elbert, better known as the "Trashcan Man", is a schizophrenic pyromaniac, whose favorite phrases include "bumpty, bumpty, bump!" and "my life for you." He often found himself in trouble as a youth due to his fixation with fire. He was treated with shock treatments at an institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, before being incarcerated for arson as a teenager. Trash leaves prison during a work detail (carrying plague victims’ bodies from prison cells) and returns home to (the fictional) Powtanville, Indiana. Trash indulges his ambition of setting cities afire, setting fire to oil tanks in Powtanville, and then destroying the city of Gary, Indiana. He permanently disfigures his arm in the Powtanville incident when he tries to jump a railing and breaks his arm at the wrist, a break which he does not properly set and which later causes his hand to point away from his body at an almost 90 degree angle. He also severely burns his broken arm, as well as his upper thigh, when a piece of exploding tank hits him, covering the areas with burning oil.

He abandons his original plans of starting fires randomly all over America to join Randall Flagg when the Dark Man appears in his dreams and promises him work, "great work" (as Flagg puts it) in the desert. After treating his severely burned arm, he finds a bicycle and makes his way west with all speed.

In the unedited version, Trash briefly hooks up with a cocky, maniacal street hood named The Kid, but when The Kid threatens not only to kill Trash (several times, always for petty reasons), but to overthrow the Dark Man, Flagg sends wolves to save him. The Kid ends up holed up in a car with the pack of wolves surrounding it day and night.

The threat neutralized, Trash moves on to Las Vegas and he also receives a black stone with a red flaw. Due to his savant talent regarding destructive devices, he is assigned to search for weapons in the desert and to assist in arming the fighter jets at Indian Springs Air Force Base. Trash does well until, when being teased by fellow workers, a comment causes him to flash back to his tormented youth and revert to his old destructive ways.

In a schizophrenic episode, Trash destroys several trucks and aircraft, kills the most experienced pilots Las Vegas has, and flees into the desert. Overcome with anguish over his actions, Trash originally sets out to kill himself but later makes an attempt at redemption by bringing Flagg the most powerful weapon he can find: an atomic bomb, in the form of a warhead detached from a missile. Trash transports the nuclear warhead in a trailer attached to an ATV across the desert, coming down with a lethal case of radiation sickness in the process; the sickness has reached its terminal stage when Trash arrives in town. Trash ultimately brings about Flagg’s (apparent) destruction as the Hand of God descends and activates the warhead, destroying Las Vegas and everyone in it.