Panic

By Warren Getler

As a kid growing up in New York's Upper East Side, Johnny D. Saster had a rich, privileged existence. But when it came to personal freedom, he had no existence at all under the thumb of his demanding, overbearing parents. It nearly cost him… his mind. Pushed by his parents to succeed, he suffers an extreme panic attack during his SATs, leaves the test room in a daze and walks right into traffic on Fifth Avenue. People suffering from anxiety live in a world of hurt. PANIC is the uplifting tale of a young man navigating the emotional peaks and valleys of panic disorder. It's a modern-day Wizard of Oz-like journey of self-discovery and personal triumph… an endearing teen's surmounting of some very debilitating mental health challenges afflicting millions, young and old alike, around the world. Tragic and funny in parts, readers will feel the raw emotion in this highly imaginative, wildly fanciful coming-of-age tale and love story, set largely in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An added bonus: an entire musical soundtrack, from the lyrical band, Social Void, is embedded in the ebook.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543959598

Warren Getler

Warren Getler is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has been a New York-based financial reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a London and Frankfurt correspondent of the International Herald Tribune.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Warren Getler

Preface: This novel is meant to take readers on a journey of personal discovery, through the written word and music. The entire debut album, Propeller, from the band Social Void, is included as a soundtrack in the ebook to enhance the experience. As you arrive at the prompts, click on the guitar icon to listen to the songs.

ISBN: 978-1-54395-959-8

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Content

TEST TIME

BEDSIDE

A BOY’S DREAM

A RUDE AWAKENING

CHRISTINE

DETACHED

THE GOOD DOCTOR

ROOFTOP MUSINGS

THE GOOD DOCTOR (REPRISE)

RE-UNION

CLOCK MASTER

LIGHT, LEVITY, LOVE

DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TEST TIME

He twirled the #2 pencil, back and forth, occasionally stabbing his forefinger with the graphite nib. His finger, tingling to the point of numbness, needed a good poke to ensure he stayed sharp.

This was the big moment. The clock ticked as the hour approached 9 am. His pulse quickened, and he stared again at his #2 lead.

Never had such a puny, five-inch stretch of carved wood – hexagonal, light to the touch, yellow – carried so much weight in his 17 years. No, it was more than just a primitive writing implement: it was everything. For the next two hours of grueling SAT torture, he knew, the pencil was going to be his battle-axe, his sword, his lance.

You can begin the test now, a voice echoed in the cavernous exam room.

All he could do was breathe, as intense faces around him focused their eyes upon the rows of lettered options on the page. But, inside his constricted chest, the vital exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide was labored at best.

A weird numbness he’d sensed in his toes and his fingers began to spread. He suddenly felt on fire in a tingly kind of way, and his head spun. He could barely make out his name, John Saster, at the top of his exam sheet. His eyes blinked repeatedly but could not focus. Tunnel-vision set in.

I’m gonna’ faint, he mumbled to himself, sweat dripping from his brow. Whoa… am I having a heart attack?

Through mounting nausea and vertigo, he kept hearing his dad’s voice… You’ve got this. You’ve got this, Harvard man.

When John Saster rose from his assigned desk, he was expressionless, zombie-like. Everyone, despite the time-pressure, took a few incredulous moments to stare at this lanky, wavy-haired kid making a spectacle of himself, as he banged dizzily into one desk after another on an endless journey to the door.

If you’re not feeling well, the bathroom is around the corner, but hurry back, rang out the professorial voice from the podium.

John showed no sign of having heard a word. He was enveloped in a fog of unreality, staggering as he tried to avoid a rush of support from fellow test-takers who may have thought that he was having a seizure.

As he stumbled through the doorway, students took one last look at him before throwing themselves back into the test that would send most of them on one extended life path or another. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford… wherever.

John headed out onto Fifth Avenue. His legs were rubber; his throat parched. Short of breath, he was overcome with a feeling of dread, of losing his mind, of losing control, of being… smothered.

When the rear-view mirror of the speeding Beemer hit him, sending him spinning back to the curb, he did not look up. On the way down to the unforgiving pavement, he caught a glimpse of the Clinton Gore ‘92 bumper sticker. In a flash, he was out cold.

An old woman who saw the collision could only offer a few words to the NYPD: He was just a deer in the headlights, well, a deer in the sunlight, because it was pretty bright out. He didn’t seem to have a clue… must have been on drugs or something.

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BEDSIDE

In Mt. Sinai’s brightly lit intensive-care unit, John Saster was the center of attention amid a swirling group of nurses and doctors, all wondering what the hell happened to him. He had come close to dying of shock on the way over, the EMT medics had reported. His parents still had not yet arrived.

Words were being whispered around him – cracked humerus, fractured radius, cerebral hematoma from skull impact, neurological event, concussion, – but he didn’t understand them.

More than anything, he felt an all-consuming fear, an intense desire to flee. It was as if the monster that had gripped him at the exam had not let go, was still squeezing the life-blood out of him. He squirmed in his bed, more from deep-seated angst than any acute pain from a mangled left arm and a contused skull.

When an elderly looking man wearing a surgeon’s mask began asking questions, the room went quiet. John could hear a young nurse read off some notes from a police report: SAT zombie-like father and mother on their way and Upper East Side as other snippets pinged around his disoriented brain. The nurse, in her sea-blue scrubs, placed a reassuring hand on his head. Don’t worry, it’s going to be alright.

It seemed forever before he heard the piercing voice of his mother – a hysterical, high-pitched vibrato he recalled when he was a young kid and she’d discovered him leaning over the balcony rail. That scream had haunted him, and now it was back, banging off the claustrophobic walls of the ICU, with its pungent smell of antiseptic.

No! No! Johnny. My baby… What happened! Diane Saster wailed, as she threw her arms around her listless, battered boy. She pushed his matted hair back, but he was unresponsive.

Martin Saster kept his cool, demanding answers from the doctors: What in God’s name is this all about! My son is covered from head to toe in bandages. He looks like a goddamn mummy!

The silver-haired doctor put his hand out to shake the father’s hand but there was no grasp.

We don’t know what happened. Your son… he might have been high or something, but we didn’t have a chance to do that kind of blood work, the surgeon explained in a steady voice. The EMTs and the staff here were focused on keeping him from going into shock. Keeping him alive.

The elder Saster shook his head, trying to will the reality away and holding back tears.

Seeing the distress in his face, the surgeon took him by the arm and walked him over to the door.

We think he’s going to be fine. Broken arm, broken ribs, contusions, slight concussion, all from being struck by a car after walking straight into high-speed traffic… as if, according to witnesses, he didn’t know he was there.

Narrowing his eyes, John’s father fired off six words: My son does not do drugs!

He paused, clearing his throat.

"There is no way that this boy was on drugs. This kid, who has been a straight-A student all through the most demanding prep school in the city, has steered so far clear of that dope-headed notion. So the hell with you and your speculation." He tugged at the sleeves of his dark Armani suit and brushed the dandruff off his shoulders. Then he straightened his tie.

Diane Saster stared into her son’s badly bruised, expressionless face. You’ll be just fine. Okay, my love, she whispered, yet the teen was still in a daze.

My God… He didn’t even blink. He’s totally out of it. Will he be alright? You know, will he be able to live a normal life, go to college, raise a family?’’ she implored the medical staff. Why? Why on this day, of all days, that he’d prepared for, month after month, did this diabolical thing happen? Why?"

His mother’s emotion seemed to jolt the teenager, who suddenly began twitching. He squeezed her hand, and she brought his fingers to her lips.

Mom? Mom? Is that you? I feel weird, like I’m drifting… Mom? Help.

Do something! Diane screamed. Help my son!

The doctor said something about anti-anxiety meds. Within minutes a male nurse came back with a vial and syringe. As the nurse injected the Ativan into the boy’s right arm, the patient shot up straight and glared at his father.

Is that all you care about! he yelled. That I matter only as a product of your damn Ivy League DNA… that I’m just a reflection of you! The voice was gravelly, loud and fierce, and one his parents didn’t recognize.

And then John freaked out.

Up the dose, now! were the last words he remembered hearing.

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A BOY’S DREAM

Hundreds of tourists converge on the large staircase outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the ornate two-million-square-foot limestone building in New York’s posh Upper East Side. Giant pillars grace the entrance, and colorful exhibit banners move in the breeze.

Diane Saster, mid-30s, an attractive socialite, rolls a stroller up to the entrance of the Met. Gabbing to a friend, she is oblivious to her three-year-old son, Johnny Daniel Saster, who is happily licking a soft-chocolate ice cream cone. When they near the towering steel doors, Johnny whips down the stroller visor to conceal his cone.

Inside the Met, Johnny peeks out at the sky-lit dome-shaped cupolas, the grand arches, the 100-foot-high ceilings, and the magnificent flower arrangements.

Diane pushes Johnny’s stroller through the halls, past the Old Master paintings, chatting intensely with a female friend.

Johnny pushes up the stroller visor, when a painting grabs his attention. He stares at Rembrandt’s Man in Oriental Dress, a tantalizing portrait of a larger-than-life older man wearing a turban and a richly embellished cloak. Johnny gazes into the man’s menacing eyes, mesmerized and a little afraid. His fingers start to tingle. He climbs out of the stroller, ice-cream cone in hand and inches toward the painting. Diane, still engrossed in conversation with her friend, is oblivious.

Johnny starts to run straight toward the painting—dripping ice-cream cone in hand. He trips on a security wire directly in front of the masterpiece. In slow motion, the chocolate-swirl cone flies in the air and lands smack in the middle of the Rembrandt. The mush flows down the face and then the chest of the turbaned man in the painting, sliding down the length of his exotic costume and eventually, with a few horrified tourists and museum staff looking on, hits the floor.

A hush descends upon the hall.

Diane turns to see the melted mess on the priceless painting, on Johnny’s face and on the floor. John Saster! What have you done! Oh my God!

Johnny freezes. He starts to tremble.

Oscar Sparks, an avuncular security guard with wiry silver hair, approaches the boy. Don’t worry, son. I’ll take care of it.

Diane walks right up to the museum guard. I’m so sorry. I turned my back for one moment and…

Just then, an intimidating female museum curator runs up to the painting, looks at Johnny and scolds, No! Oh, you little monster, you little shit. How did you get ice cream in here! Pale with fear and panic in his eyes, he crawls back into the stroller.

How could you let this happen! the curator snarls at