The Last Spin is short story written by Evan Hunter and it has been published in Open Road Course 5 in year 2009.
The story tells about two guys, probable gang members, solving their problems by gang’s methods. The guys, Danny and Tigo, are members of rival gangs and their groups are expecting them to solve the dispute in a way which will end up fatally, Russian roulette. While pulling the trigger the guys had a conversation which brought them closer to each other. They nearly became friends and they even planned founding a new group together. However, Danny’s pull was his last act, he shot his head off with a pull that they agreed will be the last.
The language used in this short story has some gang slang words and expressions. For example “pieces” , “chicks” and “I never seen you neither”. Also, Danny is from Bronx where is a lot of gangs and which also has an influence to the language. The particular language causes that the story feels more like a underground or mafia story. The language also makes the story more interesting.
Danny and Tigo are enemies just because they belong to different gangs. They hate each other even they have never met which tells something of the power of a gang. They don’t know life outside a gang but they started thinking that things could be different. While pulling the trigger, the guys discussed about their feelings of belonging to a gang and it seems that they are just used to be part of a gang and neither of them are happy. It seem that both guys fears but they don’t want to show it. At first they wanted to look tough and harsh but step by step they are revealing their emotions. They even talked about their girlfriends and planned a Sunday trip on the lake together.
In my opinion the short story was nicely written and interesting. It ended dramatically which suits this type of story. It feels that this could have been a real life story.