Short Fiction

Don’t I mean “The Gangster Way?” With the growth over the last two decades or more of popularization of organized and street crime, I have decided to title this new short story in the spirit of that movement. It is amazing how much we have popularized the world of the gangster. We have an entire music industry built around songs dedicated to its drugs, violence, and abusive dehumanization of people. We have novels and television shows built around its culture and perceived prosperity.

Inner city teachers fight with the gangster image and with the street gangs whose “soldiers” sit in their classrooms (some who are not even teenagers yet)—if they come to school. Some parents and many community leaders try new things to steer America’s future talent away from that world. Yet, we still see our youth being “jumped in.” Despite all these efforts, the US military have tried to break the gangs whose soldier’s enlist “to serve Uncle Sam.” Sometimes it works, other times these gang bangers feed the street war with military arms. What all these social institutions are really against is the idea that these youth only have two routes in life: “Work the corner selling drugs, or work the corner restaurant washing dishes.”

The short story, “The Gangsta Way” is intended to look at two sides of the war on gangs and organized crime. One aspect is the gangster and his culture of abuse and violence. The other is not just the normal police officer or “strike team” meant to wrestle the gang off the street. The other side is the police officer who fights the gangs in the shadows and the darkness. These polices officers are intelligence officers. They conduct surveillance. They go undercover. They are spies. These officers live in even more danger than any clandestine officer counterpart that spies in a foreign land—for they are in the cities where they live.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for the latest updates and blogs about the stories I am working on.