"Yuck!" Roger said, wrinkling his nose. "Nasty looking fellow. Not mean-nasty, but dirty-nasty."
"Yeah," said Loren. "What the heck you suppose is up with that guy? He ain't natural lookin'.
The man seemed not dressed at all, but littered--covered--with bits of newspaper and other kinds of papers, old clothes none of which matched, leaves, twigs, and splatters of apparent filth that neither of them even tried to guess at.
"Must be some kind of trash man."
Loren nodded. "Scavenger's more like it. I think we oughta call the sheriff's office and let 'em send out a deputy to get this guy off the streets."
Meanwhile, clouds had been building in the western sky, and a winter storm was upon them before they realized it. A strong, cold wind blew across the town, and almost bowled them over. The wind caught the odd-looking man and sent him tumbling down the street as though he weighed only a few pounds.
After the initial blast of wind subsided, Roger and Loren ran after the man. But as they neared where he had come to rest, lying in the street, they were horrified at what they found.
There was no man there at all. The wind had blown apart something--an unbelievable, impossible scattered mess of old paper, clothing, small tree branches, last summer's leaves, candy wrappers, cigarette packages, and all manner of other loose trash. Somehow it had all been animated, and had walked about as a man. But it was nothing but trash. It had been animated, well enough; but nonetheless it had been only a pseudo-man. Quite literally a "trash man."