https://www.nbcnews.com/weather/wildfires/man-accused-arson-spokane-washington-fires-rcna590686
The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 34
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!
The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 13
Rage struck him with all the unexpectedness of a sweet surprise. He was up, and then he had hold of Deitz’s lapels, and he was shaking him back and forth. From the corner of his eye he saw startled movement behind the double-paned glass. Dimly, muffled by distance and soundproofed walls, he heard a hooter go off.
“What did you people do?” he shouted. “What did you do? What in Christ’s name did you do?”
“Mr. Redman—”
“Huh? What the fuck did you people do?”
The door hissed open. Three large men in olive-drab uniforms stepped in. They were all wearing nose-filters.
Deitz looked over at them and snapped, “Get the hell out of here!”
The three men looked uncertain.
“Our orders—”
“Get out of here and that’s an order!”
They retreated. Deitz sat calmly on the bed. His lapels were rumpled and his hair had tumbled over his forehead. That was all. He was looking at Stu calmly, even compassionately. For a wild moment Stu considered ripping his nose-filter out, and then he remembered Geraldo, what a stupid name for a guinea pig. Dull despair struck him like cold water. He sat down.
“Christ in a sidecar,” he muttered.
“Listen to me,” Deitz said. “I’m not responsible for you being here. Neither is Denninger, or the nurses who come in to take your blood pressure. If there was a responsible party it was Campion, but you can’t lay it all on him, either. He ran, but under the circumstances, you or I might have run, too. It was a technical slipup that allowed him to run. The situation exists. We are trying to cope with it, all of us. But that doesn’t make us responsible.”
“Then who is?”
“Nobody,” Deitz said, and smiled. “On this one the responsibility spreads in so many directions that it’s invisible. It was an accident. It could have happened in any number of other ways.”
“Some accident,” Stu said
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 10:17 AM Pacific-timezone USA Tuesday 08/04/2026
