Panic Attack

by Jason Starr

  He smiled widely, letting her see his perfect white teeth, and looked right in her eyes like he was totally enamored with her. He knew humble was the way to go and said, acting totally blown away and flattered, “You really think so?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Haven’t you heard that before?” “Never,” he said. “Wow, you really made my day.”

  He maintained eye contact, letting her notice his light blue eyes, which women often complimented. In fact, just last night the woman he’d picked up in Brooklyn told him that he had the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen. He wound up screwing her, but he’d gotten away with only about a hundred bucks and no jewelry. Hopefully this woman would be a bigger score.

  “By the way, I’m Gregory,” Johnny said and held out his hand.

  She was so taken by him she waited an extra beat, then said, “Oh, I’m Theresa.”

  He held her hand for a few seconds longer than necessary, letting her know that he liked her, that he was interested. It was so easy to pick up women; at least for him it was. He knew he didn’t have to come on strong and try to impress them with a fancy job and make them laugh nonstop. Women wanted to be noticed, and they wanted to be respected. All you had to do was be attentive, listen to a woman, show her that you cared about what she was saying, and you were halfway there. It was so simple that it always amazed Johnny when he saw guys blow easy lays by going on and on about themselves. What were they trying to do, scare the women away? Yeah, Johnny knew his looks helped him out a lot, made him even more irresistible, but even an ugly guy could pick up practically any woman he wanted, if he could make her feel special, like she was the only person in the world that mattered.

  Johnny made small talk with Theresa—Where are you from? Do you live around here? What do you do for a living?—but instead of just firing off the questions machine-gun style like the average guy, he really listened to the answers and of course, he maintained eye contact the whole time. She said she worked as an office manager at a PR agency, which disappointed him because it didn’t sound like she had big bucks. Still, she seemed pretty well off—middle class at least— and he was encouraged when she dropped that she lived alone. Roommates were always problematic.

  He didn’t say a word about himself until she asked him; then he did his best to tell her what she wanted to hear. Since she’d mentioned she lived in Queens, he told her that he was born in Queens and still had a lot of family there. He was actually from Brooklyn and was an orphan, but he wanted to have a connection to her, and it seemed to work. Because she was an office manager, he told her he was “a consultant for a financial services company.” If she’d had a lower or higher-level job, he would’ve told her he did something else for a living, but he wanted to have a career that was on her level. In other words, he didn’t want to be too far above her or too far below her. Also, whenever he met women with white-collar jobs he loved saying he was “a consultant for a financial services company” because the job title sounded so ambiguous that he could easily bullshit about what he actually did on a day-to-day basis if the women happened to ask any questions. But the women rarely questioned him about his job, at least not right away, and these were usually one-night stands anyway.

  His other brilliant move—which practically sealed the deal—was playing the Catholic card. He noticed she was wearing a crucifix, so he casually mentioned that he had gone to church last Sunday. Her eyes brightened and she said, “Wow, I go to church all the time.” He gave her some crap about how important spirituality was in his life and how sad it was that the country was “getting away from all that.” Then a few minutes later she actually said, “God, it’s so great to meet a guy who goes to church,” as if she seriously believed she’d met her Catholic Prince Charming on a rainy night in an Irish bar around the corner from Penn Station. At times like these, Johnny’s lies amused him to the point where it was hard not to start laughing hysterically, but as always he managed to contain himself.

  Johnny knew Theresa was dying to screw him now, that in her mind he was the greatest guy she’d ever met and she couldn’t wait to introduce him to her parents and all her friends. Of course, she might give him a hard time about having sex tonight, doing the whole playing-hard-to-get/wanting-to-take-it-slower routine, but he knew that with a little gentle persuading and pouring on a little more charm at the appropriate moment—this was where his good looks and trustworthy eyes really paid off—she wouldn’t be able to resist him.

  Then her friend, the blonde, came over and said she had to get home. This was the last hurdle, and it was a major one. If Theresa had driven her friend to the bar (unlikely, since she’d mentioned she’d gone out tonight right after work) or her friend was staying at Theresa’s place (also unlikely, because she would’ve brought this up already) then Johnny’s pickup attempt could be shot. If this were to happen it wouldn’t be any big deal really, because he could simply pick up someone else—or, let’s be serious, let someone else pick him up— at this bar, or, now that the rain had stopped, he could continue on to Times Square and pick up a tourist at a bar around there. He knew he could find a more attractive victim, though it would be a shame because he was oh so close with Theresa.

  “Gregory, I’d like you to meet my friend Donna,” Theresa said.

  “It’s great to meet you,” Johnny said. “I love that jacket. Where’d you get it?”

  Actually it was a cheap-looking denim jacket that looked like it was from a thrift shop.

  “Oh, thank you so much,” she said, blushing the way Theresa had. “Actually, I got it at Daffy’s.”

  “Really? Wow, I love it.”

  That was perfect—complimenting the friend, getting her to like him, too. Predictably Donna told Theresa that she was ready to leave. She said some-

  thing about how she had to get up early tomorrow, which sounded to Johnny like a lame excuse since tomorrow was Saturday and odds were she didn’t have to work. She probably just felt self-conscious, sitting at the bar by herself not getting hit on, and wanted to leave, even if it meant taking her friend with her and—as far as she knew—ruining a budding love connection.

  Theresa seemed disappointed and torn, and Johnny knew exactly what she was thinking: Would he have more respect for me if I left? But the fact that she wasn’t leaving told Johnny that she one hundred percent wanted to stay; she just needed a way to justify it to herself.

  “Hey, if you’d like to stay I’ll make sure you get home safely.” Maybe anyone else delivering this line would’ve come off as a sleazeball, a player, but not Johnny. He always seemed sincere and caring.

  “Wow, that’s so nice of you,” Theresa said.

  Again Johnny had to resist the urge to burst out laughing.

  The girls talked it over for a few moments while Johnny looked away, sipping his club soda, giving them space, and then Donna announced, “Well, I’m going home, it was really nice meeting you.”

  “You, too, hope to meet you again sometime,” Johnny said, thinking, Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

  Donna left, and Johnny knew the last obstacle had been removed—it was pretty much home free from here.

  And he didn’t waste any time. After he said something funny and she laughed, he leaned in and kissed her. He didn’t slobber over her with an open mouth. It was a simple, classy kiss. He kept his lips against hers for several seconds and then pulled back and said, sensitively yet with passion, “Do you want to get out of here?”

  A few minutes later, they were in the cab. He was a total gentleman—kissing her, of course, but not trying to get in her panties or anything like that. The cab ride to Astoria might cost him about thirty-five, forty bucks, and he hoped that it was worth his while, that he wasn’t wasting a whole night with this woman. During the cab ride she said everything he expected her to say. I don’t usually do this. Are you sure we’re doing the right thing? Maybe we should wait. Playing the game, he kept saying things like “Hey, if you don’t feel comfortable,

  I can
go home.” Giving her every opportunity to back out of it. Yeah, right.

  In Astoria, he was disappointed when they pulled up in front of a modest two family house. He was hoping she lived in one of the new yuppie condos they’d put up out there; it would’ve been an indication that this was going to be worthwhile. Still, he was trying to be optimistic, not acting in any way disappointed.

  As soon as they entered her apartment, he switched on his passion button and began to give her the full Johnny Long lovemaking treatment. He kissed her lips softly, pushing her hair back away from her face, telling her over and over how beautiful she looked. They went into the bedroom and began to make love. He asked her if she had candles and incense, knowing that women always loved that crap. She said she didn’t have incense but had candles and went to get them. She returned to bed, the candles lit, and Johnny began to make love to her the way only Johnny Long could. He knew he was the best lover in the world, and not only because women often told him he was. One day he’d gone to the library and read books by the so-called Casanovas, and those guys didn’t know anything he didn’t know. In one book, some French guy claimed he’d been with over a thousand women and had satisfied all of them. Johnny laughed when he read that—no one could give a woman more pleasure than Johnny Long. The last time he’d counted he estimated that he’d been with 450-plus women, but he was only thirty-one years old and planned to be in the thousands by the time

  he was thirty-five.

  Johnny knew that writing a book about his own sex techniques would be impossible because he had no techniques. He couldn’t tell people to do this or do that and you’ll get a woman off every time, because nothing worked every time with every woman. Women were like trees: They were all different. It was all about instinct, getting into the woman’s head, feeling what she was feeling.

  He kissed Theresa very slowly and softly on her mouth and her neck, then moved to her breasts and stomach and inner thighs and finally worked his way lower. The entire time, like when he was talking to her at the bar, he was very attentive, picking up on the cues she gave him and playing off them. Like a super sex computer he instantly processed the information she was giving him and transformed himself into her ideal lover, the man of her dreams. He pleasured her for a long time with the perfect intensity, and then he began to make love to her at the exact pace she wanted. She climaxed easily, moaning, “Oh, Gregory, oh, Gregory.” For a moment he’d forgotten he was Gregory and thought she’d confused him with somebody else.

  He got her off four times, and he knew there was no chance she was faking. No one could fake orgasms with him because he knew, he always knew. Afterward, he held her in his arms and gently stroked her hair and kissed her ear, gently sucking on her lobe for a while.

  Later, when she finally fell asleep, he got out of bed, dressed silently, and got to work robbing her apartment.

  He started with her purse, scoring $237—not bad at all for purse money; it more than covered the cab ride, so already the night was a success. He easily found her jewelry box in the top drawer of her dresser and took everything, noticing a couple of necklaces, both sterling, and rings that he thought would get him several hundred dollars for their gold value alone. With a little luck this would turn out to be a great score, and he knew that as long as he got away cleanly, he had almost no chance of getting caught. Theresa had no real information about him, and she probably wouldn’t even report the crime to the police. Johnny wasn’t sure why the women he screwed and robbed almost never tried to rat him out. Part of it probably was that they felt so ashamed and embarrassed about what had happened that they didn’t want their friends and family to find out about it, but Johnny liked to think that it was mainly because he’d left them so satisfied, giving them the best sex of their lives, so that in the morning they’d decided that, yeah, losing their money and other valuables sucked, but what did they really have to complain about?

  He was about to leave the bedroom when he noticed, on the night table, the gold crucifix Theresa had been wearing at the bar. He snatched it and, on his way out, smiled, thinking how he’d have to go to church later and confess. He was still giggling about that one as he left the building and headed toward the subway station.

  “JOHNNY LONG. That you?”

  The voice came from behind Johnny as he was entering the Astoria Boulevard subway station. He was surprised to hear his name spoken at three in the morning in Astoria, where he didn’t think he knew anyone.

  For a moment he worried it was a cop. Just in case, he started reaching into the pocket of his jacket where he had a Kel-Tec .380.

  But then he looked over his shoulder and actually had to blink, doing a double take.

  “Carlos?” he asked.

  He hadn’t seen Carlos Sanchez, his old friend from St. John’s, in how long? Eight, nine years? Nine years, but Carlos looked like he’d aged twenty. He was only four or five years older than Johnny, but he looked fifty with all of that gray in his hair, and his face looked old and drawn, too. Johnny had heard through Rayo, another guy from St. John’s, that Carlos had been away for dealing.

  Carlos came over and gave Johnny a big hug. He reeked of booze and pot smoke, and Johnny couldn’t wait for the hug to end.

  “It’s been a long time, bro,” Carlos said, finally letting go. “Been a long, long time. The hell you doin’ ’round here?”

  “I should be asking you that question,” Johnny said. “I thought you were away.”

  “Naw, man, that’s ancient history,” Carlos said. “Got out six months ago, and I’m livin’ here now, bro. Well, not here, here, I mean Queens, Bayside. I’m just here in Astoria on some business, know what I’m sayin’?”

  Johnny wasn’t surprised Carlos was dealing again; the guy had been dealing since he was thirteen. Johnny had never touched drugs, not even pot, which was the main reason why he’d only been away one time. When you weren’t whacked out on drugs and could think clearly, it was easy to stay one step ahead of the cops.

  “Where you living now?” Carlos asked.

  “Still in Brooklyn,” Johnny said. “Got a little place out in Red Hook.” “Yeah, how you gettin’ by?”

  “I’m doing okay.”

  “Yeah, you still a pretty boy. I bet you gettin’ all the ladies, right?” “I can’t complain.”

  “Can’t complain? Yeah, I remember the times, we’d point to any girl in the schoolyard or wherever, pay you twenty bucks or whatever and bet you couldn’t go pick her up, and you’d take our money every time.”

  “Not every time,” Johnny said.

  “Not every time,” Carlos said. “Check this guy out. You still got that sense of humor goin’ on. You still make me laugh.”

  Johnny heard a subway pulling into the station above them. “Well, that’s my ride,” he said. “It was really great seeing you again, man.”

  “Come on, hang out,” Carlos said. “Where you rushin’ to at three in the morning?”

  “Long day,” Johnny said. “Gotta crash.”

  “Come on, man. You ain’t seen your ol’ bro in how many years and you can’t sit down and have a drink?”

  Johnny really wanted to get home and away from Astoria. It was unlikely that Theresa would call the cops, but after he hustled a woman he didn’t like to stay in her neighborhood.

  “I don’t drink,” Johnny said.

  “Johnny Clean, that’s right,” Carlos said. “Remember everybody used to call you that shit? Never drank, never did nothin’. That’s how you stayed a pretty boy, right?”

  The train was pulling into the station, the brakes screeching.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Johnny said. “Why don’t you give me your cell? We’ll hang out some time.”

  “Nah, come on, sit down with me right now,” Carlos said. “We can get some coffee and cake. I got something I gotta talk to you about anyway, somethin’ where you can make some serious cash, know what I mean?”

  Johnny wasn’t interested in hearing Carlos’s idea,
but he knew he couldn’t just blow him off. You didn’t do that to a guy from St. John’s. Growing up, those guys had been Johnny’s whole family. He’d spent every Christmas with them, every Thanksgiving.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Johnny said, “but I can’t stay out long.”

  They went to the corner, to the Neptune Diner, and sat in a booth by a window with a view of the Grand Central Parkway, still a lot of traffic this time of night. Johnny was starving—a night of hustling and sex had built up quite an appetite—and he ordered a bacon cheeseburger with everything on it. After a couple of bites, he realized it wouldn’t fill him up, so he ordered another one.

  Carlos caught Johnny up on guys from the old neighborhood. Everybody, it seemed, had gotten into some kind of trouble. Pedro was doing fifteen for manslaughter. Delano was at Attica for dealing. DeShawn had been stabbed to death in a fight outside a bar in Philly. Eddie had OD’d on smack.

  “Sounds like me and you are the big winners, huh?” Johnny said, smiling. “Yeah, I’m doing okay,” Carlos said. “Not in jail anyway, and I got my HIV under control.”

  “Oh, shit,” Johnny said. “Sorry to hear that, man.”

  “Eh, it’s okay,” Carlos asked. “The fuck you gonna do, right? And with the medicines they got, I’m gonna live longer than you.”

  Carlos was sobering up, and Johnny started to have a good time bullshitting with him about the old days at St. John’s. Johnny had forgotten how much he’d needed Carlos back then. The courts had sent Johnny to St. John’s when he was nine years old after his mother was killed. They’d told Johnny she went in a car accident, which hadn’t made sense to him because she didn’t own a car, and then he found out a few years later that his mother wasn’t really a secretary, she was a hooker, and she’d been stabbed to death by one of her clients. Johnny felt like an outcast at St. John’s because all the other kids were a lot tougher than him and had known each other all their lives. He got picked on a lot—it seemed like every day somebody wanted to kick his ass—and Carlos had been the only one who always had his back.