Short Story: Mr. Brown’s Perfect Plan

I originally wrote this five years ago while taking a writing class. Our prompt was to have an unreliable narrator. I had a lot of fun writing this one and getting to mesh my experiences growing up in "Old DC". This is also part of a greater work and introduces a character that defined most of my writing in 2011, Mr. Brown. I am currently reworking this piece and my other works from 2011 to create an anthology with a very dark thread holding these stories together. Let me know what you liked, what works, and what doesn't. Enjoy!

Mr. Brown’s Perfect Plan

I need to calm down.  Give me a sec, just give me a sec!  I will tell you everything you wanna hear I just need to take something to calm my nerves. Hold up a sec I have just the thing.  It’s in my pocket somewhere…ah here it is.  Let me put a little line on my finger and…sniff…sniff…okay! That’s better, now where should I start?  I guess everything changed when I met him.

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Back then DC was a much different place.  I used to be with Tony and his crew doing petty crimes, you know.  We would take a car radio over here, a VCR over there, life was good.  But you know what they say, nothing good eva lasts.  It started so small. You would see a white face pop out in chocolate city.  Then it was a white block.  Soon the strip clubs and liquor stores became bookstores and coffee shops.  And you know what the most fucked up thing was?  The police actually started to respond to 911 calls.  In a few years we went from making a killing jacking equipment to robbing from our own group just to make ends meat.  Tony was the first to go cuz since he was the leader, he had the most valuable stuff, you know, chrome wheels, diamond guns, he even had some art work at his house.  Don’t know if it was actually worth anything but we took it anyways. But that only floated us a couple of months. Things got bad. Then they got real bad. Most of us either locked up or start to pack up for the burbs until he showed up…Sniff…and that’s when shit really hit the fan. He gave us the most dangerous thing you can give a man; hope. We thought we had all been saved. We thought it would be like old times again

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Arno…I guess I shouldn’t use his real name, don’t want to wake his spirit.  Let’s just call him Mr. Brown.  Mr. Brown was different from the rest of us…yeah I feel fine, why?  Shit really?  Yeah my nose tends to blend when I ‘calm myself down’ just let me wipe it off.  Okay, where was I?  Oh yeah Mr. Braun… I mean Mr. Brown.  He was different, not like me and the rest of the crew.  I mean the cat was smart, not just street smart but he was educated and not community college educated. He went to a college college like Harvard or Yale, somewhere all the rich white people go so you know it’s a good education.  I mean the way he would talk and the things he would say made you think “why he was with us?”  I’m not saying that me and my crew are stupid or ignorant,  I got some high school and know how to read, but Mr. Brown could have easily been a CEO or a philosopher or something.  Whoops, my bad, forgot to mention that Tony’s crew became my crew. That’s just the way things go but that’s not important.  Anyways Mr. Brown came to us, don’t really know how he found us, and brought us a plan, a plan that would set us up for the rest of our lives.

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Being the leader, I was entitled to a few perks.  The best thing for me was getting to know Mr. Brown a bit better. Made him seem less like a ghost.  I found out that there was an art dealer who was at the top of Mr. Brown’s “No Friend” list.  I think the art dealer stole a girl from him or killed his daughter or something.  All I knew was that there was bad blood between them and it had to do with some girl.  I didn’t ask too many questions cuz I didn’t want to be on that list.  Though as I began chillin with Mr. Brown I realized that he must be some art dealer or something too cuz his house, nah more like mansion was filled with paintings, statues, and nice rides.  Shit his house was all the way out in Bethesda so I knew this guy was loaded. 

But none of that is important.  What was important was his plan.  He contacted us cuz he needed some people with experience moving things, and being from old DC that was all we knew how to do.  The plan was perfect, we had to boost some artifacts and paintings from the Smithsonian, and take it to a private runway out in West Virginia.  Mr. Brown had paid off the guards, some cops, and outfitted us with some serious heat in case anything went down.  He also said that we got to keep one hundred percent of the cut from the fence at the airport cuz he said we were taking one hundred percent of the risk.  I don’t know what he meant since he was gonna be  there with us but we weren’t complaining.  It was going so well until they got to the runway.  The Feds were waiting for them and a firefight broke out.  Mr. Brown took out six Feds before he fell…or so I heard.

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See I wasn’t at the museum or the runway cuz Mr. Brown had asked me to come to this address and tie you up.  By the looks of it you seem to be an art dealer too, and by the way you’ve been cussing me out you could easily make the number one spot on any list.  It doesn’t matter if Mr. Brown is ok or not cuz I got my instructions to follow.  Now I am tired of talking and I wanna hear your pretty voice sing.  Just let me take some more of my medicine…sniff…ah now the fun can begin.  What?  Is my nose bleeding again?  Hahahahaha.  Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.