The man who liked to save the world

There once was a man who liked to save the world.

Know the type? The sort who stops for stranded drivers on the freeway when everybody else assumes a tow truck will eventually come for them. The guy who gently holds an elderly woman’s hand across a busy intersection or asks the homeless if they’re hungry on a bitterly cold night.

One day, as he ate his lunch in a quiet park not far from his work, he noticed a couple talking on a grassy knoll in the distance. A pang of loneliness tightened in his chest. The last time he’d shared his life with someone he cared for was so long ago, it almost seemed like he’d made it up.

He turned away, but not for long. He couldn’t help spying. His payoff would be seeing them show some sort of affection. Anything tender they shared would only underscore how empty he felt inside, and oddly, he enjoyed that feeling, like the pleasure of picking the scab off a wound. But none came. In fact, when he paid closer attention to them, something seemed eerily off. A nervous energy was buzzing between them, not one of intimacy.

He nibbled on his sandwich, and when he was done eating, he got up to leave. In the distance, the couple’s voices grew steadily louder. Some sort of argument had flared. That pang of emptiness stirred again, but it had morphed into something else, something that tasted like adrenaline. He’d linger a little longer, just in case things got out of hand.

Things turned nasty fast. Their voices pierced the silence of what was otherwise a temporary shelter of tranquility for corporate refugees. Salaried men and women didn’t come here to air their domestic woes, but to refuel before returning to the grind. The loudest sounds he’d ever heard here were colicky babies or toddlers mid-tantrum in their strollers, and the nannies pushing them knew better than to linger under the icy stares of the regulars.

It came faster than he’d expected. A sharp crack like a snare drum across the woman’s face, with enough torque to hurl her to the ground with a sickening thud before she dissolved into silent tears.

She tried to get up, to compose herself and salvage what was left of her dignity. But the guy pounced on her like a predator, pinning her to the ground and unleashing a torrent of hot rage in her face. Then he struck her again and again, her pleas for mercy ignored as each blow grew more ferocious than the last.

He raced toward them, phone to his ear, reporting what he’d seen and where he’d seen it.

A jet overhead drowned out his voice as he screamed, “Leave her alone!”

He was barely a few meters from the scene of the crime now, and the guy was strangling the woman, who gasped, desperate for air.

He kicked the guy straight in the ribs with all the power he could muster, hard enough to break his grip on her neck. And he couldn’t stop kicking him, even as the woman coughed herself back to life.

Across the park, armed police were fast approaching. He pounced on the guy and pinned him to the ground, exactly as the guy had done to the woman.

If I can just keep him restrained until the cops arrive…

But the other man was younger and stronger. He punched back hard. Dead center in the chest. Some fancy martial arts move. And before he could register the crushing pain and his dwindling ability to breathe, another sharp blow to the temple switched the lights off.

He came to, but there were no beeping machines, no tubes attached to him. Not a single smiling medical professional to tell him how badly he’d been hurt, but that he’d be all right. As would the woman he’d heroically rescued from certain death.

No, he was in a cell. The funk of urine and excrement never lied.

“Let me out!” he bellowed, indignantly, incessantly, until he figured it wasn’t that the officers outside couldn’t hear him, but that they’d been trained to ignore him.

A guard finally came to take him for questioning.

“Why am I being held?” he asked the stone-faced officer interrogating him.

“You attacked a couple in the park, in broad daylight.”

“I fucking did not! I saved that woman from certain death! They were having a heated argument that turned pretty ugly.”

“Not according to the first responders.”

“I was the one who called 911. A man and a woman were arguing, then it turned violent. He was strangling her. She would have died if I hadn’t pried him off her.”

“That’s not what they said.”

“Who’s they?”

“The man and woman you attacked.”

“He’s lying, and she’s protecting him because she’s scared of him. Stockholm whatever you call it.”

“They said they were amateur actors rehearsing in the park for a part. They said you came at them out of nowhere like a deranged man.”

“Bullshit! He was strangling her. I know the difference between acting and assault. She was dying. Check her neck. She’ll be all black and blue.”

“Why would we do that? She accused you of attacking both of them. You’re the culprit here, fella, not them.”

“I was only trying to do the right thing…”

“Tough luck, Superman. Next time, mind your own fucking business and remember what Tina Turner said.”

“Tina Turner?”

“We don’t need another hero.”

“Forget about me!” he screeched as the guards dragged him away. “You need to find that woman and protect her. Her life could be in danger—”

“Worry about yourself. Five years minimum if the judge is feeling magnanimous. You could do up to ten.”

“I’ve never even gotten a traffic ticket! Check my record. I volunteer at the local hospital. I coach soccer. I organize fundraisers. I donate blood!”

The cop stopped and grinned. “Maybe yesterday you were that guy. Today you’re a perp. Arrested for aggravated assault. Let that sink in.”

And so, the man who liked to save the world served time for a crime he never committed.

Six years later, he walked out of prison obsessed with finding the woman he’d done time to protect and asking her why she’d lied.

It didn’t take long to find her last known address.

Her mother opened the door.

Is your daughter home, he asked.

“She’s no longer with us,” she said, lips quivering.

“What happened?”

“Strangled to death by her boyfriend.”

“When?”

“Six years ago, in a public park.”

“I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense. I did time because your daughter lied to protect the man who ended up killing her anyway?”

The mother’s face blurred, and once again everything went black, just like the day the guy had knocked him out.

He came to lying on the curb.

What is happening to me?

In the distance, police sirens wailed closer.

Thunder crackled in the sky. Next to him, the decomposed corpse of the woman he tried to save lay in a pool of fresh blood. It made no sense. Bodies that far gone didn’t bleed. He screamed, but nothing came out, as if he’d been muted.

Then someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and saw a barrel of a gun pointed straight at his face.

“Still think you’re a hero?” the voice behind the gun asked. “Time’s up,” he said. Bang.

The man who liked to save the world woke with a start, the gunshot still ringing in his ears. He was sitting on a wooden bench in the park with a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.

Except he wasn’t the man who liked to save the world. That man only existed in the nightmare. In real life, he was the man who didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.

Know the type?

That jerk who slows down to rubberneck at an accident and snaps a few pictures of the mayhem. A garden-variety coward who never once stood up for anything or anyone. Because nothing good ever came of butting into someone else’s business. And the dream had just given him six years’ worth of reasons why.

He took a deep breath, grateful he hadn’t lost six years serving time for a crime he didn’t commit.

He went back to working on his sandwich.

Then he glimpsed something across the park. It made his skin crawl.

A young couple on a grassy knoll in the distance. At first they appeared to be speaking calmly, but when he paid closer attention to them, something seemed oddly off. A nervous energy was buzzing between them, not one of intimacy. Like something terrible was about to happen.

He looked down at his sandwich. Then back at the couple. Then at the phone in his pocket.