BLOOD ON THE WATER
“Dude, the mosquitoes are brutal tonight”, Chaz complained, for about the hundredth time in the past hour. “Yeah, you're in the swamp, man, and you asked to come out here so just deal.” Chaz and Andy sat in a jon boat in the Florida Everglades doing some night fishing and drinking more than a few beers. Andy spent most of his spare time in the everglades fishing and generally hiding from the mess of a life he created for himself. Chaz couldn’t even remember why he wanted to go fishing. “At least the beers are cold,” he thought as he swatted yet another annoying mosquito buzzing around his ears.
Up until now, the conversation had been light and inconsequential, just two lifelong friends who hadn’t had much time to hang out together catching up with one another. Andy cast out, lit up a cigar and with a serious look in his eye turned to Chaz and said, “Hey man, you know, Lenny’s back in town.” Chaz, mid sip, spit beer all over Andy’s tackle box. “Nice,” Andy said with a smirk and an eye roll. Chaz, wiped his mouth and with wide eyes replied. “Do you think he’s still holding a grudge?” “I don’t know, bro, but if I were you, I’d be watching over my shoulder.” Andy punctuated his last statement with a large plume of smoke from his cigar.
A loud splash to the right of the boat caught the two men’s attention and they turned in time to see a twelve foot alligator glide by in search of a late night snack. “You know dude, we shoulda fed that guy to a gator that night, it would have saved everybody a whole lotta hassle,” Andy reflected. “Yeah,” Chaz agreed as he chugged his beer with one hand and reached for another with the other, suddenly having an overwhelming desire to go from pleasantly buzzed to solidly drunk.
Twenty-three years and a handful of months earlier, Chaz, Andy, Lenny and Lenny’s soon to be ex-best girl Marina were hanging out at a party in Everglades Holiday Park, blowing off steam, drinking and getting high after senior year finals. Imbued with liquid courage, Chaz called over to Marina, “Hey baby, when you get tired of babysitting Lenny, I know a real man who will love you like you deserve.” What neither Chaz nor Lenny knew was Marina had been getting tired of Lenny and Chaz’s offer was exactly what she had been waiting for. Just high enough to cast caution to the wind, Marina sauntered over to Chaz, positioned herself so she could stare Lenny in the eye and planted a wet kiss on Chaz’s mouth. Many of the party goers erupted into cat calls, adding to Lenny’s humiliation.
In a blind rage, Lenny hopped in the pick up truck his parents bought him for his eighteenth birthday, only two months earlier, and sped out of the park onto U S 27. Through angry tears and, drunk well beyond the legal limit, Lenny never even noticed the minivan traveling in the opposite direction as he crossed the center white line. Convicted on three counts of vehicular manslaughter, Lenny was sentenced to three consecutive ten year stints in the state pen. Now, a little over twenty-three years later, due to time off for good behavior, Lenny was out on parole.
Lenny’s first few years in prison were exactly what one would expect for a scared, scrawny, eighteen year old, a living hell. Tall, but thin, Lenny hit the weights and before too long filled in his six foot two frame with impressive bulk. Lenny transformed from bullied to respected when he brutally beat one of his worst tormentors. Gone was the shoulder length blond hair, replaced with a shaved head accentuated with tattoos readily identified as the homemade jailhouse variety. No one who knew Lenny from high school would have recognized him now. Fueled by hate, he became one of the most feared residents of his cell block. For the next eight years, Lenny enjoyed the fear he instilled in others and enjoyed the pain he inflicted on those he perceived as disrespectful.
One fateful, rainy, Saturday afternoon, unable to lift in the Yard, Lenny wandered past the lunch room where some fellow inmates had gathered to listen to Chaplain Jack. Chaplain Jack had once been an inmate in this very prison, but after turning his life around through the power of faith in Jesus Christ, he dedicated his life to serving the Lord. Chaplain Jack looked like he still belonged on the inside, and caught Lenny off guard when he waved over to him and said, “Hi, I’m Chaplain Jack, come on in friend, and have a seat.” Lenny skeptically went in but decided to listen to what the man of God had to say.
Weekly, Chaplain Jack came and ministered and Lenny found himself, on more Saturdays than not, sitting in the lunchroom listening, and eventually, not just listening, but asking questions and interacting. Within a few months, Lenny prayed with the chaplain to receive Christ and entered into a discipleship program. Lenny soon became a model prisoner and began ministering to other inmates.
The day Lenny was released he reached out to some contacts given him by Chaplain Jack and soon found himself in a welcoming community of believers who loved him for who he was and helped him get re-acclimated to society. Encouraged to make peace with his past, Lenny decided to reach out to the one person he would have happily killed with his bare hands twenty-three years ago, Chaz Lewis.
The day Lenny contacted Chaz, Chaz contacted Andy and together they hatched a plan similar to what they had discussed on fishing night. “I’m not really sure if this is cool, man” Chaz told Andy as they discussed killing Lenny and dumping him in the swamp for gator food. “Course it’s cool, bro, the dude wiped out a whole family and now he’s coming for you.” “Yeah, I guess it’s either me or him, then, right?” “Exactly!” Andy said with a wink.
Chaz and Andy found out where Lenny lived and staked out his apartment. When Lenny returned home from a church meeting, Andy was waiting for him with an aluminum baseball bat. After knocking Lenny out, the two smaller men wrestled his unconscious body into the bed of Andy’s pick up truck and headed out to a secluded boat ramp on U S 27. What neither man noticed was the surveillance camera attached to the apartment building, placed there due to the high crime rate in the immediate area.
The men, with great effort, transported Lenny from the pick up truck to the fishing boat and headed out to back channels where they would not be disturbed. Neither man was expecting Lenny to wake up so soon. Only halfway to the pre planned killing spot, Lenny woke up and lunged for Andy. Before Chaz could grab the nine millimeter handgun from the tackle box, Andy was being lifted from the boat seat by his throat. Eyes wide with terror, Andy gurgled, “shoot him man!” Chaz aimed and fired, but at such close range, he managed to kill two men with one bullet. Terrified, Chaz did the only thing he could think of, he dumped both bodies overboard and hoped the alligators would do the rest. Not knowing what else to do, Chaz drove back to Andy’s place, where he had left his car earlier in the evening. Chaz didn’t think anyone could connect him to the night’s events and decided to leave Andy’s boat and trailer in his driveway and head home and try to forget about what happened.
Meanwhile, the night manager at Lenny’s apartment building, having watched the attack take place on his CCTV, notified the police. Able to identify Andy by the license plate on his boat trailer, the police sent a car to stake out Andy’s house. Chaz never even noticed the police car parked at the end of the street as he pulled into Andy’s driveway. Before he could get into his own car and speed home, the police were on him.
Three years later, Chaz Lewis was walking past the prison cafeteria when he noticed a small crowd gathering. Standing in the front of the room was a rough looking guy in civilian clothes who looked like he was no stranger to a prison jumpsuit. The man waved over to Chaz, “Hi, I’m Chaplain Jack, come on in friend and have a seat.”
