Why, Honey?

Mom and her normal son are living a normal life in a normal suburb. But suddenly mom starts to worry about the son and even be afraid of him. The son starts to do very odd things and to act strangely.

It all started when the son and his friend put firecrackers in the mom’s and the son’s cat’s named Trudy ears and butt. Of course Trudy died. The woman who lived right next saw the boys doing that and told to mom about it. She couldn’t believe it and asked it from the son but he did not tell anything.

When the son got his own car he bought a shotgun and a knife and started to keep them in the car. One day the mom found a bloody shirt from the back of his car. There were also the gun and the knife. The son said that he had a ”bloody nose”. The son was always lying about everything and even about the little things which are not worth lying. He lied about his wages and work days and school things. And mom always find out the lies.

One day they had an argument and a fight. Because of the fight the son backed his things and left away. She and he never saw again face to face and never talked to each others again. Mom saw him on the TV and on the paper often ’cause he joined the marines, got himself in the politics and elected to governor. He became famous. Mom thought that she had better to move out, change her name and phone number. Because the son was now a powerful man and it would be easy to him to find his mom.

This short story was written as a letter. The letter was written by mom, but I did not find out to whom it was written. The text was quite easy to read but there were lots of ”would” and sometimes it was hard to read because of that. The text was not clean and straight. There were not dialogues. The text’s narrator was reliable and credible.

Full Stop

I decided to read a short story named ”Full Stop” which is written by Alecia McKenzie. The short story is in Open Road 5 and reading and writing about it is part of our course.

Full Stop is a story about old Grandmother Scottie who has raised Carmen and her little brother Richard. Carmen thinks that Grandma is her mother because she raised her. And relations with her mother (whose name is not given) is ice cold.

The story is told by letters. 73-years old grandmother Scottie and her grandchild Carmen are writing short letters to each others. They are telling about their living. The letters include just basic stuffs, like things about relationships and how they have been doing. Grandmother writes without any punctuation; commas or full stops. In every letter she sends greetings to Carmen’s husband Normy and concludes them with ”God Bless you”, because she is a Christian.

Along letters Carmen regularly sends her Grandmother money for specific purpose. The money is intended for paints, painter and burglar bars. Carmen wants to take care of Scottie because she thinks she’s her mom.

When Carmen was born, her parents were so young that they couldn’t take care of her, so that’s why grandmother has raised her. In the story Carmen is almost thirty years old and she haven’t ever seen her mother. So her mother is a complete stranger to her. Nevertheless, Carmen’s mother is continuously trying to contact her daughter by letters. Carmen isn’t happy about that because she doesn’t consider her as a mother.

Women have totally different versions of what has happened. In Carmen’s real mother’s opinion they made an agreement which grandmother has broke. The intention was that Scottie would have been kept Carmen for only a while until her parents get enough money to take care of her and her brother. Carmen’s mother thinks that Grandmother had been hiding children, because she don’t like their nonmember father. In Grandma’s point of view Carmen’s mother is a snake in the grass. She urges not to believe anything Carmen’s mother says.

I do believe that grandmother is right. Carmen’s real mother is clearly not have been interested about her children. Right after she had had her baby, she moved to another city and left Carmen to her grandmother. Though she was young and poor, its not normal to leave newborn just like that. I think she does’t have the right to keep in touch after such a long time.

Overall the sort story was quite simple but still interesting. It was easy to follow the text even though grandmother’s letters does’t contain any punctuations. It was a good story and I would recommend to read it.

Why, honey?

Mom has a son who has made a psychopathic acts. Her son was first normal child (expet for occasional outbursts) but at some point in his actions became really sick.

Years ago they had a cat named Trudy. Cat had crept into the neighbor’s yard so that it was ”cutted up”. Ears and ass hole was put firecrackers.  Neigtbour suggested that the author had run in the direction of their house. Mother didn`t first imagined that his son would have made such a creepy thing. When she realized that her son was lying and not anymore cared about Trudy he was sure that the boy was quilty.

Her son luying increasing. He claimed that he had been at work many times, but the mother later found out that he had ended work a long time ago. He lied already after the first day of him salary.

Even though son was very girfted at school he lied of field trip. He said he was on a school trip but later mom found out that the field trip was only later.

First he lied about the little things but sudden things changed bigger and bigger. One night  the son did not come home at all. The next morning the mother found his tailgate bloody shirt and a knife. The son said that he had a nose bleed but mom knew that he lied. When the mother asked the son why he is lying the son told her to kneel down when the mother ran to her room. After this she has not seen her son.

I think that the mother telling the truth. Each example is descriped very closely. Text to find out that the mother`s fear is real. It seems that the mother was not told everything whick make the text seem sinister. It also affects adjectives. I think that she written that because she wants that somebody to understand her. The story is very reliable bacause the mother has so many evidences which are closely narrated.

I suspect that the mother wrote to someone who also has doubts about her son. Or maybe he is someone who cares about the mother.

 

 

The Last Spin

The Last Spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter, a American writer specialized into crime fiction. It tells a story about two rivaling gangs, which are trying to get peace between each other by selecting one boy from both sides to play Russian roulette. That way they try to avoid fighting on streets. ¨

The main protagonist of the short story is Danny, a member in a gang that uses blue and gold jackets. Danny meets Tigo, a member of rivaling gang, in a basement. Boys state to each other that there is nothing personal in this event. The two boys have not even met before.

The boys begin the game with one bullet. Tigo offers to go first. He points the gun to his temple and fires, but there is no bullet in the chamber. He hands the gun to Danny, but again: no bullet in the chamber. The game goes on and on until Tigo decides to add one more bullet to speed things up.

During the game the boys are having a talk about girlfriends, their families, gangs, guns and army… The boys realize that they have more in common than it appears. Again Tigo ads one bullet, making the odds now 3:6. Still the game goes on. The boys start to think their lives and how they are controlled by the gangs. They decide that Danny is going to try one more time; if nothing happens, they would leave the basement and resign from their gangs and start a new life. Danny raises the gun to his forearm and fires. For Tigo’s horror, the gun fires, ripping away half of Danny’s head, shattering his face. The story ends as Tigo puts his face on the table and starts to cry.

Hunt’s story is more of a drama story rather than a crime story, which he is used to. Although it tells a story about gang members solving a conflict, it still focuses more into the growing friendship of the two boys. The plot itself is not very addicting as the key element, the Russian roulette, slowly sneaks into backgrounds.

Narration is often pretty straight forward, but you can find parts with quite a lot of description. Language of the story is quite is easy to understand.

Personally I don’t think that Ethan Hunt’s The Last Spin to be so wonderful. Still it is well written and quite entertaining.

 

The Last Spin

The Last Spin is a short story about two men whose gangs have chosen them to settle their disagreement’s by playing Russian Roulette. It is written by Evan Hunter who lived in New York where  the story takes place.

The story begins in a dreary basement where two men from enemy gangs ,Tigo and Danny, are preparing to start playing Russian Roulette. Before getting to the point they make clear that they have nothing personally against each other and then they start the nerve-wracking game of life. Tigo volunteers to go first. He squeezes the trigger but it clicks on an empty chamber. On Danny’s turn happens the same; it clicks. This happens again and again and again and then Tigo decides to add one bullet more to lower the odds .

During the game they have a conversation about their girlfriends, the army, guns, gangs and life…. When time goes by they realize that they actually have quite much in common. Soon Tigo decides to add a one more bullet. Now the chances are 3:6. At the same time Tigo suggests that they could tell the gang they don’t want to be a part of it anymore, get real friends and go for a rowboating on a lake just they and their girlfriends. Danny agrees him and they decide that Danny’s spin is going to be the very last one. He puts the gun to his head, pulls the trigger and against all odds the gun fires and Danny’s head rips off. The story ends Tigo putting his head on the table starting to cry.

The story is very compelling. When you once start reading it, you just can’t stop anymore. It has a very thrilling atmosphere, mainly because of the game; you never know when the fateful gunshot comes and to who. Of course the setting is ideal for creating the atmosphere; the dreary and dark basement where the gunshots echo. It reflects perfectly the death.

Hunter writes in a very descriptive and interesting way. For example “the lethal grace of the weapon” and “ a look of incredulous shock knifed his eyes” are very ingenious ways to express the matter. But still the text is mostly the two men’s dialog  which sometimes is quite hard to understand.

I didn’t expect the story to end up like the way it did; Danny shooting his head off and shattering his face in front of his new friend. I admit that it was quite thrilling to read it but in the same time, very depressing and shocking. I would recommend this story for everyone who would like to know a little about the life in gangs and who is not afraid of shocking and honest stories.

Why, Honey?

This novel tells about a mother who can’t trust her son and starts to afraid him. The boy (Hartley) can’t tell the truth to her and he gets outbursts sometimes. In the novel mother finds out unpleasant things concerning about her son. There are happening several uncertain things that Hartley can to be a part. For example the mother suspects that her son is guilty of their cat’s (Trudy) death. The neighbour saw two boys in the field putting firecrackers in Trudy´s ears and one of these two boys ran towards to their house.

Hartley got a job and he lied to his mother about the wage. He said that he earned 80 dollars, but mother found later a stub from his pocket, where read that the wage was 28 dollar for real. He lied also when he was going to show but mother found out later that he went to the school dance or spent the evening riding around with somebody in a car.

The mother supposed that Hartley was gone on a field trip and he told to mother about the trip and what was happen on there. Next day mother found a note from school, where they asked permission for a field trip.

The mother was gone to seek groceries on the Hartley´s car, but she found shotgun, knife and bloody t-shirt there. Hartley saw that and told his mother that it was caused by his bloody nose and told to throw it away.

Hartley was often nights away from home and that’s why mother worried about him. He got nervous for mothers caring.

Mothers worry was sometimes understandable because his boy never told truth and he acted strangely. Hartley felt that his mother was too carrying. Mother´s claims were justifiable and convincing. If I was his mother I would also have been worried about him and his doings.
I can imagine that mother says claims to Hartley assertively voice what makes it seem sinister.

In the last section mother asks from sender of letter where he get know her identity, because she wanted that nobody will find out that. She wanted that her son think that she was dead. She is afraid him so much.

Mother is writing letter to man who was taken contact to her. In the beginning of letter reads “Dear Sir” that refers to a man. I think that person would be her son, because of the last section´s writings. While in the beginning of letter, writer seems to be for example Hartley´s father.

I think that the narrator of novel is reliable and she tells her real feelings.

Written by Elisa

The Last Spin

The last spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter.

The story tells about two young guys, Tigo and Danny. They are from different clubs so they are supposed to be enemies. Their clubs have some things to settle, so Tigo and Danny need to play Russian roulette. That is a good way to settle problems because that doesn’t cause any law trouble or street fights. Danny and Tigo were picked up for this by accident; therefore they didn’t even know each other before this meeting. Tigo and Danny don’t have anything personal against each other.

Tigo and Danny meet in the basement. Tigo put one cartridge into the cylinder, twirled it and then the game began. Tigo said that he can start so that Danny could have a break. But actually Tigo seems to be as nervous as Danny. By turns they twirled the gun and fired it but they are lucky and nothing happens. Tigo added extra bullets to the gun because he wanted to end the game like his club told him.

During the game they have a conversation about their future, guns and their family. They also talk about their clubs. Tigo tells Danny that he doesn’t like his club members very much and Danny feels the same way about his own club. They realize that they have many things in common. For example they are both in their clubs just because they live in that area and they both like guns (and they know much about guns) and they would like to join the Army.

The game goes on and nothing happens. Tigo and Danny get to know each other better and they start liking each other. Now it’s harder for them to continue the game. Tigo suggests that they could stop the game. No matter what the club says. He wants to choose his friends by personality. Danny agreed and they decide to spin the gun for the last time. Before the spin they planned to go on the lake with their girlfriends next Sunday. Earlier they couldn’t think about the future because they didn’t know witch one is going to die. They were both excited about that they met by accident and now they have become friends. Finally a reliable friend outside the club.

Neither of them was scared about the last spin. They were so sure that nothing will happen that they didn’t even think about it. But they weren’t so lucky anymore. The gun fired the bullet at the last spin. Their friendship was over before it was even properly started.

All in all, the story was very good. At the beginning of the story Danny didn’t dare to close his eyes while pulling the trigger because Tigo was staring at him and Danny was scared that Tigo would do something to him. That’s kind of ironic because Danny should scare more the gun which was in his temple. I think Togo and Danny has joined their clubs because they didn’t have other options. Maybe they thought that if they don’t join the club, the members start molest them.

The language was quite colloquial and sometimes hard to understand. For example ‘’without a big street diddlebop, you dig?’’. But that style fit very well to the text. It would sound funny if those club members would speak a standard language. Language brings more credibility to the text. Writer has also use unusual words like club and piece instead of the better known gang and gun.

It was interesting and exciting to read the text and guess what’s going to happen next. The end of the story was surprising and sad.

written by meow

The Last Spin

The Last Spin is a short story written by Evan Hunter. It tells a story of two young men who are chosed to settle a conflict which is going on between their gangs, instead of all the gangs members taking part in a street fight. These two men, Danny, who is the main character of the short story, and Tigo, a member of the rival gang. Danny and Tigo have to settle their gangs’ disagreements by playing Russian roulette until one of them is dead.

The story develops as Danny and Tigo take turns pulling the trigger (at first there is only one cartridge in the sylinder) and everytime they pull it, they learn more from each other and start realizing that they do in fact have very much in common. Both of them have joined their gangs only because the gang was ruling the street they happened to live in. And either one of the boys didn’t even like their gang’s members. In the end they realize that they can choose their own friends. In the very beginning of the story Danny thinks of Tigo as his enemy only because he was told so and later on he realizes how stupid that is. I think this is one of the important things that the writer has wanted to bring up.The story is located in a dark basement, which creates an istant tension to it. And also the story’s concept is very interesting and it sucked me in during the very first lines. The tension rises trhoughout the whole story as Danny and Tigo add more cartridges to the sylinder. Thew plot progresses mostly through the dialogue, and they speak colloquial language, they use the word ”piece” for gun for example. They also speak of their  gangs as ”clubs”, which was pretty prominent.

In the end, Danny asks Tigo to come to the lake with him next sunday, this is a sign that they have become friends and also means that they will leave behind their former lives with their gangs. They make a deal that only one last spin will be made, with rather a sad consequense. I must say that this novel suprised me really positively, the characters were interesting and had much depth. It also tells how cruel life in a gang can be.

Short story: A Shocking Accident

The story begins when a little boy, Jerome is called into his housemaster’s room for a conversation with Mr Wordsworth. Mr Wordsworth tells Jerome that his father has died in a street accident in Naples, so of course Jerome asks whether his father was shot. Mr Wordsworth tells him that he died inexplicably when too a fat pig fell on him from a house’s balcony.

After telling about the accident Mr Wordsworth turns his back on Jerome because he smiles to Jerome’s father’s death’s circumstances which he obviously found funny. Jerome also told the story to some of her friends but before that, he practiced telling it so as not to make it sound ridiculous.

After his studies, Jerome got engaged to be married with Sally who loved kids. When she sees the old picture of Jerome’s father she wants  to know what really happened to him. While telling her, his aunt kind of says unintentionally that the pig fell on him. Sally was the one and only who didn’t laugh, which was surprising and this was the moment when Jerome started to love her more and more.

I found the story very odd partially because the subject matter but also because of its constrained humor. I had to read the text many times to totally understand it but I don’t think I still know exactly what it was about. I prefer reading books or magazines instead of this kind of short stories with strange plots but a positive thing is that I didn’t have to read longer text with this topic, so there was something positive in this exercise too.

The Last Spin

I chose The Last Spin, it’s written by Evan Hunter. The story tells about two guys, Danny and Tigo. They are from two different gangs. Their gans’s have a problem to solve and they chose Danny and Tigo to solve it. They solved it gang’s style; alternately they put the barrel to their temple and pulled the trigger. While they were pulling the trigger they talked to each other and started to like each others. When they decided to stop the game and Danny pulled last time, his wasn’t so lucky anymore and he died.

Danny and Tigo ultimately decided that they shouldn’t pleased their own gang members. They realized they should live their lifes like they want not the way what the others wants. So they stopped ”playing” with the gun and do the final round. But their decision never came true.

The colloquial language I could find in the story was slang. For example ”I dig” = ” I like” or ”chick”= ”girl”. Using slang makes the story more convincing because the clubs or any other people usually don’t speak literary language in the conversation between two equal persons. Also that Hunter use the slang revitalized the short story.