Panic Attack

by Jason Starr

  When Lauren came into his office to let him know about some correspondence regarding a patient’s insurance claim, Adam felt he had to set the record straight and said, “Look, what the papers said is total crap. That’s not what happened at all, okay? The guy broke into my house, and the police think there might’ve been somebody else in the house with a gun, and that that person might’ve shot my maid. So I did the right thing, okay?”

  “I believe you,” Lauren said, but it was obvious she was just saying this to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

  Adam felt like locking himself in his office and spending the rest of the day alone, but he had an eleven o’clock appointment with Martin Harrison. Martin was what Adam and his colleagues called a professional patient. Adam had been seeing him for nearly two years but except for exhibiting mild symptoms of OCD and perhaps some generalized anxiety disorder, there was nothing really wrong with him. He was happily married with two kids and was doing well in his career as an advertising exec, but, for whatever reason—perhaps it was a subconscious emotional dependency issue, because his father had left his mother when he was five years old—he continued to pay out of pocket to see Adam two days a week. During most sessions, they rehashed topics they’d already discussed, and sometimes it was a strain to find anything to talk about. But what was Adam supposed to do, suggest that he end his treatment? What with managed health care restricting the annual visits of his insurance-paid patients, cash-paying patients like Martin were what made Adam’s practice sustainable.

  Martin’s major personality flaw was that he had a very direct style of communication, almost too direct, bordering on inappropriate. When he entered Adam’s office, he didn’t even say hello but went right to, “So I was reading about you online this morning.”

  Oh, Jesus, Adam hadn’t thought about this yet. The story wasn’t just in the papers; it was all over the Internet. Somehow that made it seem more permanent. People would throw out today’s papers, but the story, with all those skewed, misreported facts, would be available online forever.

  “What did you read?” Adam asked, trying his best not to sound overly concerned but probably failing miserably.

  “Just about how you had to shoot that guy. Yeah, it sounds rough. Sorry you had to go through all that.”

  Martin didn’t sound very sympathetic. Adam considered pointing this out to him—maybe it could become an issue for today’s session?—but instead he said, “Just so you know, it didn’t happen like that at all. My life was in danger, and I had to shoot that guy in self-defense, but of course they tried to sensationalize the whole thing.”

  “I hear you, I hear you,” Martin said. “I’m just glad to see you pulled through and you’re okay.”

  Adam got the sense that Martin really didn’t care whether he was okay or not. No, to him, Adam was the typical guilty guy who would swear he was innocent ad nauseam till the day he died. Still, Adam wanted to keep things as professional as possible—this was a therapy session, after all—so he tried to minimize the whole situation, saying, “Well, I can’t complain that the last couple of days have been uneventful.”

  Adam laughed, trying to get Martin to laugh with him, but Martin was unusually serious. Throughout the rest of the session, he seemed very agitated— fidgeting a lot, avoiding eye contact. Adam confronted him about his behavior a few times, but he insisted that everything was fine. Then, as he was leaving, he said that he wouldn’t be able to make it to his appointments next week. Adam asked him if he was going on vacation, and he said, “No,” but didn’t give any other explanation for the cancelations.

  Adam wondered if this was just the beginning. Maybe even his oldest, neediest patients would have second thoughts about seeing him and there would be a mass exodus from his practice. He was trying to decide whether he should do some damage control, or predamage control, maybe have Lauren contact some of his regulars and make sure all was well, when he remembered that he had a noon meeting with the reporter from New York magazine.

  He rushed over to the Starbucks on Madison and Forty-ninth, looking forward to the chance to set the record straight and to tell the public what had really happened the other night. When he entered, an attractive young black woman came over and said, “Dr. Bloom, right?”

  “That’s me,” Adam said.

  “Nice to meet you, I’m Grace Williams. I’m sitting right over there.” She pointed to a table behind her. “Do you want to get something?”

  Wow, not only did she want to meet him for coffee, rather than lunch, she wouldn’t even pay for the coffee.

  “That’s okay,” Adam said. “I had a cup today and don’t want to be overcaffeinated.”

  He sat across from her, and she took out a pad, turned on a digital recorder, and said, “This shouldn’t take long.”

  “I want to tell you, I’m really glad I’m getting a chance to talk to you. I’ve been kind of shocked, actually, by how this whole story has been misreported.”

  “Really?” she asked, barely interested.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, they’ve been making me out to be a vigilante or something, but that isn’t the case at all.”

  “I’m just going to ask you a few questions, Dr. Bloom, okay?” “Okay, but—”

  “Did you ever fantasize about using your gun to kill someone?”

  Was she serious? It seemed like she was. “No,” Adam said. “Of course not.”

  “Even someone you really hated. Like a boss or an ex-lover.”

  “One time at the range, just for fun, a guy put a photo of Osama bin Laden on the target, but—”

  “Did you ever feel like you want to blow all the bad guys in the city away?” “No,” Adam said firmly. “And see, this is exactly what I’m talking about, how this whole thing has gotten distorted. I never felt that way at all.” “So you don’t condemn the man who broke into your house?”

  “Of course I condemn him,” he said. “He was trying to rob my house.” “Why did you shoot him ten times? Wouldn’t once have been enough?” He hated her sensational tone.

  “Do you want the facts,” he asked, “or do you just want to write a provocative story?”

  “I want the facts, of course,” she said, looking right at him.

  “It was dark,” he said. “I didn’t know if I hit him or not, so I had to keep firing to make sure I got him.” He wasn’t sure this was true, because he vaguely remembered knowing that the first shot had hit Sanchez, but he continued, “And it happened very fast. When you’re in that type of situation you don’t think, you just react. It’s like a soldier in battle. You’re in fight-or-flight mode. You have to listen to your instincts, follow your gut. Oh, and since it seems very likely that my maid, who was killed yesterday morning, had something to do with the robbery, I feel like I absolutely did the right thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Grace asked.

  “You heard that my maid was killed, didn’t you?” “You killed your maid?”

  “No, I didn’t kill her. Jesus, whatever you do, don’t write that. No, it was another shooting.”

  “In your house?”

  “No, not in my house, but there was definitely someone else in my house the night of the shooting, and that person could’ve had a gun. The police know the guy I killed, Sanchez, was involved with my maid. They were lovers, boyfriendgirlfriend, whatever. It was either my maid with the gun or someone my maid knew. So it was just by chance that Sanchez wasn’t armed. You get what I’m saying?”

  She didn’t seem to get it, or want to try to get it, and asked, “But doesn’t it bother you that you killed an unarmed man?”

  Adam took a few moments to collect his thoughts, choosing his words carefully, then said, “Of course it bothers me. I didn’t ask to be in that situation, it wasn’t something I sought out. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t make me an aggressor, a vigilante.”

  “So you’re saying you’d kill him all over again.”


  “Kill is a strong word. You know, I really think you’re—” “Would you shoot him all over again?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I mean, I wouldn’t do anything differently except—”

  She turned off the recorder, put it away in her purse, then stood up and said, “That should do it, Dr. Bloom.” She stuck her hand out to shake. “It was really nice meeting you.”

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sorry to run, but I have to get back to the office and write this up so we can post it this afternoon.”

  “Post it?” Adam was confused. “Isn’t it going to run in the magazine?”

  “No, it’s for Daily Intel, our online blog. But I got everything I needed, it should be great. Thank you so much, Dr. Bloom.”

  On his way back to his office, Adam decided that it was better that the story was running online. He wanted to set the facts straight as soon as possible so he could start to put this all behind him and go on with his life.

  Late in the afternoon, he went online to Daily Intel and saw the headline:

  VIGILANTE ADAM BLOOM WANTS TO BLOW AWAY ALL OF NEW YORK CITY’S BAD GUYS

  “That fucking bitch,” he nearly shouted.

  The story was even more skewed than the ones in the morning papers. It made him sound like a gleeful white-collar sociopath who’d been brooding for years, waiting for an opportunity to blow somebody away. Everything he’d said during the interview was taken out of context, and the article was filled with misquotes. She wrote that he “often fantasized” about using his gun to kill someone and that he had a lifelong disgust for crime and criminals. She added that he claimed he was “following his gut” when he unloaded ten shots into the unarmed intruder and observed that he expressed no remorse for the shooting. She ended with the completely fabricated line “ ‘I’d love to shoot him all over again,’ Bloom boasted.”

  Adam called Grace Williams up, ready to give her hell. Of course he got her voice mail, and he left a message. “This is Adam Bloom. If you don’t take that bullshit off your site I’m gonna sue you and your fucking magazine!”

  He must’ve been screaming into the phone, because Lauren rushed into his office, asking, “Is everything okay?”

  “Just leave me alone!” he yelled, and when she left he picked up his phone’s handset and flung it across the room. It hit the filing cabinet, and part of it broke off.

  This day was rapidly turning into the day from hell. And to think, he’d been convinced he was going to be the next Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.

  He didn’t hear from Grace, and the story was still online. No big surprise there. Why would they care about what he thought?

  He rode the subway in rush hour back to Forest Hills. On the crowded R train, he felt like strangers were looking up from their newspapers and noticing him, scrutinizing him. At Northern Boulevard, a group of laughing teenagers got on. Adam didn’t know if they were making fun of him or not, but he felt like they were.

  Adam decided there was nothing he could do to control what other people thought. If the press wanted to keep attacking him, and the public wanted to keep judging him, that was beyond his control.

  In Forest Hills, he stopped at Duane Reade and picked up some stuff for the house—toilet paper, paper towels, dishwashing liquid—and then he went to the wine store around the corner and bought a bottle of $6.99 merlot. He felt bad for arguing so much with Dana over the last couple of days, and he was looking forward to having a nice, relaxing evening at home. Maybe they’d order in some Chinese, have a couple of glasses of wine, and then make love. He had so much going for him in his life, and he wanted to start appreciating what he had instead of constantly wanting more. He didn’t need to be hailed as a local hero and be the basis of a Russell Crowe biopic in order to be happy.

  When Adam turned onto his block in Forest Hills Gardens, it was starting to get dark. There were several teenagers playing touch football in the street, and as Adam got closer he recognized a few of them—Jeremy Ross, Justin Green, Brian Zimmerman. It brought back memories of when he was their age and used to play football on the street with his friends, not going inside until it was pitch dark.

  “Hey, right here,” Adam said, and Jeremy tossed him the ball. Then Adam said to Brian, “Okay, go deep.”

  Brian sprinted down the block, and Adam faded back and shouted, “To win the Super Bowl!” and then unloaded a bomb. Well, he tried to. The wobbly ball bounced off the windshield of a car about twenty feet in front of Brian.

  “Next time,” Adam said, smiling, and headed up the walkway to his front door. When he went in he announced, “I’m home!” Then he saw the piece of paper on the floor. It was plain white, eight and a half by eleven, folded in half. He opened it and saw, written in Magic Marker in block letters:

  YOU THINK YOU’RE SOME KIND OF HERO, HUH? YOU THINK YOU’RE A BIG SHOT. I’M GONNA MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN, YOU LITTLE COCKSUCKING SON OF A BITCH.

  He went into the living room and saw Dana watching TV. Her feet were on the ottoman, a throw covering her legs. She looked very tired, maybe depressed.

  “Did you see the note on the floor?” he asked.

  She was slow to respond. Eventually, in a monotone, she said, “Note?” He handed her the paper, watched her growing concern as she read it. “I think we have a situation here,” he said.

  MARISSA’S GOAL for the foreseeable future was to spend as little time with her parents as possible. It was getting to the point where it was hard to be around them, even to be in the same house with them. It was bad enough with their arguing, but now her father was getting on her case because she went to a happy hour with Hillary? What, now she wasn’t allowed to hang out with her friends? What was he going to do next, lock her in a tower like Rapunzel? Oh, and how about her mom having an affair with Tony the trainer, of all people? It explained why her mom had been acting so uptight and distracted lately. If it wasn’t so annoying it would’ve been funny, hilarious actually, that her parents were always telling her how she had to grow up, get her life together, when she felt like she was the adult and they were the kids.

  In the morning, after Marissa checked out her friends’ blogs and MySpace and Facebook pages, she posted an entry on her own blog entitled just when i thought things couldn’t possibly get any more fucked up. She wrote about Gabriela’s murder and how yesterday had officially been the worst day of her life. She was in a very nihilistic mood and ended with I’m so fucking sick of this stupid fucking world and I just don’t give a fucking shit about fucking anything anymore. She read the entry twice—she thought it was one of her best ever; maybe she should’ve majored in creative writing—then posted it and went downstairs. She brewed some coffee and was pouring a cup when her mom came in and said, “Dad got bumped.”

  “Huh?” She had no idea what her mother was talking about. She also had no idea why her mom was wearing her robe and had no makeup on at—what?— one in the afternoon.

  “He was supposed to be on Good Day New York this morning, but I fast forwarded through the show and he wasn’t on. They must’ve bumped him.”

  “Oh,” Marissa said, surprised her mom cared after the way she and her dad had been arguing yesterday.

  “If I were you I wouldn’t read the Daily News today. It’s not exactly a flattering portrayal of your father. Expected, I guess, but still not very enjoyable to see in print.”

  “Did they say anything bad about me?” Marissa asked. She didn’t really think there would be anything bad; it was just instinctive insecurity coming out.

  “They mention us,” her mom said, “but no, nothing bad.”

  “Thank God,” Marissa said, then added, “That sucks for Dad, though.” She stood at the counter, sipping her coffee, trying to wake up. Her mother, meanwhile, started scrubbing the stove with a Lysol Wipe. “So,” Marissa asked, “are you feeling okay today?”

  “I’m fine,” her mom said. “Why?” “You didn’t get dressed yet.”

  Her mo
m continued scrubbing, then finally said, “I have no place to go.”

  What was going on now? Was her mom depressed? Marissa was tempted to blurt out, What’s wrong, Ma, boyfriend trouble? She managed to keep this to herself but couldn’t help smirking.

  “What’s so funny?” her mom asked. “Nothing,” Marissa said. “Why?”

  Her mom gave her a look, then continued scrubbing—too hard, like she was trying to sand a piece of wood. Finally, maybe to herself, she said, “We have to find a new maid.”

  Marissa had been trying not to think about Gabriela; it was too sad. “Is there anything new about that?” she asked.

  “No,” her mom said, and she finally stopped scrubbing and dropped the wipe into the garbage. “But can you believe her sister called and asked me if we’d pay to have the body shipped to South America?”

  “What did you say?”

  “She was so upset, I didn’t want to be rude. I said I’d have to discuss it with my husband.”

  “That was nice of you, I guess. I mean, we still don’t know for sure Gabriela had anything to do with the robbery, right?”

  “Oh, come on, you sound like Dad now. She was dating that guy Sanchez, for God’s sake.”

  She didn’t know what was up with her mom’s attitude, why she was acting so irritable. She wondered if it had to do with her affair. Maybe she was feeling guilty or something.

  “I can’t believe she and that guy were together,” Marissa said. “I had so many talks with her about boyfriend stuff, you know, and I didn’t think she’d been with a guy since her fiancé died. She’d never said anything about any guy named Carlos.”

  “She obviously had a lot of secrets,” her mother said. Then she made a face, as if she’d caught herself saying something she hadn’t meant to—Gee, Marissa thought, whatever could that be?—and said quickly, “Anyway, the answer’s no, I’m not paying to have her body shipped anywhere.”