https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ors0wpcVDcc
174 VAULTS
Every story starts with a reaction, and every story ends with an action.
CHAPTER 1: THE FRIENDSHIP AND THE INCIDENT
In the late 1950s in the South, four friends—Billy, Bob, Manny, and Fred—rode their bikes to school. They lived happily and treated most people in their town with decency, though they were not entirely innocent of the racial prejudices of the time.
Back then, it was socially acceptable to ignore black people, and while the boys didn’t emulate the overt racism of many adults around them, they weren’t blameless either. They had a black friend, Willy, who they had grown up with. One day, Willy found himself at the mercy of a group of 12th graders and a pickup truck.
Billy, the youngest of the four friends, came from a troubled home but had managed to make his father proud with one racist act. Willy, about half a mile down the road, was the target of the 12th graders in the pickup truck.
As Willy was about to be attacked, Billy, standing on the side of the road, flagged down the truck. His three other friends—Bob, Manny, and Fred—stood nearby, puzzled.
When the truck came to a stop, Billy, small in comparison to the others, leaned into the passenger side window. The three boys in the back of the truck were holding onto a duffel bag of bats to keep it from moving.
Billy uttered words that still chill my heart every time I recall that moment.
"What the FUCK do you think you're about to do to my n-word?" he said, looking the driver in the eye.
The driver attempted to argue, but Billy, despite being much younger, shut him down and fell silent.
In that moment, I don't know why, but Billy’s friends standing next to him seemed to grow taller and more solid, as if in response to our friend doing what all our parents had wanted from us.
In just three heartbeats, the driver made a U-turn and left.
Billy then walked towards Willy and recounted what had happened. Willy agreed to play along, and somehow even convinced his father to feign enough outrage to prevent Willy from getting harmed.
CHAPTER 2: FRED'S FUNERAL AND THE REVELATION
The next ten years flew by, bringing changes and challenges. Bob went into logging, Billy started at the hardware store before moving into roofing, and Manny became a guard, shifting between different companies as needed. Fred, however, remained a mystery to us all.
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In the late '60s, we were forced to come together when Fred died in a dirt bike accident, breaking his neck. He had never worked a day in his life but was always around whenever we wanted to do something. Looking back, that should have been a clue.
The rollercoaster ride began on the day of Fred's funeral.
Fred had no surviving parents; they had died in the race riots in the South. He left behind a house and a few old properties, which he had been selling off one by one. He was down to his last few properties when he passed away, and the courts sent an executor to settle his outstanding debts. They sold all of his properties and the house.
Some locals who remembered Fred attended his funeral, but in the end, it was just the three of us. We took him in the hearse to the plot and lowered him down ourselves, each of us taking a shovel to help bury him.
When the gravediggers finished and left, a black man in a suit emerged from the shadows. It was late, and he waited a moment before stepping towards us, tired and tearful.
In a commanding voice, he said, "Gentlemen, I’m a lawyer hired to deliver a letter to you from the deceased Frederick Whiteman."
Billy led the way as Manny and Bob approached the man.
“I’m Willy's dad and a lawyer,” he said, handing Billy a thick white envelope.
Billy reached out to take it, but as his fingers touched the envelope, he froze. With tears still in his eyes, he looked the older man in the eye and asked just one question: “Is Willy safe?”
The older man smiled, released the envelope, and with a nod, walked away into the night.
The three of them opened the envelope and began to read.
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To my brothers, and yes, you Billy, Bob, and Manny, you are my family.
I’m sorry, but if you are reading this, I'm dead, and my family secret might hurt someone. Now, I need to ask you to look after this secret.
Go to my office and under the boardroom floor, you will find a keyhole that the key in this envelope will open.
I couldn't think of a way to fix this, so I hope you can do better than me. Don't think I didn't think to ask you to help. Truth be told, I left you a full account of what's going on.
Go find it!
FAMILY your my’N
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They grabbed the bottle of Jack that was on Fred's gravestone, which they had been drinking. Then, they jumped into the one car they had dropped off in the morning before the funeral.
It must have been 11 pm when they pulled up and, using the set of keys, unlocked his office and headed inside.
His office had not been touched; it was like a kid's office, with a basketball hoop attached to the door and little reminders that he had taken over the office from someone else.
Manny found the cups; they had their priorities, as this was a request from a friend, or as Mr. E, like Fred, liked to call it.
Bob and Billy opened the door and went directly to both ends of the large board table. Oddly, it was much lighter than it should have been, made with dark woods and many clear coats.
Knowing a thing or two about breaking through floors, Billy and Bob went straight to trying to figure out where the carpet had been cut. Directly under the I-shaped base of the table was a cut in the carpet.
As they pulled back the carpet, they found a wooden brace bolted to metal double doors, with two large metal rings. Everything had taken on a reddish tint from years of slow rusting, and the padding under the carpet had turned slightly red.
Billy stepped aside as Bob and Manny pulled on the rings, opening the heavy doors with a loud squeak. No one had opened this in a long time.