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Hostage

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Submitted By maria25
Words 687
Pages 3
Hostage by Andrew Vachss

Crime, crime and crime! It is something, which happens in many countries. It is not only in Asia or Africa, but all over the world. Crime it is a theme every country is focusing on to increase it. Because of crime the innocent people get hurt too. But can we stop this? Or is the killer instinct something there is deep in us? In the short story “Hostages” written by Andrew Vachss. We see a psychologist who is talking with a patient who is got affected by his childhood, because of his mother. But when the patient opens his feelings, something bad is going to happen.

The psychologist is named Walker, who was a sniper in south East Asia. When Walker came home from south East Asia he became an police officer, but he was accused for ruining a raid and got removed from the drugs apartment. The first week on his duty he killed a dealer in a gunfight. But that was neither the first nor the least person he killed to guys wearing masks and one of them was thirteen years old. Afterwards he got sent to a shrink. According to the shrink he had “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, fundamental lack of empathy, blunted affect addicted risk –taker” (p.157 ll.24-25). Later he was transferred to SWAT team, but because of his behaviour they pulled him of the job and took his gun away. Then finally he was sent to this special school for people to learn hostage negotiation. Words that would describe Walker are cynical, twisted, manipulative, brutal, confident and calm.
The Patient name is Mark Weston. He is twenty-three year old. Who got two priors, indecent exposure and attempted break-in. He got probation both times. Mark Weston lives with his mother who is in a wheelchair and he lives off her social security check. Mark Weston’s father left him and his mother soon after his birth, and his mother raised him alone. Mark Weston had a really hard

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