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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1494559-Gangland-and-Gunshots
Rated: 18+ · Short Story · Crime/Gangster · #1494559
A struggle to be rid of a seemingly never ending problem
Sat at the back of the lecture hall he quietly considered his options. Pay up, and hopefully be rid of the problems for good. Or face it head on, and if he comes out on top he’d definitely be rid of it forever.
You see, the problem in this situation is that gangs from the other side of town have tormented Jay’s family for as long as he can remember. He himself had been the result of one of these awful events. His mother and her husband had been taken one night, the night of their anniversary. They’d been taken to an old warehouse, where one particular gang raped his mother. She was then forced to watch them cut her husband’s throat. However, when it came down to it, Jay had never been told this, so he never knew this dark secret.
By now, after an hour of consideration the lecture had ended and Jay remained alone in the theatre. A questioning voice came from the front…
“Yo, you coming Jay?!”
“Yeah, gimme a minute…” Came the response.
And there it was, back to thinking. After 20 years of constant abuse he was finally considering fighting back. But what to do… How to do it… These questions haunted his thoughts, always making him second-guess himself. Never fully deciding, nearly getting there and then being pushed back to the start.
With that he gave up, no point in thinking now, more important things to deal with. Slowly and casually getting up he walked to the end of the row, and down the stairs towards the door. In the distance the slam of an outer door could be faintly heard, people started screaming as gunshots bellowed through the hallways. The after lecture meeting had begun, but this…. This was different, sure, the slamming of doors was typical, but the gunshots meant something else…. Something else was happening.
“Where’s that bastard of a Half-Breed” Yelled an anger filled voice.
Again the firing of guns rang out, echoing down the hallways. By this point anybody in the way had either retreated to the nearest room, or dived behind cover. They all knew what was happening; Jay was the only one in the dark, although he had a slight idea.
Within five minutes the halls and corridors were lined with trigger happy, gun-clenching boys. Because that’s all they were, boys. All waiting, motionless for the word, at that bullets would ring out. But it never came. Instead, an older man walked through the doors; with two large men on either side, both holding shotguns. These were obviously protection, making this a rather important man.
He continued to walk, until he was right in front of Jay, almost nose to nose with him, and slapped him in the face. At this another man stepped shyly forwards and handing him a medium sized canvas sack. From this the older man took something out of it, with his back to Jay to prevent him seeing. He turned around to show Jay the head of his mother. Her face was etched with terror, she was clearly in extreme pain when she died, or to be more specific, brutally murdered.
“This is what happens when MY heir goes rogue… You were meant to inherit all of this, but now, you’ve forced my hand…”
Jay had heard and seen enough and with one swift movement forced his hand around the throat of the ‘boss’. Holding him hostage he spun him around holding his back tight to his own chest for protection. He screamed for the rest to drop their guns, but it didn’t happen, they just stood there, not saying anything. But more importantly, nobody fired a shot. In all honesty, nobody had any clue what to do.
“YOU, you violated my family!” screamed Jay.
“Boy, I am your family, as much as you are mine!” came the response.
That was it, the end for this man, those were the final words out of his mouth, next to the screams that left his lips as he was spun around to face Jay. He stared deep into his eyes as Jay ruthlessly dug his fingers into the side of his throat and tore it towards him. As his body dropped to the floor all that could be heard was a faint gurgling sound as blood poured from the deep wound. Again, everybody who surrounded did nothing, simply dumbstruck; having no idea what was taking place in front of them they had no idea what to do. Silence was all that was left for a moment, simply being broken by the click and subsequent bang as a bullet left the gun in Jay’s hand. The bullet ripped through the front of his own head, working its way backwards until it appeared through the back of the skull, splattered the pale door behind Jay with the contents of his head. Jay fell to his knees, completely lifeless, and those surrounding watch the life fade from his bright blue eyes. And there he fell, next to the body of the father.
There ended the bloodline of the family, the gang had no heir, no leader, nothing left. Over the coming weeks and months, it gradually fell apart, with people breaking off, living ‘normal’ lives, away from violence and destruction.

“You see, with Jay’s sacrifice he had achieved a far greater good, granted it came at the highest of costs, but it worked. Demonstrating that despite all the evil and cruelty in the world, good can triumph”
The lecturer was pacing the front of the lecture hall at this point, he knew that his time was nearly up. He looked up from the floor and scanned around the room, studying the faces of his listeners. Simply to discover if the last hour he had spent telling the story had actually had any effect on any of them, or if it was completely wasted.
“Now, the whole point of this example was simply to demonstrate the stupidity of becoming involved with gangs. Granted it may appear cool, but in all seriousness its foolish, and far from cool. Yes, I know in this story Jay did achieve good despite being involved but that’s a one off case, it’s a rarity. You won’t win, you could run forever, and you’ll still never be rid of them, they will be on your back until the day that you die, whether it is of natural causes, or by the hands of the gangs themselves. You can never escape one you are involved. Jay proves it, the only way out was through him taking his own life.”
“But surely he only got involved that way in the end because of the events that took place, ultimately out of revenge?” queried a student.
“Yes, perhaps some of his actions were out of revenge, obviously the murder of the ‘boss’ was purely this. But you have to remember, it was his own hand that took his life, it wasn’t forced upon him. Being involved in it was the death of him from the start; it would take over his life, and ultimately be the end of it. He didn’t have a choice, but you all do.”
He sipped from his glass of water and took a deep breath, he knew what was coming.
“Right, it seems we have run out of time. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you’ve learnt something. Dismissed.”
The room erupted with the sounds of students hurriedly packing their things away in an attempt to be out quickly. Only one thing was heard over the top of this. A student had stood up at the back of the lecture hall.
“We’ve warned you about this before, and you haven’t listened. Enough is enough,” They shouted.
The figure stood up to full height, and one single shot rang through the lecture hall, shortly followed by panicked screams…
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