In the morning, Brody Lassiter's wife found him dead in his study with a claw grip on his old King James Bible and pink foam still sizzling at the corners of his mouth. In succeeding weeks, his long practiced conspiracy with Timothy Allen Teague became public knowledge as well as the vast array of fraud he had committed in the name of Jesus Christ. For the members of his congregation, there would be no tearful apology before cameras and media. Within two short years, the destiny of Calvary Fellowship Church became one of abandonment and failure even as Brody Lassiter's remaining underlings exerted every effort to save it. The city leveled the Worship Center and replaced it with a Wal-Mart, the Dougan Watkins Sports Center converted into a municipal youth center bearing the same name.
After two armed stand-offs and another suicide, several Guardians went to trial and a few served short sentences for their roles in the conspiracy, causing a minor bout of embarrassment for this community that prided itself on honoring its veterans. The last generation of Dog Boys vanished from the city. Their lack of roots and the loss of their benefactor frightened them into hiding in scattered havens across the country. Most would die homeless within the first year but following precedence, some of them achieved greatness. Their involvement was Hatchet's only remaining loose end.
Six months after federal authorities stormed the castle, Tommy the Jaw (a moniker he would acquire in prison) made his first mention of Marcus Hatchet to a deputy while sitting in a drunk tank in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Houston. The deputy’s lack of interest enraged the volatile young man to the point of restraint, during which Tommy bit off one of the deputy’s fingers. Tommy, freshly eighteen, received ten years. He would mention Hatchet’s name many times during his first six months, along with the outlandish tale that he and his friends were a certain millionaire’s fuckbuddies and that he alone knew who knocked over Calvary Fellowship. And he wasn’t all together incorrect. Two of the three remaining Dog Boy’s involved in the attack on Hatchet in the alley up the hill from the church had died of overdoses, one on heroine in a four-star Dallas hotel and the other on meth in an alley in Austin. Tommy grew paranoid and frustrated and coveted Marcus’ name, holding it for the right person, saving it for the right connection.
A reporter named Karen Stolis who worked for the Austin Chronicle heard a fragment of Tommy the Jaw’s story while working on a report about living conditions in Texas state prisons. Stolis became curious enough to contact the Jaw’s attorney who knew nothing more about Tommy than the work he did to ensure the kid obtained the medical treatment he needed to stay alive. Over the course of a month, Tommy spent a few hours on the phone with Stolis but revealed only enough information to convince the reporter he was privy to facts the general public could not know. Yet, due to a recent decline in public interest in the Calvary Fellowship robbery, Stolis struggled for weeks to convince her editors that Tommy the Jaw had viable testimony. Finally, with her editors’ reluctant blessing, Stolis paid Tommy’s attorney to arrange a meeting that would never take place. Late in the evening the day before Stolis’ visit, corrections officers discovered Tommy the Jaw’s body raped and mutilated in a broom closet in Woodman State Prison.
After two armed stand-offs and another suicide, several Guardians went to trial and a few served short sentences for their roles in the conspiracy, causing a minor bout of embarrassment for this community that prided itself on honoring its veterans. The last generation of Dog Boys vanished from the city. Their lack of roots and the loss of their benefactor frightened them into hiding in scattered havens across the country. Most would die homeless within the first year but following precedence, some of them achieved greatness. Their involvement was Hatchet's only remaining loose end.
Six months after federal authorities stormed the castle, Tommy the Jaw (a moniker he would acquire in prison) made his first mention of Marcus Hatchet to a deputy while sitting in a drunk tank in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Houston. The deputy’s lack of interest enraged the volatile young man to the point of restraint, during which Tommy bit off one of the deputy’s fingers. Tommy, freshly eighteen, received ten years. He would mention Hatchet’s name many times during his first six months, along with the outlandish tale that he and his friends were a certain millionaire’s fuckbuddies and that he alone knew who knocked over Calvary Fellowship. And he wasn’t all together incorrect. Two of the three remaining Dog Boy’s involved in the attack on Hatchet in the alley up the hill from the church had died of overdoses, one on heroine in a four-star Dallas hotel and the other on meth in an alley in Austin. Tommy grew paranoid and frustrated and coveted Marcus’ name, holding it for the right person, saving it for the right connection.
A reporter named Karen Stolis who worked for the Austin Chronicle heard a fragment of Tommy the Jaw’s story while working on a report about living conditions in Texas state prisons. Stolis became curious enough to contact the Jaw’s attorney who knew nothing more about Tommy than the work he did to ensure the kid obtained the medical treatment he needed to stay alive. Over the course of a month, Tommy spent a few hours on the phone with Stolis but revealed only enough information to convince the reporter he was privy to facts the general public could not know. Yet, due to a recent decline in public interest in the Calvary Fellowship robbery, Stolis struggled for weeks to convince her editors that Tommy the Jaw had viable testimony. Finally, with her editors’ reluctant blessing, Stolis paid Tommy’s attorney to arrange a meeting that would never take place. Late in the evening the day before Stolis’ visit, corrections officers discovered Tommy the Jaw’s body raped and mutilated in a broom closet in Woodman State Prison.
Edit 1.4.2019