Amp'd by Ken Pisani

Conservation—or as I like to call it, “Ick Ick!”—is studying the vanishing freshwater fish species of Illinois’s rivers. Specifically, the blue paddle-snout sturgeon, a bottom-feeding sucker. I know, that sounds like an insult! But the real insult has been done by a combination of local dam projects and river pollution that has reduced Acipenser pseudoboscis to an endangered species.
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service budgets hundreds of millions of dollars annually to protect endangered fish species … but in order to save them, Ick Ick first has to count them, which is easier to do during mating season when they migrate to warmer, shallower waters to spawn under the watchful eye of local fish counters. Hey, fish, get a room! This is Sunny Lee, with The Sunny Side.
    *   *   *
    We pull up to the Four Corners just as The Sunny Side concludes and I snap off the radio so Sunny’s silky voice will be the one that resonates in my head. Coffee and syrup flow at the Four Corners along with a stream of conversation between Dad and Mr. Weber, which I punctuate occasionally with an agreeable grunt. As stoned as I am it takes a while to figure out that they’re talking about me, and I find myself in accidental agreement with their assessment that it’s time I get some sort of job.
    â€œA man needs to keep busy,” Dad observes calmly.
    â€œIdle hand does the devil’s work.” I shovel a glob of buttered belgian battered breakfast into my maw.
    Don’t they know how busy my life has become? I work harder in my first hour awake than these two do all day, starting with the shower: first, I have to take the shampoo bottle in my hand, open it with my teeth, and pour an unseen amount of goo on my head before setting the bottle upright and struggling to cap it. One hand has to struggle to reach the places the other hand used to wash. Despite having about 15 percent less skin surface to dry, toweling off with one hand is twice as slow.
    â€œWe understand returning to your teaching job might be uncomfortable.”
    â€œEspecially when it comes time to bang a pair of erasers together.” I stir my coffee with a strip of bacon.
    Brushing my teeth starts with setting my toothbrush down on the sink counter and squeezing toothpaste onto it, which usually entails knocking the toothbrush sideways, so what I’m sticking in my mouth isn’t just minty freshness but a clod of sink germs. (Flossing is out of the question.) Blow-drying my hair is impossible, so I keep it short and brush it carefully in the direction I hope it to dry in, which it mostly doesn’t.
    â€œWe have some thoughts, but of course we’d like to hear yours,” Mr. Weber coaxes me.
    â€œThat would make you telepaths.” I drown a stomach full of waffles in coffee.
    I have to dress sitting down so I don’t lose my balance, rolling left and right on butt cheeks to pull on underwear and inching each foot into a sock. Jeans were a lot easier to zip up and button with the fingers of two hands working in concert; instead I’m reduced to sweatpants. Wriggling into a T-shirt is relatively easy, but button-down shirts are out of the question for now. Even sunglasses are hard: I hold one stem and tug the other out with my mouth, a poor substitute for another set of fingers. Needless to say, all my footwear is laceless.
    In short, the burden of the one-armed keeps me plenty fucking busy.
    â€œWhat do you want to do, Aaron?” Mr. Weber, without benefit of telepathy, asks.
    â€œI thought I’d try my hand at NASCAR.”
    â€œYou know what you have?” Mr. Weber is about to tell me.
    â€œOne less arm than average?”
    â€œInertia. You’re at rest so you stay at rest. Because if you set yourself in motion, you’re afraid your life would move in ways you can’t control.”
    â€œHow much control does anyone have, really? If we did, we’d