The Fixer

Chapter 5

Talking was exactly what I needed him to do. I nodded, trying to let him know I understood. “I’m a fairly good judge of character,” I said as persuasively as I could. “I had to be as a teacher. Teenagers lie a lot. It’s a defensive mechanism, and they’re good at it. You don’t lie, but you’re also less forthcoming than most adults I talk to. It’s clear you have things you’re not comfortable talking about. And then there’s this business with the IRS. I’d say you’re hiding something, but that sounds devious, and you don’t seem that way in general.

“Look, I have one interest that involves you, and only one. That’s Jaxon. What I want is for him to continue being as happy as he is now with what he has, and that’s working at the store and being friends with Coop. If the store or if you, in fact, are in trouble, you can trust me not to muddy the waters or make things worse for you. I want to keep the current status quo vis-à-vis Jaxon. I might be able to help if you’re willing to trust me. I know a lot of people in this town. You don’t seem a bit dishonest to me, just somewhat guarded and so maybe in trouble. I would like to help if you’d give me a chance.”

He dropped his eyes from mine and sipped his coffee. Then he put down his cup. After some time, he looked up at me again. “God knows, I’d love to unburden myself,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like just too much. But help? I don’t see how anyone could help.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything else. I thought I’d said enough to convince him to talk. I let the silence build.

It seemed to work on him and eventually became too much. He spoke. “Neil, the thing is, I’ve been taking a large tax deduction for charitable donations to my church. I’m allowed up to 60% of my adjusted gross income as a deduction. I’ve been giving 50%. That’s quite a stretch for me, cuts deeply into my financial well-being, but the church has a way of twisting arms. The thing is, the IRS allows that 50% deduction, but there’s a stipulation on it: it must be given to a recognized and qualifying  charity. My church doesn’t meet the qualification requirements.”

I frowned. “Most churches would certainly be acceptable.”

“Yes, that’s true. This one, though . . . well, it’s rather odd. It teaches from the Old Testament solely, and some of its procedures are, well, I’ll just say they’re not current in their conception. It’s very strict. The fact is, some of its practices tend to be a bit, uh, iffy, I guess. They might not even be strictly legal. As members, we’re told not to talk about the church and its doings to anyone. That’s probably why I’m as guarded as I am. You saw that. I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone about anything involving the church. But right now, I’m just so upset, what with the break-in and the audit, I don’t know right side up from upside down. I can’t even think straight. The hardware store is my life, and now that’s threatened. If the IRS doesn’t allow me to do what I’ve been doing, if it wants more taxes and back taxes, and the church still demands their money . . .”

I had to think for a moment. Then I asked, “You like the church, what it teaches, the people running it? That’s why you remain in it? That’s why you give them as much as you do?”

He looked down at the table again. He reached for his cup, then dropped his hand away. The hand looked like it was trembling.

“My God, how did I get into this?” he asked rhetorically.

Very softly, I answered. “One step can lead to another,” I said, trying to sound as supportive as I could. “Tell me about it. I’ve had a lot of practice fixing things, and I’m not a bit judgmental.”

“Oh that you could! I doubt anyone can.”

“Try me.”

He looked up then. He stared at me, and I met his gaze unemotionally and did my best to project sincerity.

“All right,” he said finally, sounding defeated. “The thing is, I joined the church when I was younger. Old enough to know better, but still younger than I am now. I was searching for something and didn’t really know what. My wife had just left me and I was alone with Coop. My wife said she didn’t want anything more to do with me; Coop was part of me; he was always closer to me than her.”

He stopped, and I prompted him to continue with, “Why did she leave?”

He grimaced, and I wasn’t sure he’d answer, but he forced the words out. “She realized I was gay. I’d been fighting it all my life. But relations with her had become almost intolerable for me. I refused her one time too many, and she left.

“That’s when I went searching, and the church I found was about as anti-gay as it was possible to be. That’s what I wanted. I didn’t want to be gay any longer. I never had wanted to be, and now it had cost me my marriage. The church, the pastor . . . he said they could fix me. They had a conversion camp, and he said going there, I’d come out straight.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to go into any of the details of what they did, what I allowed them to do. But they specialized in aversion therapy, making me hate doing gay things by forcing me to do them and using pain to make them repugnant. But the upshot was, they took videos. Lots of videos. Videos they kept and that they’re using to extort money. I can’t let anyone see those. They’ve told me if I don’t continue in the church and make the large donation I make every year, the videos will be made public.

“If that happens, I’d, I’d . . .” He stopped. I remained silent.

“I’d be a laughingstock in town—or found disgusting. No matter what, I couldn’t hold my head up in town after people saw those videos. Saw what I did in them. Saw what was done to me. This is still a conservative town, even if it’s better now than it was ten years ago. I don’t know what effect it would have on my store, but I do know how it would affect me.”

I reached out and put my hand on his. It was trembling. I gave it a gentle squeeze. “Clare, now that I understand, I can help, and we can fix this problem. It’ll take some courage from you, and things will change some, but right now you’re in a terrible situation, and that can be resolved.”

He returned his eyes to mine. “How?” he asked.

I sat back. The waitress came by, and I asked for more coffee just to let some time pass, trying to give Clare a moment regain his composure. When we had our coffee refills and Clare had settled down, I began.

“This is a situation that we can fix step by step. First, we have to clean up the mess with the IRS. That might look impossible at the moment, but it isn’t. They don’t want to jail people; they just want your money. They’d have a hard time doing that with you because what you’ve done, giving to a church, even if it’s one that doesn’t meet their charitable standards, is something that would be argued in court if it came to that, and it wouldn’t have to be if you’d agree to a settlement. They settle for much less than they claim is owed all the time. You have what appears to be a legitimate reason for doing what you did. That would be weighed in the agreement. I’m pretty sure they’ll not come after you for anything but a percentage of any back taxes, and even then, they wouldn’t demand it all at once.

“You’ll have to leave the church, but I can make that happen. I can make it happen without any videos being released. Leave that to me. What the church is doing is illegal. I can use that.”

I stopped to give him time to think about that, to think that I was suggesting a way for his problems to be over. Then I said, “I do have a question for you, one that’s critically important. I want an honest answer from you. I’ll know if it isn’t. It’s this: what is your feeling about gay people now? Do you hate them? Do you tolerate them? Are you ambivalent in your feelings, or do you feel supportive of them?”

He didn’t squirm; he answered frankly and without pause. “I’m still gay even if I’m not active. That church did all it could to make me hate myself and others. Mostly it didn’t work, but hearing that message so often . . .”

He had to stop. I could see how emotional this was for him. He plowed ahead, however. Maybe getting this off his chest was cathartic for him. When he continued, his voice was firmer. “I know what the church teaches is wrong. It’s bad, intellectually. Emotionally, it’s another story. But I’m strong enough to know that without their blackmail, I’d have left the church years ago. I couldn’t, though, and I still can’t. I can’t bear to have those videos seen. To be truthful, I still have reservations about two men having sex. The church is so adamant about how sinful that is, I guess I’ve been a little brainwashed by the rhetoric. We keep hearing about Leviticus . . .”

He stopped, obviously remembering all those sermons.

I spoke to him in a gentle voice. “Clare, people are always taking that Old Testament tale out of context. I’ve read it, too. Leviticus doesn’t lay down laws for all people for all times. It was laying groundwork for the people of that time, how they needed to behave to be part of the culture of ancient Israel. It had a whole list of behavioral rules, and for many of them, if the rules were broken, the punishment was death.

“But many were innocuous things that are not even major sins today, things that are not even illegal, let alone deserving the death penalty. Another Leviticus chapter lists many of those same things, and there’s no mention of a death penalty attached to them.

“People now know being gay is not something we choose, and condemning people to die for following their genetic urges is simply silly. Intelligent people, not swayed by bigoted sermons, do not vilify gays or their practices.

“That list in Leviticus was created something like 3,000 years ago. Times and behaviors and cultural realities have changed in that time. You can’t let such an outdated Old Testament message that is frankly wrong by today’s standards of behavior and that was only intended for that time in ancient history have such credence in your life.”

He was silent, but I could see what I’d said had some effect on him. I hoped as he mulled that over, his feelings, his guilt, could change.

“That said,” I continued, there’s still my question. Do you feel animosity toward gays?”

“No, I don’t. I am one. And I’ll think about what you said. It makes perfect sense to me. Something that was criticized and decried three millennia ago, something that is now recognized as normal human behavior, shouldn’t be part of my emotional baggage. I’m going to try to change. I don’t want to think as I’ve been doing, letting that pastor control what I believe.”

“Okay. Good. For now, let’s get back to the store. See how the boys are doing. I’d guess they’ll have the place looking like nothing happened by late this afternoon. If not, if it’ll take a couple more hours Monday, you can delay the audit a bit till then. So far, it doesn’t look to me like anything was broken. With the shelves refilled, you should know if anything was stolen. As nothing was broken, it makes me think this was just a prank, and if so, theft was probably not part of it.

“If it’s done on time, or almost done, I want you and Coop to have dinner with Jaxon and me. We have a lot to talk about.”

I asked Jaxon when he got home that evening if he could make something for five people for dinner. He smiled—well, what I’d learned was his smile—and said he’d love to. His specialty was spaghetti. We had to stop at a grocery store for a few things. “Getting the right ingredients is important if you want things to taste their best,” he told me in his unemotional voice.

So, for dinner that evening, Jaxon and I hosted the Beals and our police chief, Don Meyers. Mr. Beal looked surprised to see the chief, but I assured him it would all be okay. “Dan is an old friend and will help with what we want to discuss tonight.”

It was a late dinner because the boys and Mr. Beal hadn’t finished at the store till after six o’clock. They’d worked till they were done and the store was ready for the audit. Jaxon had left an hour before anyone else because he told me the sauce needed to simmer for at least an hour.

We were served spaghetti with the sauce Jaxon had made, one that involved Italian hot sausage, San Marzano tomatoes, fresh chopped basil, onion and spices. Combined with copious amounts of garlic bread and tossed salad with Jaxon’s homemade dressing, we were all stuffed when we were done.

No one wanted dessert, which was a good thing as all I had was some ice cream. I shooed everyone into the living room, and we adults all took our coffee with us.

When everyone was settled, I spoke. “I’ll start with an announcement that’ll startle everyone but should quickly disperse a lot of fears. The announcement is this: everyone in the room is gay—except for the chief and me, and I’m not sure about the chief.”

That got some jaws to drop and eyes to open wide, and then Coop said, “Dad?”

Clare shook his head and looked with wonder at the two boys. “You two?” he asked.

And then there was a lot of hugging. Individual hugging and then a long-lasting, group-of-three hug.

Then they all returned to their seats, although this time Jaxon and Coop sat together on the couch. “We’re boyfriends, Dad,” Coop had said during the hugging, and Clare had given Jaxon another hug then.

My turn again, this time speaking to smiles instead of long and worried faces. “We have a couple of problems still to settle. One is that Clare is being blackmailed. I thought it would be good if Dan were here to talk about that. The second is the IRS. I have some ideas where we can go with that. The IRS is generally open to a discussion on how to rectify problems. The problem Clare had can be fixed by making up some back taxes. I’m thinking if we can catch the church people with their pants down, not suspecting their game is over, we can probably recover some or much of the money Clare paid the church under threat, and directing that to the IRS should probably clear him of past debt.

“So. what do we do about that? That depends on you, Dan. Can we set up some sort of sting operation, arrest them and maybe seize their property and attach some or all of their financial holdings?”

Chief Meyers turned to Clare. “How do you pay them? Check or cash or money order or what?”

“They insist on cash. I assume they don’t want a paper trail.”

Dan smiled. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow. I’m too full to think straight now. But I have people we can work with, and the county attorney can help. This should be fun.”

“And I think we should talk to the IRS auditor tomorrow,” I said. “I think you can talk him out of doing the audit. You can tell him what’s happened and that you’re willing to pay what you owe after a discussion of what that will amount to, and you’d like to work with his people finding an equitable solution. He’ll be happy not to have to count every nut and bolt in the store, and this’ll get the ball rolling.”

That left just one order of business. I turned to Jaxon. “I guess I can see the handwriting on the wall now. You’re free and clear to be with Coop. Now you know that Mr. Beal doesn’t hate gays, and now he knows about you and Coop and approves. With how much Mr. Beal likes you and how much he wants to make Coop happy, I don’t think he’ll have any reason not to let you stay with them. Is that true, Clare?”

Mr. Beal got up and moved to the couch where he could speak to Jaxon directly. “Yes, of course! Jaxon, please come stay with us.”

Jaxon didn’t jump up and down, but I knew him well enough by now to see how happy he was. I told him, “You’ll want to move into the Beal house, and Mr. Beal and Coop are happy to have you there. I’ll miss you and your cooking, Clancy will miss the food you’ve been slipping him, but I want you to be happy more than anything else.”

Jaxon looked at Coop, then at me, and said, “I like living with you. Maybe we can spend some nights here with you and some at home with Mr. Beal if that will be all right with him.”

“Of course you’re welcome at my house. I love having you here. I’d love both of you here to spend some time here with me.”

Mr. Beal looked like a man with a hundred-pound weight having been lifted from his chest. He just smiled and nodded at the two boys. To me it looked like a light had appeared at the end of a long, dark tunnel; he could see problems he’d thought were intractable were coming to an end, and he could relax for the first time in recent memory.

The auditor, a man named Francis Givens, was at the door of the hardware store the next day bright and early. Clare had asked me to join him in speaking with the man. When Francis came, Clare introduced me and said he’d like me there when they spoke, and he said he wanted to do that before Francis began his audit.

We went to the coffee shop again, and Clare said he would like to clear things up with the IRS, he realized there was a problem, and perhaps, rather than taking the time to inventory the store and audit his books, if he was given an explanation of the IRS’s concerns, he could alleviate them.

Mr. Givens said he’d appreciate that approach. “It’s very straightforward. The IRS doesn’t accept that the donations to the church you’ve been making were tax exempt. If you’re willing to pay taxes on that money, from the time you began making the donations, everything can be settled.”

Clare looked at me, and I spoke. “Mr. Givens, this goes back several years. If your agency had noticed a problem earlier, they should have addressed it then. They did nothing about it, though, and now they’re asking for back taxes. The IRS should have acted earlier. Asking for back taxes now puts Clare in a horrible financial position, one that’s not his fault.

"Look, Clare wants to do what’s right, and he isn’t any more interested in getting lawyers involved than I imagine your people are. The fact is, however, it’s only in the last year that they decided the church Clare is a member of isn’t a qualifying charity. Clare is willing to pay the full taxes on last year’s donation. We think that would be a fair way to settle this. He shouldn’t be penalized for the IRS making a decision now and then trying to make it retroactive. Finalizing it as we’ve suggested would also help Mr. Beal because the audit and inventory you’re planning would probably take well over a week, and shutting the store down that long would cut into Clare’s income and thus into the taxes he’ll be paying next year. It’ll also inconvenience this whole town, which relies on his store to be open. It’ll also save you a whole lot of work personally. This sounds like a win-win. Doesn’t that sound reasonable to you?”

The man smiled. “It does to me, but it’s not my decision. I’ll bump it upstairs. Actually, you make a good argument, one I think they’ll buy. I’ll get back to you when the decision is made. This may be much easier than I’d expected. Thanks for being so forthcoming.”

The next day, I sat down with Clare and Dan, and we talked about the church. I could see the impact of the church leaders on Clare. Even now, he was afraid of them. Talking about this was a clear taboo, and it scared him to do it. But I kept reminding him it was his way out of the hole he was in, and when the church was out of his life, both Coop and Jaxon would benefit from his mental stability and financial freedom.

To try to relieve his worries, I told him it wasn’t a church as much as it was a scam. Its purpose was to extort money from people who attended, to find ways to blackmail them and then take all they could. The message from the pastor wasn’t full of religious faith-based spirit-elevation, but Old Testament hatred.

The police and I wanted to know how the place operated, who the players were, who the congregation were, where they met—just as much information as we could gather.

I was surprised to learn that Mr. Mapes, Jaxon’s father, was a big deal in the church.

“He’s a member of the organization’s hierarchy?” I asked, startled at this revelation.

“I guess in some organizations you’d call him their Sergeant at Arms. In others, their enforcer. He makes sure the church’s donations are received. If not, he comes to visit and collects them. Often with punishment for being late. Actually, there are only two people in charge of church affairs, the pastor and Mr. Mapes.”

“Wait a minute,” Dan cut in. “I hadn’t thought about it, but could it be that you’re not the only one they’ve got their hooks into? Are there any others that went through the conversion therapy and they’re now blackmailing?”

“We really don’t know each other well. The pastor, a man named Julius Morganstaller, does all the talking during meetings. He also lays down the law that we in the congregation do not ever talk about the church or church activities, and he doesn’t want us talking to each other. He says this is because people are always trying to weaken our faith, and it’s too fragile already. I know that sounds strange, but Mr. Mapes stands near him when he’s sermonizing, glaring at us. Now that you’ve said this, it makes sense that some of the people there aren’t free to think and act as they like, that they’re as much prisoners as I’ve been.”

“How do the donations work?” I asked. “Do they come at the ends of the church meetings?”

“No, mine are collected separately, and yes, thinking about it, some of the others don’t drop anything into the basket, either. For me, I’m told what day and time to bring in my donation each week. I have a certain amount due every month, and I pay it in weekly installments. I think they do it this way so I don’t run into other parishioners.”

“Where do you go to, uh, donate?”

“Pastor Morganstaller’s house is right behind the church. I go there. Mr. Mapes is always there. He pats me down, not gently, looking for God knows what, and then I give him the money. He counts it, then hands it to the pastor.”

“Always in the house?”

“Yes.”

“So, they’re alone when getting the money. We can’t video the payout or even get a sound recording because the pat down precludes our making one, and because it happens indoors.”

I looked at Dan. He smiled a humorless smile, then said. “We need a plan.”

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