The Amputeens: Episode 1, Part 3

Roger swung open the driver's side door, letting it rest open on its hinges. He approached the scene unfolding up the road, first jogging then, as his eyes brought things into focus, accelerating to a full sprint.

As he closed the gap, everything slowed but maintained a sort of dull blur. Two cars in a twisted embrace of mangled metal and rubber, positioned as if heedless of the double yellow line bisecting Pleasant Street. An overweight man in a dirty undershirt. A snarl curled by anger, Jim Beam and likely a lifetime of blue collar servitude. A burly forearm thrusting through the open driver's side window of the car in front. A female face with the blank countenance of a woman experiencing the unlikeliest of Monday mornings.

Roger halted his gate with a sneakers-on-concrete squeak behind the man. Without hesitation, he hooked his right arm around the man's swollen, grimy neck, reaching up with his left elbow to lock him in a makeshift sleeper hold. He drove backwards with his legs, pulling the man by the throat away from the now flailing woman who was hanging out the window of her Mazda 626, half in and half out.

As the man struggled to reach behind him and address the agent of this unexpectedly uncomfortable predicament, Roger slowly lowered to his knees, bringing the man onto the seat of his navy blue Carhardt pants in the process. He maintained his hold around the man's neck, gradually loosening as the man's ability to struggle ebbed. When the man slipped out of consciousness, Roger released him. His head hit the pavement with a soft thud. Roger stood up and, seeing the small crowd that had gathered, had the familiar sensation of having gone through an entire experience without hearing a thing. The sensation, or lack thereof, was not a pleasant one and he briefly wondered why it occurred before stepping over the crumpled man and approaching the woman, still folded awkwardly out her car door.

Roger reached down and offered the woman his hand, pulling her up as she slid back into her car.

"You OK?" he asked almost indifferently.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine. Thank you. I...thank you."

But Roger was already walking back down the road to his Nissan.

The incident wouldn't make the evening news. It wouldn't even make the local paper. But one person saw the entire event unfold, from start to finish. And he would be the one who would change Roger's life.