Los Angeles: 2003

It was winter. Rain-filled days were abundant. The humidity was laden with the pungent aroma of orange and yellow Lantanas that lined the pedestrian walkway along the alley behind my building. The deep, evergreen leaves glistened with fresh droplets of a recent shower. It was my first full day off in a week from working two different bartending jobs. I desperately needed to grocery shop but was exhausted. The overcast sky killed what little energy and motivation I had.   

I cut down the alley to the liquor store on the corner. It was a spontaneous deviation from the little convenience store at the top of my street. The distance was two blocks longer, but the prices at the liquor store were a bit cheaper. I could buy more snacks for my money to stave off the consuming effort of buying real food for a few more days. I brought my dog Carmen with me, a petite Shepherd mix that I had rescued from the streets of Mexico.

The excursion was a bonus walk for Carmen, and I let her set the pace as she meandered and sniffed her way to the end of the concrete path. Once off the curb, it was a straight shot to the store, dirty asphalt lined with commercial property walls and dumpster alcoves the rest of the way. I glanced up at the sky as more ominous-looking clouds chased the misty grey hues further East as a storm steadily crept in from the ocean.

As we padded down the alley, Carmen lifted her head and nose up toward the sky, pulling in long, scent-filled breaths. Identifying something of interest in the air, she picked up her pace, eyes forward and intent on discovery. I assumed she caught a whiff of something coming from the pair of dumpsters up ahead. Even though I had taken her off the streets more than a year prior, her survival instincts habitually kicked in on walks. She could detect a discarded chicken wing in the bushes from a block away.    

As we approached the dumpsters behind the liquor store and neighboring Chinese restaurant, Carmen pulled and whined. I kept her leash taut, her nails raked the asphalt as she tried to get closer to the three-foot gap between the two metal bins. I turned my attention to the space, expecting to see a rat, a cat, or a possum grazing on spilled Chow Mein or fried rice. It was a mannequin hand.

“Fucking weirdo,” I said to Carmen with amusement as I forced her to continue walking.

Yeah, that was a mannequin hand, I thought, the image sharply ingrained in my mind. But something inside me rejected the assumption.

No, it was too inelegant to be a mannequin hand, my internal monologue debated.

A gardening glove, then, the assumption paired with another, that it fell off a gardener’s truck en route to or from a nearby property.

The inner debate continued as we rounded the corner and entered the store. I smiled at the clerk and headed to the snack stand toward the back, Carmen obediently at my side.

What kind of gardening glove goes that far past the wrist?

“Hm,” I said aloud, acknowledging the valid question as I collected two bags of Chex-Mix.

And it was all one color, and there was no elastic cuff at the end, the image was superimposed over the array of candy bars.

“A Whatchamacallit?! I haven’t had one of these in years!” I said to Carmen, my excitement hijacking the glove debate. I grabbed three and headed to the counter, snagging a bag of cheddar cheese Ruffles potato chips on the way. “This one isn’t making it home,” I said to the clerk with a cocked grin, sliding one of the bars to the side as he rang me up. He smiled and nodded as he bagged my items and gave me change.

I had the Whatchamacallit in my hand open and had taken my first bite in the ten seconds it took for me and Carmen to round the corner of the alley, heading back the way we came. The light, crunchy, and slightly chewy texture with the perfect peanutty, chocolatey, and caramel combo was heaven. It was right up there with the 100,000 Dollar Bar and The Reggie! from my childhood.

Then, I saw the glove again. The internal debate resumed. Coming from the opposite direction presented a different POV.

A discarded glove wouldn’t be…plump like that.

I switched Carmen to the opposite side of the dumpsters as we neared them. I stopped and stared at the glove. The new angle revealed a jagged bone protruding past the meaty end. “Oh! It’s a Halloween hand,” I laughed.

No, it’s not.

“It’s totally a Halloween hand,” I argued and peered at the bloated, ashen-colored left hand that was palm-side down.

No, it’s not.

I fixated on the thin, puckering line across the back of it. It looked like a healing scratch, recognizing the similarity of the dozens of cat scratches my own hands had endured over the years.

“Isn’t it?”

I carefully pulled it out from between the two dumpsters with the tip of my shoe, a light waft of a pungent, stinging odor came with it. I attributed the smell to the dumpsters. As my mind continued to ping pong, details began to register: the color gradation of blood, broken fingernails, chipped polish, and streaks of dirt. While it had all the artistry of a high-quality Halloween hand, it had one feature I had never seen on a prop before. A discoloration at the base of the ring finger. Like where a wedding band would have been.  

“No. It’s not.”   

While I waited for a patrol car, I remembered a weird email from a few weeks prior. A fwd from a friend of a friend from someone’s cousin, and so on. It was an alert about an alleged gang initiation or competition based on a scoring system. Human body parts were awarded points, requiring participants to reach a designated amount. I didn’t give the circulating tale much merit. An uptick in murders or people showing up at the ER claiming their appendages were stolen would make the news. As unlikely as it seemed, I couldn’t help but stare at the woman’s hand, wondering what its point value was.

The responding officer was lackadaisical up until he got a good look at the hand. Then, it was suddenly “Stand back, Ma’am,” followed by a roll of police tape from the trunk and a request for assistance over the radio. I gave my statement and left thinking, just another day in LA.      

A few weeks later, a series of torrential downpours turned canyon roads into rivers and flooded base streets due to debris clogging the sewer drains. A city worker had been dispatched to clear one of the blockages and discovered a large black garbage bag containing body parts. It was assumed they were from various victims as there were multiple right feet and limbs of different colored skin.