Gang of Thieves: A New York Fable

The Furies, led by wily Artful, are a modern-day post-Coronavirus New York gang, being written about by the leader's sister who finds the gang quite iconic!

Here's one more thief-story, and this one's more like The Gangs of New York or Newsies, but it still speaks to my Dickensian fascination with theft and thieves! I hope you like this very last one. Signing off (stay safe my friends during what is hopefully the final stages of this Coronavirus tribulation in the USA!), 

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My name's Isaac. I'm the leader of a gang of thieves in New York City called the Furies. I wear various disguises, and I lead the Furies through the city streets at night, in packs, as we roam around as pure and skilled thieves. The purpose and mission of the Furies is to spread the notion of survivalism and skilled theft and the avoidance of violence at all costs. Only in emergency, do we wield our silver handguns, purchased in the underground market with the money we steal. We rob banks, and we take mostly and only cash and jewelry, though a few armored-truck heists yielded some bearer-bonds which we sold on the black market. My Furies call me Artful, so that's my alias!

FURIES: "New York is a hell-hole since the days of the great Coronavirus quarantine tribulation, and there are dark pirates and hellraisers who prowl in the moonlight as rapists and brutal murderers, since most of the police have been paid off by druglords and corrupt municipal officers, which is why we consider ourselves the poets of the enduring vitality of what has become a 'dystopian' New York."

We Furies are great thieves. We steal for profit and we use money to decorate the streets every Halloween. We've come to be respected as a very aesthetic modern-day NYC gang. We care about the Halloween ornaments we raise with our stolen money. None of our members have been arrested for our thefts and bank robberies, however, two of our members were shot and killed during two heists. We even stole jewelry from a major NYC crime-boss one time. The Furies consider me, Isaac ('Arftul') their unrivaled spiritual guru, but we have a real rival in the other New York gang, the Brutes, who are led by the masked and merciless steroids-pumped monster named Bane. I hate Bane. He looks like an ex-NFL freak.

ISAAC: "I'll find a way to undo Bane and his Brutes in this great city, and if that means we have to coordinate a special bank robbery from which we use money to buy special weapons and explosives to chase out the Brutes from their abandoned movie-theater lair and then blow it up or steal all their treasures and then execute Bane himself, that's what I'll do with my Furies; our pure goal is to make New York unsullied by diseased forces such as Bane and infiltrate the Brutes' lair somehow, and that's why you can find me in doctored disguises."

The Furies worship the Hindu god of destruction named Shiva. He wears thick hair and prays and meditates in the forest like a hermit, though he's in love with the younger goddess Saraswati, goddess of learning. The Furies believe this Shiva-Saraswati dualism in religion and metaphysics speaks to Artful's goal to undermine the chauvinistic brutality of Bane and his force in modern New York. The Furies entreat Shiva for great spiritual and ideological dystopian strength...and diction!

Since my Furies call me 'Artful' and believe I'm a poet, I recruit homeless orphans and wayward youngsters in New York to serve as the Furies' special messengers and pickpockets. We're the new street poetry gang, and our kids are the real shadow-army for our war with Bane and his Brutes. I consider my friendship and loyalty to kids and youngsters endemic of the Furies' commitment to New York dance.

My girlfriend is Hellcat. She likes carrying those classic Oriental paper-umbrellas. She does so especially during Halloween. I love her. I protect her from Bane.

My sister is Asha. She's a writer. She's writing a special New York novel called The Furies, which is really superior to anything Herbert Asbury or Charles Dickens has produced, we believe. I can't wait to help her market her novel about us in the underground as well as in the overland.

FBI: "We're chasing those dastardly Furies as best we can, since their unconfirmed leader 'Artful' we believe organized the Halloween robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan, involving a trio of bandits marching in with plastic guns and masks and claiming they were Coronavirus democrats!"

We furies decorate our sacred residences with terrific Halloweentime decorations, since we celebrate the American love and romance with masquerade, ornaments, street fare, street clowns, street performers, and of course, New York theatricality.

ASHA (FURIES WRITER/ARTFUL'S SISTER): "The Furies are really the poetry of a romance in New York with the social 'cadence' of urban depression, which is what makes their dystopian yet undoubted leader Artful a real darkman; ironically, they remain steadfast to their dictated mission to remain simply and completely...thieves."

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)

Reviews

[Kari Rakitan]

Belonging to a group is a powerful human instinct, so it makes a lot of time to desire a group like this, especially in a time when many of us are physically separated from our groups.