Shooting for the Stars by R. G. Belsky Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t want to think about. Like my ex-wife. My career. My future and my life in general. When I think too much about this stuff I get tense and agitated and feel like the walls of my apartment are closing in on me.
    This anxiety had caused me to have a series of what they called “panic attacks.” I got shortness of breath, I felt dizzy and became disoriented—I even passed out once in the middle of the newsroom. I’ve got medicine for it. I’ve had counseling too. And I tell people I don’t have the panic attacks anymore.
    But the truth is I do. Not a lot, but they still happen from time to time. Mostly when I’m alone in my apartment, like now.
    The health problems had started for me the first time I’d screwed up at the News with the fictional Houston interview. All the fallout and disgrace over the revelation about what I’d done led to the onset of the panic attacks. The anxiety and the attacks and these moments of nearly paralyzing panic continued off and on after that, usually in conjunction with the ups and downs of my career at the paper.
    I used to see a woman shrink who told me the problem was I measured my worth as Gil Malloy the reporter—not the person. When I was breaking big exclusives on Page One, I was good with myself. But when I wasn’t doing big stories, I couldn’t handle the down periods of my career. “You use your job, you use being a reporter, as a defense mechanism,” the shrink said. “No matter how noble you try to make it—and it is a noble profession—being a reporter allows you to shut out emotion and avoid dealing with what’s really inside you. Hence, the panic attacks.”
    She said the solution was I had to learn to live my life each day without clinging to my reporter persona to shield me from the real issues and emotions I needed to confront. “You have to build a life that’s about something more than just being an ace reporter,” the shrink told me. “Being a reporter can’t be your entire life.”
    It was good advice, I guess.
    But pretty hard for me to follow that advice the way I was feeling right now.
    I mean I was working on a story—the Laura Marlowe murder—that wasn’t even my story.
    I had a twenty-six-year-old boss who cared more about page views and demographics than she did about journalism.
    And my wife—okay, my ex-wife—was screwing some friggin’ other guy.
    Just thinking about all of this was almost enough to push me into another panic attack. But after a few deep breaths and an almost Zenlike effort to remain calm, I was okay again.
    I took a swig of beer and tried to put all of these thoughts out of my mind. I focused my attention back on Gilligan’s Island . No matter how many times I watched these episodes, I always think that maybe this is the one where they’ll figure out how to get off the island. They never do, of course. They finally do get rescued in one of the sequel TV movies made years later, but by then I had pretty much lost interest. I hummed the theme song of the show to myself now. A three-hour tour. Three-hour tour.
    By the time the episode was over, my beer bottle was empty. I had a couple of options. I could walk into the kitchen, get myself another beer, and keep watching Gilligan while I either fell asleep or simply passed out.
    Or I could get out of this lonely apartment for a while.
    I looked at the time. Just past ten o’clock. The first edition of the Daily News would be hitting the newsstands with my story. I could always read it online, of course. But I still loved the feel of holding an actual newspaper in my hands. I walked over to the window. Even from the thirty-sixth floor, I could tell it was a nice night out there. One of these comfortable early summer evenings in New York City before the heat and humidity settled in for July and August. I decided to go out and buy a copy of the paper.
    On my way