Sandra K. Friday
Perhaps “The Last Spin” by Evan Hunter should be the next story the students read because it is a very gripping story about two teenage, newly recruited gang members who are picked by their respective gangs to settle a dispute between the gangs by playing Russian roulette in the cold basement of an abandoned house in New York City. Although the story is nearly ten pages long including illustrations, ninety percent of it is dialogue between the two main characters, Dave and Tigo, and once you begin reading, you can’t put it down, while they sweat it out alone in the basement.
While Dave and Tigo are equally important characters, and one could focus on either of them as the main character who undergoes a very significant change, it isn’t until the very end that the reader learns that only one of them survives the harrowing drama. The final moments are dramatic, and the reader can only speculate on whether Tigo, the survivor, actually learned anything from his tragic experience, or whether and to what extent it may have changed his life. This, of course, allows the students to engage in a discussion as to what they think happened to the survivor. If he does want to change his life, as he says, and get out of the gang, trying to get out of a gang might be tantamount to digging his own grave. Perhaps
both
boys are doomed. Perhaps the outcome of the interaction to which they initially agreed as gang members can only have a bad ending.
We don’t know whether Tigo learned from his traumatic encounter, but we can assess what the
reader
is able to learn from “The Last Spin.” It may have been too late for Dave and Tigo; I don’t know. But, it may not be too late for some of my students to expand their own thinking. “Why do young men and women join gangs? Can one get out? Is being a member of a gang worth dying for? To what extent are gang members allowed to think for themselves? Could Dave and Tigo have said that they didn’t want to play Russian roulette? Are the advantages of being in a gang greater than the disadvantages?”
It is conceivable that students could complete graphic organizers on character changes for
both
Dave and Tigo because both undergo significant changes in the basement, as they haltingly take turns, adding cartridges, spinning the cylinder, and pulling the trigger.
The opening line of the story is, “The boy sitting opposite him was his enemy.” Each of the boys wore a jacket that “shrieked enemy, enemy!” (Hunter, 143) But, they are only enemies because they belong to warring gangs, and Tigo makes this clear in the first couple of pages, “You understand,” Tigo said. “I got no bad blood for you. . . . I don’t know you from a hole in the wallexcept you wear a blue and gold jacket.” Dave is not so conciliatory in his response to Tigo, “And you wear a green and orange one,” Dave said, “and that’s enough for me.” (Hunter, 144) So, it appears, at the outset, that the boys allow their identities to be determined by the gangs to which they belong. As the story unfolds, however, it becomes profoundly clear that Evan Hunter is uncovering, through the boys’ conversation, the deeper layers that make up Dave and Tigo’s far more complex identities.
Gradually, between spins, and probably prompted by fear and anxiety, they begin talking to one another, at first about the basic facts about where they’re from and how many brothers and sisters they each have. Of course as they take turns with the gun, the tension builds, as they keep adding cartridges, increasing the chances that one of them will kill himself. From revealing to one another that they are both from Puerto Rico, and that each has siblings, they begin talking about their mothers, both of whom were born “on the island,” and then they move on to their girlfriends. It happens that Dave knows Tigo’s girlfriend, and he agrees with Tigo that his girlfriend is “Nice!”
As the story and the turns progress, they begin talking about the guys in their gangs, and they admit that they don’t really “dig” any of them. “None of them really send me, but that’s the club on my block, so what’re you gonna do, huh?” (Hunter, 150) Hunter is artful in the way he brings the two boys to the point where they agree to one more spin and then they’re going to quit. They have taken several turns each. They finally get to the point where they agree when this is over they will rent a boat and take their girls out on the nearby lake, after the “last spin.” Many subtle and substantial changes take place in the characters of the boys from the beginning of the story when they first confront each other, impersonally, in the basement, to the final moments. Perhaps there in the basement, confronted with their mortality, they discover their humanity; maybe for the first time each glimpses the possibility of friendship, maybe simply a glimpse at individuality.
As the students undertake filling out the graphic organizers on the character changes in Dave and Tigo, and why they changed, I am excited to anticipate what we may learn about their identities that brought them to the basement, and then the revelations that each experienced that nearly freed them to become friends. Yet, there remained an allegiance to the code of the gangs that kept them in that basement one spin too long. Once they decided that they were going to take their girls out on the lake together, why didn’t they just jump up and leave the place? Would that have been as realistic as the actual outcome? Taking their girls out together is, practically speaking, as unrealistic as walking away from their respective gangs . . . more a vision of what might have been if neither was imprisoned in a gang sub-culture.
My students should have an interesting time making connections with many aspects of the characters of Dave and Tigo. It reminds me of the sign with big print over my classroom door, “CAN I CHANGE MY MIND IF I WANT TO? I WANT TO!” How easy is it to change one’s mind when the stakes are high?
Writing assignment
There is a wide range of possibilities to which the students may gravitate for their writing activity following this story. Truly, the possibilities will emerge only when they have made their way through the story, the graphic organizers, and discussion of the crisis and characters of Dave and Tigo, as well as reflect on what, as readers, they saw and learned as these young men gradually changed their minds about how they thought about and interacted with each other. Topics might range from: Why do people join gangs; is it for personal friendships? How does one choose which gang to join; is it just a matter of location as it was with Dave and Tigo? What if one decides he wants out of a gang? What might make someone decide he wants out? Have you known anyone who wanted out? Why did he want out? What happened?
Another topic for discussion that prominently figures as a result of reading Hunter’s story is, “Seeing how the characters of Dave and Tigo develop
beyond
being merely members of gangs, does gang membership liberate one to be him or her self, or does it limit these possibilities?” This consideration will undoubtedly generate discussion, and stimulate thinking as students bring their own life experiences and observations to this writing activity.