Looney

trigger warning: violence, gore

“Taxi, follow that car!” says Tom; Tom the Great; Tom the Titan; Thomas the Train; Trustful Tom; Tommy Two-Step ; Sweet Tea Tom; Thomas Goroum. He was all of these things but is none of them now. The car his taxi driver follows is a black Rolls-Royce Phantom with tinted windows. Tom saw three young men climb into it and head up W 58^th St. though moderate traffic. The Rolls-Royce stops in front of a red light. The taxi is right behind them. Tom opens the backseat window, squeezes most of his torso through. He aims his Uzi at the Rolls-Royce. 

DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU- DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU-DU- DU-DU-DU-DU!

The noise it makes deafens him and the rest of the city, but for only a moment. The bullets decorate the Rolls-Royce and frighten the three young college boys, who might deserve what’s coming to them. Maybe they gang raped a girl, or murdered a classmate and sunk them in the East River. Or maybe they’re just lucky to be born into money, never wanting for anything in this lifetime, drowning their sorrow in booze and women and yachts, hoping a degree from Colombia and a six-figure salary will help them find their souls.

In a panic, the Rolls-Royce runs the red light into incoming traffic. Tom yells at the taxi driver to drive, drive, drive. The driver says something foreign—indian or Urdu—and runs out the taxi for his life. Someone’s Toyota slams into the darting Rolls-Royce, and traffic comes to a halt. Cars swerve to avoid colliding with each other. The young men stumble out, with the one who drove bleeding from the forehead. Tom exits the taxi, and the screams from pedestrians crowding the sidewalks wash over him like a giant wave. Some of them scramble to escape this crime scene, but Tom only sees the three young men collecting what’s left of their wits in order to run away. Tom sprints, shooting his Uzi, making Swiss cheese out of that kid with the blood on his face. Five in the back, two in the back of the head. The young man falls facedown, dead.

“CHAD!” yells one of the other two, who’s probably named Brad. The third one, most likely named Chet, hobbles into the sea of honking cars.

Brad stands frozen in shock, grief, disbelief, his gaze fixed on Chad. Tom marches toward him to shoot him between the eyes. But he gets tackled by a pedestrian. Some big guy—ex-football player or ex-con—wearing a wife-beater to show off his body covered in tattoos and muscle. The Uzi flies out of Tom’s hand. They wrestle for a minute until the big guy mounts Tom and starts strangling him. No need to punch him; this way one can appreciate the flection of his massive forearms, the veins pumping pure testosterone popping out the same way Tom’s eyes are popping out of his head.

“According to I-Min Lee, professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, muscle-strengthening exercises are beneficial because they lead to better physical functioning. ‘Such exercises also improve glucose metabolism, enhance maintenance of healthy body weight, and help improve cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure,’ she said. ‘All these factors lead to lower risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, which lowers mortality risk.’”

Tom doesn’t exercise. Instead, he plunges a chef’s knife (Where did he get that from?) into the big guy’s gut and splits the dude open. Blood pours onto his chest, his neck. When the big guy falls over, Tom sticks his arm into the guy’s gut up to the elbow, as if digging into a plastic bowl of candy for the last Milky Way.

Brad is still frozen when Tom approaches him, twirling the big guy’s small intestine in the air. The visual snaps him back to the present moment and told him to run, which he does. Tom cracks the small intestine like a whip—sound effect and everything—across Brad’s back, through his check wool cotton overshirt. Brad drops to his knees from the pain. Tom comes up behind the young man, wraps the intestine around his neck and starts to pull. He listens to the gasping, the struggling to breath, until an oversized black purse whacks him in face. 

She’s a spry one, this older lady, short, round, mad. She’s seen too many injustices in her life and can’t stands no more of it, so it appears. Tom ignores her and keeps on strangling. Another whack from her purse. Then a stiff hook to the right cheek bone. From the old woman? No, from some guy, some tall, out of shape, clean cut doofus who probably brags about his expensive Funko Pop collection on the first date. What happened to the days when people ran from the mass murderer? Tom lets go of the intestine and Brad falls over, starts coughing. Some other jackoff jumps in—mohawk, sagging pants, overpriced headphones around his neck—squaring up to Tom like a scrawny Kimbo Slice wannabe. 

Tom pulls an axe from out of nowhere and swings it around him to keep them all away—ordinary people who’ve lost their minds. Or, more likely, they’re just fed up. Another random loser pops up like a pimple and goes on a killing spree, and everyone’s forced to hear about it on the news, on social media, on the radio. “Our deepest condolences to the victims of so-and-so.”  “Why won’t Congress take everyone’s guns away?” Every other week with this. And everyone’s sick of it by now. 

Everyone except this one guy, who doesn’t stop to fight Tom or livestream a murder with his cellphone like the ones who aren’t fighting. He casually walks in between the older woman and the tall nerd. Tom’s about to swing at him, but stops when he realizes the guy doesn’t even notice. He wears a tailored sharkskin blue suit, tieless, carrying a chestnut leather briefcase, gesturing to himself with his free hand, talking to himse—, no, wait, he’s wearing Airpods. He says something foreign—Spanish, maybe Portuguese—and strolls past Tom to the stunned amazement of everyone. He smelled expensive. Sunlight bounces off the rim of his fancy watch. 

“While the middle-class always strive and work extremely hard to ‘earn’ money, the rich make every penny work for them. While the middle-class slog for typically nine hours a day, five days a week to earn a nominal salary only to later squander it over ‘liabilities’. At the same time, the rich ensure that every penny that they hold is invested well enough to fetch returns for their fortune – investments are not just limited to financial products; investing an amount to upgrade knowledge is also a prudent investment.”

Tom swings the axe behind him. Where the rich guy’s head used to be, blood gushes to the sky like a fountain before the body collapses. Tom catches the falling head and throws it at one of the three strangers before giving chase to Brad, who wanders down the street. 

Tom starts to run because Brad has a head start on him. It looks like the young man’s calling for someone who’s inside the Plaza Hotel. The people forced to hit the break because of the Rolls-Royce blocking the road are now exiting their cars, and they’re yelling threats and obscenities at Tom in thick New York accents, but Tom doesn’t hear a word of it over the static that’s his own madness, deafening him, keeping him wild. He hears the slamming of car doors, though, sees more bold citizens charging at him. He takes out a magnum from some magic portal behind his back. (Where else could he be getting these weapons from?)

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 

Only four people drop. Clearly, Tom didn’t spend enough time at the shooting range. Brad is about to enter the Plaza Hotel. BOOM! CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. At least his last bullet went through Brad’s thigh. Brad tries to balance himself against the wall next to the revolving door when he probably should have fallen on the door itself and try to barricade himself in one of the partitions. Tom takes a switchblade from maybe one of his pockets and jams the blade in Brad’s throat.

The young man says something foreign—maybe a final prayer in an ancient language lost in history. Or maybe it’s just gurgling blood spilling from his neck hole. No time to figure out which, for Tom enters the plaza, looking for the last surviving rich boy.

In the Plaza’s foyer, Chet hides behind a modelesque-looking babe, holding her in place. She breaks free and pulls him forward so that he stumbles in front of Tom. He sees the angel of death, blood-soaked, eyes red like a demon from hell, and he falls to his knees and begs for his life. But Tom cannot hear Chet’s crying over the yelling of his chainsaw. A chainsaw! He pulls the goddamned thing from behind him like a looney tune. Looney tune. Looney. Loon. Atic. Lunatic. Lun. A. Tic. 

“I am a Lun. A. Tic,” Tom says.

Brum-brum-brum-brum-BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

The chainsaw slices through Chet’s head straight down the middle, the skull unfolding like a blossoming tulip, the blood spattering all over the beautiful mosaic flooring. A woman somewhere in the vicinity makes an indescribable, high-pitched sound that’s louder than the chainsaw, which he shuts off.

And Tom stands there, staring at the tulip as if he’s looking for something in it. A sign, maybe. Some sort of direction. A suggestion for what to do next. Any fucking thing.

Don’t lose your edge now, Tommy. You’ve already gone so far.

From the corner of his eye, Tom notices a girl, young, petite, blonde, no older than twenty. And soooo pretty. Where did she come from? Who is she with? Is she an influencer? Must be, or else she wouldn’t be in a fancy place like this. She probably buries her face in makeup and wears her cutest outfits just to record herself dancing and lip singing in her bedroom, making simps of us all. She looks nothing like that now but is still easy on the eyes, wearing jean shorts and a jean jacket over a pink tank top, not even bothering with so much makeup because she hasn’t started vlogging yet, and, oh God, she’s approaching Tom. Is his hair okay? Does he need a breath mint? How can he explain the blood all over his shirt in a witty way, just in case she asks?

“Many people go clueless when talking to their crush, especially when it’s their first time. Either they back off entirely and get friend-zoned or go all out confessing their feelings, eventually scaring them away. However, if you keep certain tips in mind, you can engage your crush in exciting conversations and get them to go out with you. Scroll down as we guide you on ways to talk to your crush and help you win them over.”

“Hi, my name is Tom—”

The influencer digs her thumbs into Tom’s eyes. He screams. He’s blinded, so he can’t see the other people in the foyer approaching him, the folks pouring in from outside. They all want a piece of Tom, and they’ll settle for a tooth or an ear or even a nostril. But they’re as greedy as a Black Friday mob, clawing into him, tearing apart his flesh and limbs with their bare hands like the savages they choose to become in the face of evil. They don’t bother to ask why he decided to hunt down those three boys in the Rolls-Royce or kill anyone who got in his way. 

But why did he do it, dear reader? Was he abused as a child by a parent or uncle? Or did his family die in a tragic plane crash that set him over the edge? Did his wife leave him and took the kids with her? Was he on drugs? Was he born a sociopath?

Who knows? It’s too late to ask him, anyway.