Dead Presidents

Three 9/11 War veterans in symbolic Detroit find themselves immersed in the heist-consciousness of conflict-diamond depression.

Here's a poignant heist-depression story I've been crafting ever since being truly moved by the modern noir culture film Dead Presidents, an exposition really on American diaries. Enjoy (signing 0ff),  

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Detroit is such an iconic US city, the home of the burgeoning and once immaculate American auto industry and now home to the fans of the Detroit Lions (NFL) and Michigan Wolverines (NCAAF). Yes, Detroit is therefore the location of our unusual tale of three ethnic minorities caught up in the maelstrom of war, life, and of course, a desperation American robbery. Follow along.

The three protagonists are future Michigan students who want to pursue careers in education and the arts and one wants to be a local happy post office man. The artist in the trio dreams of creating anime images of great damsels in Detroit future being rescued by robot-horse riding cops. Yeah, these three protagonists are typical American young men dreamers, with images of art and imagination in their heads.

One young Detroit ethnic minority protagonist is Matthew. He's a future teacher or seeks to be a future teacher, perhaps at the University of Michigan where he played tight-end for the Wolverines in college. He's a real enthusiastic young man, and his two buddies have grown up with him in Detroit.

Amlan is the second guy, an Algerian-American who dreams of being the anime artist mentioned earlier. Amlan wants to study arts and create online graphic art for fans and consumers. His style of life is one of casual daydreaming and anime storyboarding. He never thought he'd head into the drama we'll be exploring in this short story in Detroit. Amlan's a great guy otherwise.

Chris is the third and final protagonist. He wants to be a post office man in Detroit and live with his mom and hopefully find a nice girl to marry in Detroit. Chris is got a sharp sense of humor and creates emotional balance for the trio of young men. Matthew and Chris are Afro-American, while Amlan is Algerian-American. They're a trio representative of the demographic diversity of modern Detroit. Chris is into dressing like a street dude and likes hip-hop music.

The three are drafted into the Afghanistan War after 9/11. They find themselves banded together on the frontlines of the US engagement with the Middle Eastern terrorists responsible for the devastation of the World Trade Center in NYC. Matthew, Amlan, and Chris are now in the raw hellmouth of modern American global warfare and thinking about what comprises the real gruntwork of mental survival. This is not the life they dreamt. This is a life of hard service and hard knocks.

When the trio are finally sent home at the end of their rotation-course of the battle in the Middle East, they find themselves as 30-something veterans of this awful war on terrorism in the new era. They attempt to readjust to life everyday in Detroit, Michigan. Amlan is clearly shell-shocked, but his two buddies Matthew and Chris try to keep him mentally cheerful and energetic. Amlan takes the metro in Detroit everyday to work at his law firm where he works as a quiet clerk.

Chris did get a post office job after all, but he's addicted to morphine now. He's spending lots of time drinking and staying out late at night. It's rumored that he's been having a cheating affair with Amlan's Indian girlfriend Padme. Padme's been frustrated at Amlan's lack of responsivity since coming home from war and seeks the comforts of Chris' warm arms. Chris meanwhile wonders if Padme is what he needs right now!

Matthew once dreamt of being a teacher but now works as a security guard at the Flagstaff Bank in Detroit. He's seeing a regular Detroit prostitute named Melanie. He's got the crazy notion he's going to ask her to marry him. This is his new life after the 9/11 War.

Amlan didn't get into the anime art he dreamed he liked but instead is collecting amateur works of neo-classical vintage American period paintings online and re-selling them as a merchant middleman. Amlan is more-or-less happy selling artworks online but still harbors an eerie feeling that unrequited dreams have yielded a depressing form of obsession with this side-activity, selling art online.

MATTHEW: I told Amlan I might take that teaching job at the university campus, to see if he's motivated to do likewise!

Amlan agrees to go to this Michigan Wolverines basketball game with Matthew and Chris. They have some fun and remember good times before the War, but during the game, Amlan comes up with an instant scheme.

MATTHEW: I gave Amlan my Detroit Lions Matthew Stafford Topps rookie-card, so he'd simply cheer up, man!

CHRIS: I gotta figure out if Amlan actually wants to marry Padme or keep shifting her aside for me to take to social events.

AMLAN: We're going to rob the Flagstaff Bank in Detroit where Matthew works now as our inside-man and tape the plan.

Amlan procures three authentic self-assembling silencer-handguns with aiming scopes on the Internet for the trio. They're to enter the Flagstaff Bank with the alarms destabilized the night before by Matthew's break-in with key and computer program scrambling. The guns will represent their willingness to seem both martial and sneaky!

AMLAN: I love Detroit, but we're going to lift Antwerp diamonds from safe-box #445, belonging to a corrupt Detroit baron.

The thieves enter masked on the heist day with the alarms malfunctioning. They show their guns to the entrance guards and request being escorted quickly to the safe-box area. Chris holds the guard hostage while Amlan and Matthew open the Detroit baron's safe-box with the manager's key to switch his Antwerp diamonds with fake ones. They order the manager to keep this entire switch a secret.

The baron is busy giving a speech at a commerce conference on the value of conflict diamonds in the modern world bridging South Africa and Europe. When he inspects his safe-box, he sees that diamonds are inside, but he's unaware still they're fakes. The baron wonders about expanding his conflict diamond enterprise to incorporate another US city, perhaps Chicago.

Amlan, Matthew, and Chris made off with $20 million Antwerp diamonds from the Flagstaff Bank in Detroit that day.

AMLAN: We're going to trade diamonds-for-cash for our private new online Swiss account which we'll all share!

CHRIS: Man, I hope at least this crazy diamond heist will bring our buddy Amlan back down to Detroit, man.

In the local news, the video-recording of the bank heist of the Antwerp diamonds shows three non-descript young men in face-masks hiding their facial features. They're all in hoods and shown to be moving quite fast. The police are baffled, but when the Detroit baron discovers his safe-box diamonds are fakes, he wonders if the thieves were responsible. The thieves after all stole about $2 million in regular cash from a safe-box not belonging to the baron that day.

These three jaded 9/11 War veterans ended up becoming typical or proto-typical American thieves. Their diamond heist was immersed in the controversial modern underground blood diamond or conflict diamond matrix. Is this a tale of American depression...or American dogma?

The thieves are never caught, and Amlan uses some of his profits to take his now-wife Padme to Tahiti. The trio reunite on the island and dream about what their life would've been if they're never drenched in the modern anti-terrorism war which has shaped so many modern American daydreams and decisions. This is a story of American darkness.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)