Dec '25 (edited) • General discussion
I Told Them I'd Be Rich Someday
PART 1- THE WHY
William "Tell" Thompson was a rebel by nature. It coursed through his body like a fire that would never go out. It burned eternal, like the flame of Olympus.
He joined the NAVY, not out of patriotism, although he did believe wholeheartedly in the beauty, truth and also the hypocrisy of the United States of America. He was a man of a certain type of attribute: perseverance.
He was born and raised in a small town on Lake Erie by the name of Huron. Situated on the bank of Lake Erie, a literal stones throw from the Canadian border. He loved the water. Lived for the water. Worshipped the water.
Huron was a tourist town, no more than 20 miles from the most famous theme park in the world, Cedar Point.
He wasn't born into wealth, quite the opposite. He grew up with limited money, second hand clothes and was made aware of his stature at every turn through school.
He met and married his Highschool sweetheart. AJ Selby. Love was at first sight and they were married as soon as they graduated.
His Father had passed away at a young age, of course because of the dreaded "C" word, and his mother never fully recovered. She took her own life when he was 18.
She walked into the frigid, frozen waters of the lake, and her body was never discovered.
Tell drowned his sorrow in typical fashion: heroin, alcohol, cocaine and as many fights as he could get into.
He didn't care if he won or lost, he just wanted to feel the pain, to know he was alive.
Because of the love, grace and unflinching determination of his wife, he was able to pull out of it, and before long they were the parents of a beautiful baby girl. They named her Leo, because she was born on August 17th and was as fierce as a little Lion.
The joy of father hood and because of the responsibility of his little Lion, he decided he would join the NAVY.
He scored ridiculously high on the ASFAB, with exceptional high scores on diving.
At this time the NAVY was launching experiments in saturation diving, a type of deep water extreme diving duration under ridiculously high pressure exposure and quite deadly. Tell signed up without a second thought, and before long was shipped to San Diego.
While the BT was brutal, he excelled exceptionally.
It wasn't long before his CO, a man amongst men, Delano Burgess, realized his potential and took him to the side and said to him,
"Tell, I believe you've gotta be the toughest, most intelligent sum bitch I've seen in this pathetic excuse of recruits, I've had the pleasure of training. Why don't we go off base, go to Diego's Nightclub and have a few cocktails? There is something I'd really like to discuss with you."
Tell, at fear of offending his CO, agreed and they went to the bar.
Diego's Nightclub was the most popular nightclub in the area. Frequented by NAVY corpman it was a rough and tumble establishment. Fights broke out constantly, women were everywhere and the booze was cheap, and the cocaine plentiful.
Having been sober for quite sometime, and believed to be able to control it, he participated, not only to not offend his CO, who was quickly becoming more of a friend, but to blow off some steam and cut loose.
Delano began to give him some advice, as intoxicated as it was.
"Tell, I like ya. Youre smart, ballsy, fearless and a leader by nature. What are you gonna do for a living when you're done with the NAVY?"
Tell thought for a moment, slammed his whisky, snorted a line and told him the truth.
"Del, I have no idea!", he laughed.
Delano laughed as well and said, "I got an idea for ya, how bout underwater welding? It pays well and you can do what you love, dive. I won't lie to you , it is extremely dangerous, and the pay reflects that. However there are other ways to make a lucrative living underwater."
Delano left it at that.
Four years passed, Tell was honorably discharged and returned to his home town, his wife and his daughter.
It wasn't long and he took a job on a barge. The pay was absolute shit. Not the thick, hard type either. The runny type, that no matter how hard you wiped, you just couldn't get it all. And his pension was no better.
It wasn't long before his wife began to tell him it wasn't enough.
He had to come up with a plan. A plan to set his family up for life. A plan that he didn't care if it was legal or not.
He began to think, and think hard.
There were two types of people in this world, the ones who took and the ones who got taken. And he'd be god-damned if he was gonna be the latter.
He began to rack his brain.
"I'll be damned if I get taken.", he thought to himself.
"I'll be god-damned if I get taken."
Part two-The Plan
The Show Boat was a restaurant in Huron, that at one time was the place to be. Situated on the river, mere miles from Cedar Point and Saw Mill Creek, which was the most luxurious hotel, for the rich and famous in the area.
The Show Boat, was literally an old decommissioned river barge turned into a bar and restaurant.
Most locals frequented it and Tell and his partner Carrol Burrows enjoyed drinking there and laughing at the "privileged" patrons
" How much money you think that asshole has in his pocket Tell?, Carrol asked.
"Enough to buy the both of us.", he quipped back.
They laughed. They drank. And they planned.
Carrol was the one who actually came up with the idea.
"Who has all the money,Tell? The banks. Millions of notes, coins, safety deposit boxes, the list goes on."
Tell thought for a moment and said, "Yeah, that's true, however what's your point?"
Carrol looked around. Over his shoulder. To the side. Making sure no one could hear him.
"My point is", he whispered," who's to say we can't rob one."
Tell laughed and rolled his eyes.
"I think you've had enough to drink.", he said smiling.
"No, listen to me Tell, shut your mouth and listen and hear what I'm saying. The First Federal of Loarin is less than 200 feet from the lake. How deep is it there?"
Tell thought atfor a moment.
"I don't know exactly but I'd have to say atleast 50ft to get those barges and tugs through."
Carrol looked Tell in his eyes and said coyly, "How long can you hold your breath?"
Tell laughed again, and said"What the fuck are you even talking about right now?"
"Tell, listen and truly hear what I'm about to say to you. Do you you wanna be welding underwater your whole life? You know it's a matter of time before something goes wrong, and then what about Leo and AJ? They'll get a pension, a finance, barely enough to live on. And the worst of all, no father, and no husband."
Carrol called the bartender over to settle the check, bought a six pack for the road and asked Tell to take a walk with him.
They walked down the pier, the clear crisp night was like delicious food for their senses.
They got to a certain point and Carrol said, "Look how close that bank is to the lake. A man could rob that bank and run to the lake in less than five minutes. Now, he could get on a boat, and maybe get away, however they'd have the police and the coast guard looking for them. It's not a viable plan. However, a man with your skill sets, training and contacts, could hide under that lake, for as long as it takes, with the right amount of gear and oxygen, correct?"
Tell didn't know what to say. The idea intrigued him, however Carrol had no concept of saturation diving. No concept of the bends, hypomania, equipment failure and a whole slew of other things that could and would go wrong, to be down there for too long.
Tell told Carrol, "You're outta you're goddamn mind. You think, we could rob a bank, run to the lake, and dive underwater to evade capture? For how long? Do you understand what prolonged saturation diving can do to your body and your mind? And that's not counting, eating, oxygen flow, weather and a slew of other variables. It's ridiculous, now I know you're drunker than a skunk!", he laughed.
Carrol, on the other hand was not smiling at all. The look in his eyes was one of determination and defiance .
"Tell, you were the best in your class, you were discharged honorably with commendations for your capabilities. Hell, I heard your Sargent tell you that you were the best goddamn diver he ever saw. That's not something that man would say lightly.
I set a diversion on the other side of town, a fire, a car wreck, a bomb threat, something to get them all over on the other side of town. And that's when you walk into the bank, masked, armed and demand every single dollar, and lockbox in that fucking place. And I mean, every one. Well use an industrial wagon to pull that weight, because it damn sure won't be light. We set up a small boat for you, already loaded with your diving gear, oxygen and food, enough for 24 hours, by then, they should be looking anywhere, but underneath the lake. When the 24 hours have passed, under the cover of night, you release a balloon to show me your location. We then use other flotation devices to raise the money and lock boxes to the surface. You get into the boat, we drive to the cove, bury the money and lay low for a year. When all the hub bub has passed, we go collect our bounty."
Carrol was smiling from ear to ear.
Tell was not.
"It wouldn't work.", he said.
"Why the fuck not?," Carrol said.
" Too many variables, you idiot. What if some one gets tough? I'm not killing any one."
Carrol smiled again.
"I've already thought of that, you tell them we know their names, homes, children's names, schools they go to, hell, even their goddamn dog, and if the so much as make a peep, we'll kill every one of them."
"I just told you I'm not killing anyone, Carrol. I fucking mean it."
"Tell, it's intimidation, we're not killers, however they don't know that. And why would they be willing to die for the banks insured money?"
They sipped their beers and looked at the lake and river leading to it.
Tell looked at Carrol and said, "When do we start?"
Carrol laughed and hugged Tell so hard he was already trying to squeeze that money out of him.
" I knew youre a smart man Tell, I don't care what anyone else says about you."
They laughed, finished their beers and enjoyed the beautiful calmness. The calmness before the chaos.
Part Three- The Heist
Carrol and Tell had been watching the bank, day after day, for about two months.
They knew the shift changes, the cash pick up and drop off timing.
They knew where the cameras were located. Where the panic buttons were.
They knew the manager, a man named Neihls Hawking, lived in a duplex with his wife, Eleanor, two sons, Hector and Zeus, aged twelve and four teen.
Hector went to school at McCormick Middle School and Zeus went to Huron High School. Both got good grades and we're active in sports and school activities.
The three tellers, Meredith, Julia and Allison, all lived in Huron.
Meredith on Ohio Ave. Julia on West Dr. Allison on Sycamore Lane.
All three married, all three with children.
Tell and Carrol knew they wouldn't be a problem.
There were no armed guards. In the sleepy little town of Huron, crime was something that happened very rarely.
They had stashed a small dingy, three thirty pound cannisters of oxygen, diving gear and liquid food, by a little known beach called The Cove.
The distraction they had settled on would be a fire at The Show Boat. Carrol would set the fire, while Tell would enter the bank, pistol in hand and grab all the cash and lock boxes he could carry and fit into his wagon.
They decided they would do it on a Friday, after the cash drop but before the pickup.
The next Friday morning, they woke up early, spoke little and ate nothing.
Carrol asked, "You ready for this?"
Tell looked him in the eyes and said nothing, but nodded that he was indeed ready to do this shit.
"Now, remember you don't enter the bank until the sirens are screaming. It's crucial that all of them are on the other side of town."
Again Tell said nothing and just nodded.
"Alright. Let's fucking go."
Carrol hopped in his car and headed to The Show Boat. Two cans of gasoline in the trunk of his car.
Tell hopped in his bicycle and headed towards the bank.
When Carrol got to The Showboat, no one was there.
Good, he thought to himself. No witnesses. No victims.
He splashed the gasoline on the front and back doors and then spread the rest around the restaurant.
He stepped back about twenty feet.
He took a zippo from his pocket.
He took a deep breath, and exhaled it slowly.
He struck the zippo and threw it onto the gas.
The fire took off instantaneously.
He ran to his car and drove to the payphone down the road aways. He got out and called 911 and reported a fire at The Showboat. He hung up the phone and wiped his prints off the receiver.
Within moments he heard the sirens.
He looked back at the fire, which had now turned into an inferno, resembling something Dante would admire.
He thought to himself, "Tell, the rest is on you brother, don't fuck this up."
Tell knew that this was going to work, he could feel it in his bones. Almost like his whole life has been leading up to this.
The wagon was already stashed by the bank.
He ditched his bike in the woods by the beach.
He walked up to the bank doors, took a deep breath, and pulled the mask over his face.
"This is it", he thought to himself.
"This is when I get mine"
He kicked the bank doors open with a force like a battering ram, and stormed into the lobby. He fired three shots in the air, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Everyone get on the fucking floor right now! I'm not fucking around, I will shoot every one of you in the fucking face!!"
The tellers, crying, screaming and terrified, hit the floor immediately.
Niels Hawking, however did not. The fear on his face was obvious. He was not a tough guy, and had been in no way trained for this sort of thing.
Tell stormed up to him, got inches from his face, put the pistol to his temple and said calmly, "I know exactly who you are Neils Hawking, I know where your kids go to school, I know where your wife works. Open that fucking safe, all the teller boxes and open the security boxes. Fucking right now."
Hawking, tears streaming down his face by now, was starting to panic and shake. He knew this man was serious, and he also knew he wasn't gonna die for the banks money.
He said to the tellers,"Do whatever he says! Get the fucking money out!"
Tell handed them two duffle bags, and they began to fill them, when they were full, he had them lay flat on the ground and made it abundantly clear that he would kill them if they moved one fucking inch.
Now it was time for Hawking to open the safe. Tell grabbed his other two duffle bags and told him, "Stuff them full of large bills, and I swear to god if there is a dye pack in there, my partner is already setting in front of your house waiting to kill your wife and sons, just do what I say, and this will be over soon. After the cash, empty the safe deposit boxes into this other bag, and you know the ones I want, diamonds, jewelery, gold coins, and any precious stones."
Hawking stood in fear for a moment, unable to move.
Tell got close to him again and said, "Fucking right now."
Hawking did as he was told, and five minutes later Tell was out of the bank, loading the wagon and pulling that heavy sumbitch the three hundred feet to the lake. The dingy was where they had stashed it at the cove and he loaded it as quickly as possible.
He could hear the sirens screaming the opposite way, Carrol had done his part well.
He quickly got in his suit and loaded the oxygen into the dingy. They had punched holes in the dingy and then plugged them. That way when he got out far enough, about three hundred yards, he could pull the plugs and sink the dingy.
He quickly tied the ropes and balloons around the bags, he then wrapped the bags in plastic wrap as tightly as possible and as quickly as possible.
"This is gonna work, this is actually gonna fucking work!!!" He thought to himself.
He yelled a scream of triumph that was legendary.
He hooked up his oxygen, and tied the other 30 gallon tanks with nylon rope, that hold tight and well under water.
He rowed the dingy out as quickly as possible.
He dropped the bags and oxygen into the water, pulled the plugs in the dingy and shoved it off to sink.
He drove in and the water was cold. However he had trained for this for years, and didn't affect him one bit.
As he slowly sank to the bottom holding the ropes with the bags and the oxygen, he realized he forgot something very important. The liquid food.
"Fuck!!" , he screamed to himself.
"I'll be ok, I'm not gonna be down there for more than twenty-four hours, I don't need to eat."
However in his mind he knew he had fucked up already.
He was past the point of no return, and as he sank down to the bottom of lake Erie, about thirty feet in that area, he couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment and also a sense of fear, he hadn't felt in a long time.
"This is gonna work, it has to work, I will make it work."
However, as the saying goes, God laughs at the plans of mice and men.
Part Four- The Hell
Lake Erie, at the time was very dirty. The Cuyahoga River had actually caught on fire, if that says anything.
Visibility was nil. He already set his tank to the correct oxygen level and had hit the bottom of Lake.
He held tight to the ropes around the bags and tanks and tried to make himself as stable as possible. He had done this thousands of times. However, he was usually tied off to a barge. Or a shackle. This was a different type of diving, it wasn't quite deep water saturation, but it was every bit as dangerous. With nothing to hold him in place he had to stand as hard as possible. He eventually sat down. It was rocky, however it was mostly sand.
"Now, I wait", he thought.
"Stay calm and this is gonna work. It's only diving. I'm a god of the water."
Carrol had hightailed it out of there in his car, long before the first fire trucks and police cars arrived. By that time The Showboat was a complete four alarm fire. Every cop and fireman in Huron was on the site.
Carrol went to his apartment and did something he rarely did. He prayed. He prayed to any god that would hear him.
"Please, please, please make this work. I don't ask you for shit, and I know we don't talk, but fucking make this happen! Make this happen you son of a bitch! And keep my friend safe. His wife and kids need him. I need him. He's my brother. Please, fucking please!"
He thought for a second and said, " Amen, I think?"
Tell was starting to get comfortable and he had his breathing under control. He stayed calm and almost all of the adrenaline had worn off. He had more than enough oxygen to last the twenty -four hours.
He trained extensively with the Navy for this. Some of the experiments he had gone through, had prepared him for this exact action.
"Twenty-four hours.", he thought to himself.
"Twenty-four hours "
Carrol watched from afar the fire. And then he noticed the police scrambling to get to their cars. He turned on his scanner and listened in
"There is a 132 in progress at The First Bank of Loarin, I repeat 132 in progress, all units report."
"He did it, he fucking pulled it off !!! " , he said out loud.
"My man Tell, he pulled it off!!! You crazy, beautiful sumbitch, you pulled it off!!! Were gonna be rich!!!"
In a matter of hours, it was on every news station. The word spread like wild fire and the bank and Show Boat were surrounded by reporters and their vans. This was gonna be national news. The suspect got away, and they had no idea where he was.
The Chief of Police held a conference and said very little. They all knew they had been played, and they had no idea where to look. It was a perfect crime, and they looked like total idiots. Completely incompetent. Because let's be real, they fucking were.
Tell had learned various breathing techniques and meditation techniques to occupy his mind. Hypomania will cause hallucinations, both auditory and visual. So he kept his mid occupied. Thinking of his family and what they could do with the money was enough to keep his spirits up. It was gonna be a long twenty-four hours and if he didn't stay focused, it would be disastrous.
He thought of Leo.
He thought of AJ.
He thought of his time in the Navy and how fortunate he was to have a mentor like Delano.
He thought of Carrol and how excited and happy he must be. They had pulled it off. They had fucking pulled it off.
Ten hours went by, and it seemed like an eternity, for both Tell and Carroll.
As Carroll watched the TV, a special weather report popped up on the screen.
There was a tremendous storm moving in and it was gonna crush the lake from Huron all the way Vermillion to the East and all the way to Oak Harbor.
An epic storm they said.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!", Carroll screamed.
The storm was heading right for Tell.
And he had no way to let him know.
He realized, through his fear, that Tell had been right, there were variables they hadn't taken into consideration. They had fucked up.
Tell could feel the waves picking up. They were getting stronger and stronger and the current was extreme. He managed to hold his ground because of the weight, but if it picked up more than this, he wasn't sure how far he would drift. An ominous feeling entered his soul.
He missed a variable. He didn't check the weather for any potential storms. He had fucked up big time. This could make it go SNAFU in a heartbeat. He mediated. He breathed. He didn't pray. He didn't need to. He was gonna make this work no matter what.
Another five hours went by and Tell was on his second tank and the storm was really picking up. It threw him against some rocks. It drug him along the sand, the current pulled him every which way, and he still held onto those bags and the oxygen.
"I'm not dying down here, I won't die down here, I will not die down here!!", he screamed in his mind.
He had nine more hours. Just nine more hours.
Carrol scrambled. He got in his car drove through the torrential downpour to the cove. He knew there was no way he could get to Tell. And yet he had to try. He got on his boat they had stashed and against all common sense, against all sanity, drove that boat out onto the lake. He knew Tell had another five hours of oxygen, however with the waves, the rain and the wind, he had no way knowing how far off course he had gotten.
He spoke to god one last time.
"Fuck you, just fuck you."
He continued out into the lake. The storm was getting worse by the second and the little boat couldn't handle the ferociousness of the storm.
A huge wave broadsided the boat and it capsized.
Carrol swam as hard as he could, however the current and waves were too strong, and it drug him under the water. He tried to get the surface. He tried to save his brother.
And Carrol died trying.
Tell knew this wasn't going to end well, he had cut his oxygen back as far as he could.
And that's when he saw it. It looked like some sort of nightmarish massive sturgeon. Almost like an eel and a sturgeon had made some kind of unholy species together.
It circled him, and is it did, it spoke to him.
The fucking sea demon spoke to him.
"Hello Tell. Something the matter? Cat your tounge?", the sea demon laughed.
Tell was paralyzed by fear. He knew what he was seeing and hearing couldn't be real, it has to be hypomania.
"Hey Tell, let me ask you something. Did you really think this would work? That you could outsmart the demons of the sea? That you were so special that and deserving, that you could just take whatever you wanted? That your life is worth more than others? The arrogance of you humans never seices to amaze me. I am three- hundred years old. I've seen your species die in the sea, my home, my hell, that I control. Oh, before you die, there is someone who wants to talk to you. And Tell, you will die down here, there is no happy ending for your story. No getting out. You'll never see your wife and child again."
At this point Tell realized, it was over. This fucking sea demon was right. He had fucked up and threw it all away. His wife, his daughter, all over greed.
He saw a shadowy figure, move towards him. As the figure got closer, he could tell it was a woman. And as that woman got closer, he knew exactly who it was. It was his mother.
"This can be real, I know it's not fucking real, this is a nightmare. I just need to wake up. Fucking wake up, wake up you worthless fuck!! Wake up!!!"
Tells mothers face was bloated like rotten corpse. Blood seeped from her eyes, and black bile spewed from her mouth and nose.
She smiled at him and said, "Welcome home honey!! Oh how I've missed you!! I gotta a secret to tell you. You know why I killed myself? Why I walked into that frigid water? Because, I never wanted you. I never loved you. However, it's gonna be different now, because now, I'm going to steal your soul and consume your body!! Haha, I'm gonna eat you right up!!"
Her mouth opened wide. And then wider. And then wider until it was so wide that she put his head into her mouth. She swallowed his head, and then his shoulders, and then his torso and finally all the way to his legs.
Tell's oxygen was gone.
With his final breath he told her, " I loved you"
Epilogue
Six weeks after the robbery they found Tells body washed up on the rocks all the way over by Cleveland. The storm that had taken his and Carrols life has been the worst storm in twenty years. Many boats sank, many people died
Carrols body was never discovered.
AJ and Leo, were left husband and fatherless.
The police had eventually figured out what had happened, video surveillance at the bank had been clear enough that they could tell it was Tell.
Carrol hadn't cleaned his prints off well enough and when they raided his home they found receipts for oxygen tanks, and various other purchases he had made for the robbery.
The money, jewels, gold and diamonds were never recovered.
The sea demon lives.
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I Told Them I'd Be Rich Someday
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