This is the hand of a gorilla with vitiligo — a condition that strips pigment from parts of the body, and which can be quite dramatic on dark-skinned people.
The picture reminds me of when I was a very little kid, and living for a very few years in Washington, D.C.
Back then there was an old circus chimp living in a massive iron cage in a pet store on Pennsylvania avenue near Eastern Market.
This pet store sold puppies in the front window, and lizards and snakes in the back.
The chimp's cage was to the right of the narrow aisle in between these two features, and as you passed by his cage, he would reach through the bars with his hand, his fingers curled, gesturing for a cigarette. This poor old circus chip was addicted to cigarettes -- something he had gotten hooked on as a circus performer. Now it seemed to be his only pleasure.
I never saw that chimp let out of the cage. The thing I remember now, more than 58 years later, was how scary his hands were, with long cracked nails at the end of grasping digits.
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