“Bodies in Bags”
by Jamey Gallagher
I found the leg in the dumpster in back of Wilddale Elementary at 6 a.m. Aside from the leg, it was how I started all my workdays: slamming the dumpster around & waking up all the rich assholes in their minimansions through the woods. Fuck em all.
I only noticed the leg by chance, because I happened to look in the bed of the dump truck before compacting all the trash & noticed the ripped plastic bag & something fleshy & shining in the darkness. What the fuck was my first, & natural, response. There was no question about it: it was a body part.
I called 911 & waited for them to get there. It took more than an hour. While I waited, the kids started showing up at the school on their buses. My own kid, Darvon, went to Wilddale, & I hoped he wouldn’t notice his mother out by the blacktop smoking a cig & waiting for the forensics team to come, though he was too young to be embarrassed by my job. I knew the world would do that to him soon enough, make him embarrassed of me & my job, but I had a few good years left. I watched the kids get off the bus & scurry into the elementary school that looked like a lot of other elementary schools, red & yellow & blue & cinder block.
Finally the forensics team arrived in a big van. They wore hazmat suits & a couple of them climbed up into the bed of the dump truck with all that trash & started rooting around & another of them took pictures & a third laid out a body bag & they placed the leg, or the part of the leg, down there on top of the body bag. It was a woman’s leg, a young woman’s leg, you’re probably not surprised to hear, because bodies in bags almost always belong to women. That’s the kind of fucked up world we live in. A world of mostly women’s bodies in bags. The leg looked hacked off at both ends, but I didn’t get too close a look at it.
I took a pic of the leg, zooming in, and sent it to my girlfriend Tanya, who texted back “WTF!” She was probably in bed, because she sleeps later than me (her job starts at 10 a.m.) & I stood there smoking another cig (I’m trying to cut back) & watching the forensics team & imagined Tanya in the bed, imagined her expansive and complex body. It’s still a new enough thing that everything about her excites me, but I don’t think it’s going to last, & I want to get everything I can out of the relationship.
If it’s possible to think about two things at the same time, I thought about Darvon in the school behind me at the same time. He was with his father this week. I imagined him sitting there the way he does with his hands gathered in front of him on the desk. His soft ways worry me. I know he’s going to get picked on if he isn’t already. Such a sweet kid. Sweet kids get eaten for breakfast in this world.
Adding in a third thing, I also thought about whoever the leg belonged to. I imagined some coed from down near Boston. A recent college graduate living on her own. Blond and pretty but not too pretty. Her poor parents.
The world was rotten & men were cruel & life ended too soon for too many people & there I was between things just waiting to move to the next dumpster— this one outside the old age home across town— so my day wasn’t backed up any more than it already was.
The forensics team was thorough, but they didn’t inspire confidence at all. They were like grown kids playing in dirt. I knew they would find out who the leg belonged to, thanks to DNA & all that shit, but I wished that we lived in a world where people could disappear forever.
Jamey Gallagher lives in Baltimore and teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County. His stories have been published in places like Punk Noir Magazine, Poverty House, Shotgun Honey, Pembroke Magazine, Bull Fiction, and LIT Magazine. Look for his collection, American Animism, published by Cornerstone Press.
by Jamey Gallagher
I found the leg in the dumpster in back of Wilddale Elementary at 6 a.m. Aside from the leg, it was how I started all my workdays: slamming the dumpster around & waking up all the rich assholes in their minimansions through the woods. Fuck em all.
I only noticed the leg by chance, because I happened to look in the bed of the dump truck before compacting all the trash & noticed the ripped plastic bag & something fleshy & shining in the darkness. What the fuck was my first, & natural, response. There was no question about it: it was a body part.
I called 911 & waited for them to get there. It took more than an hour. While I waited, the kids started showing up at the school on their buses. My own kid, Darvon, went to Wilddale, & I hoped he wouldn’t notice his mother out by the blacktop smoking a cig & waiting for the forensics team to come, though he was too young to be embarrassed by my job. I knew the world would do that to him soon enough, make him embarrassed of me & my job, but I had a few good years left. I watched the kids get off the bus & scurry into the elementary school that looked like a lot of other elementary schools, red & yellow & blue & cinder block.
Finally the forensics team arrived in a big van. They wore hazmat suits & a couple of them climbed up into the bed of the dump truck with all that trash & started rooting around & another of them took pictures & a third laid out a body bag & they placed the leg, or the part of the leg, down there on top of the body bag. It was a woman’s leg, a young woman’s leg, you’re probably not surprised to hear, because bodies in bags almost always belong to women. That’s the kind of fucked up world we live in. A world of mostly women’s bodies in bags. The leg looked hacked off at both ends, but I didn’t get too close a look at it.
I took a pic of the leg, zooming in, and sent it to my girlfriend Tanya, who texted back “WTF!” She was probably in bed, because she sleeps later than me (her job starts at 10 a.m.) & I stood there smoking another cig (I’m trying to cut back) & watching the forensics team & imagined Tanya in the bed, imagined her expansive and complex body. It’s still a new enough thing that everything about her excites me, but I don’t think it’s going to last, & I want to get everything I can out of the relationship.
If it’s possible to think about two things at the same time, I thought about Darvon in the school behind me at the same time. He was with his father this week. I imagined him sitting there the way he does with his hands gathered in front of him on the desk. His soft ways worry me. I know he’s going to get picked on if he isn’t already. Such a sweet kid. Sweet kids get eaten for breakfast in this world.
Adding in a third thing, I also thought about whoever the leg belonged to. I imagined some coed from down near Boston. A recent college graduate living on her own. Blond and pretty but not too pretty. Her poor parents.
The world was rotten & men were cruel & life ended too soon for too many people & there I was between things just waiting to move to the next dumpster— this one outside the old age home across town— so my day wasn’t backed up any more than it already was.
The forensics team was thorough, but they didn’t inspire confidence at all. They were like grown kids playing in dirt. I knew they would find out who the leg belonged to, thanks to DNA & all that shit, but I wished that we lived in a world where people could disappear forever.
Jamey Gallagher lives in Baltimore and teaches at the Community College of Baltimore County. His stories have been published in places like Punk Noir Magazine, Poverty House, Shotgun Honey, Pembroke Magazine, Bull Fiction, and LIT Magazine. Look for his collection, American Animism, published by Cornerstone Press.