Berserk
by Zvi A. Sesling
Ellsworth
Gadsby was one who was never satisfied. What bothered him was not being laid
off from work or his car being stolen, it was the rudeness of people. He enjoyed
reading in the New York Times that people were going berserk and
shooting innocent people on the streets of New York City. The first one managed
to shoot three with a pistol until a police officer shot him dead.
“Hey, you see
this,” he said to Snappy the Bartender at the Last Hope Lounge, pointing to the
front page of the Daily News.
“Snappy don’t
read the papers,” Snappy said, “but he does watch the screens in here. Nutbag
killed a few useless ones out there.”
“Yeah, useless
ones,” Ellsworth said.
Another killer
used an automatic pistol and got five City residents and three tourists before
his streak was ended by another heroic New York cop.
“Hey, Ell,
been gawking the tube, looks another dude outdid the first nutbag.”
“Yeah, sure
looks it. No one knows who or why.”
“Don’t matter
much who or why. He had a reason. Or maybe just wanted to clean up the city.”
Then a killer carried
an AK-47 and terminated the lives of twenty-three people before being brought
down by three police officers who put thirty-one bullets in him.
Ellsworth said to Snappy, “Hit
me with another
bourbon, this guy really did a job.”
“And the cops
did a job on him,” Snappy answered.
Ellsworth nodded. It gave him
an unbounded thrill
to read about the ever-increasing number of innocents cut down on the streets
of his otherwise all-too-routine city.
When the
morning Times arrived, Ellsworth was very disappointed that only four
New Yorkers had met their end at Broadway and 46th street before the
gunman was downed by one of the City’s finest.
Ellsworth decided he would seek
his fifteen
minutes of fame by knocking off as many as he could in Times Square. He managed
to procure three pistols, a rifle, machine gun and one dozen hand grenades.
Ellsworth
looked in the bathroom mirror and
said, “No need to shave anymore, my man, tonight you’re gonna make history.”
Times Square was
packed with people on a Saturday night just after the dinner hour and before
the theatres opened for their shows.
He drove there
in a rented car and parked on 8th avenue and 43rd Street,
proceeding to the famed center of the City, bearing two Beretta
M9A3 9mm Pistols, each holding 17 rounds, a machine gun,
and several hand grenades all hidden under his overcoat.
There
he proceeded with his diabolical plan, emptying his pistols into thirty-one
people. With his machine gun he fired into twenty more and used grenades. killing
everyone in one of the City’s finest restaurants, as well as Mambo Fast Food
and the Vernon Café.
He was finally
gunned down by twelve policemen firing 49 rounds, thereby setting two records:
most killed by a person going berserk and the most bullets needed to put down a
killer.
Snappy watched
it all on TV and, shaking his head, thought, And to think that nutbag had
his drinks here.
Zvi
A.
Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems
and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart
Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His
flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in
Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.
