Donate to the Church

I

Clayton Finch, age 64, loves his work. He peers around the room and takes the time to smile at every customer with inescapable sincerity. Watching familiar faces shop at his store, with the classical music of Brahms filling the air, awards him immense satisfaction.

The Baptist Church Donation Center has a simple design. Charitable men and women toss their no-longer treasured items in bags and boxes, drive to the store behind the church, and drop them off. Mr. Finch cleans these items, places them on sundry shelves, and allows shoppers to give them a loving new home for a modest price.

“Hello Mr. Finch! How are you doing today?” asks Andrea Canny, age 43, a longtime patron of the donation center.

“Miss Canny, it’s uncanny how lovely you are today!” beams Mr. Finch. “And who is this strapping young lad?” He gazes at the little boy holding the mother’s hand.

“Alex, this is Mr. Finch. He has been running the donation center for years now. Say hello.”

Alex, age 7, glances at Mr. Finch, unsure whether to trust the new face.

“Hello, Alex. Your mother and I have been friends for quite some time now. She is one of the sweetest ladies in this whole wide world. Can you promise me that you’ll always protect her?” Mr. Finch reaches out for a handshake.

The little boy looks at the strong hand, then back at the kind face, and places his tiny palm into Mr. Finch’s. “I’ll protect her, Mr. Finch!”

Mr. Finch smiles at the boy. Genuinely smiles. These are the moments he lives for. Mr. Finch treasures shaking the hand of this growing boy, looking the youngster in his innocent eyes, and knowing that he has every person in the town, including this little boy, completely fooled.

Seven years ago, Miss Andrea Canny was the first person to accidently donate her personal diary to Mr. Finch. She misplaced her lavender spiral-bound journal, in which she confessed to drunkenly beating her dog Ruthie, in a box headed for the Baptist Church Donation Center.

How ironic it is, Mr. Finch often thinks, that one’s sins somehow always arrive at church for absolution.

Blackmail was his original idea for Andrea’s reconciliation. Six months after Miss Canny lost her diary, Mr. Finch made an anonymous phone call to the pregnant mother in order to collect a sum of $3,000 for her penance.

“Where do I leave the money?” Andrea squeaked to the man on the phone.

Mr. Finch recognized during his first phone call that blackmail leaves a trail. And a trail carries too much risk. Logically, Mr. Finch dropped his yearn for money and decided upon a much more fulfilling and concealable operation: instilling fear.

Andrea’s name, information, and secrets were the first Mr. Finch entered into his little black book. A secret journal of his own. Over time, his list grew. Every night, Mr. Finch opens his little book to read the 28 names inked on the eggshell pages. The voice of every person who has received a call sweetly echoes in his ears. His face illuminates when thinking how poorly they slept on their night. Mr. Finch now yearns for new journals to come through the Church’s donation center every day, including this lovely winter Wednesday.

II

Mr. Finch strolls into the donation center on February 13th at 7 a.m. He sets a timer on his phone for two hours. The front doors open at 9 a.m. sharp, and he has treasure to find.

He greets the holding bin spilling over with boxes and bags of rejected riches. He grabs the first bag to catch his eye, struts to the processing center, and dumps its guts onto the industrial sorting table. Seven pastel t-shirts with cat designs tumble onto the wooden tabletop.

“Aww,” mumbles Mr. Finch, “kitties.”

As he tosses the clothes into the disposal bin, he notices the thick red spine of a journal under the last lavender shirt. Its gilded pages glisten under the fluorescent light.

“Hello beautiful.”

He cracks open the book to its first page.

Mr. Finch smiles at number 29.

Confession of Anthony Goretti

Mr. Finch lets out an audible moan of release. In all his years, he’s never encountered a diary titled “Confession” before.

“Confession,” he utters again. He looks to the ceiling. “What did I do to deserve this?”

Mr. Finch pulls out his little black book, opens to page 29, and writes the name.

“Let’s see what you have for us, Mr. Goretti.”

Mr. Finch flips to page two of Anthony’s diary. His heart skips another beat. The donated journal has been divided into two sections. The top half of the book contains text, the confession. The bottom half, delightfully, has been partially carved out in order to hold a flash drive. Mr. Finch gingerly removes the electronic artifact and the small sheet of paper taped to its back.

He unwraps the note to reveal the information needed to access the external “Coinbase.”

“Coinbase,” Mr. Finch reads again, looking at the flash drive curiously. “This is not a coin.”

Mr. Finch plugs the memory stick into the Church’s office computer. He refuses to bring anything electronic home without screening it at work first. The last thing he needs is something illegal uploaded to his personal computer. The flash drive’s contents pop up on the screen. Mr. Finch clicks on the only file in the folder. A login screen appears. Mr. Finch enters the information accordingly.

“Account Number: 85121215312125. Password: Gsrh_rh_z_hgrmt4Xozb.”

Mr. Finch hits enter.

“One Bitcoin,” exhales disappointed Mr. Finch. “That can’t be worth much.”

Google disagrees.

“$20,000….” Mr. Finch gawks at the screen, dumbfounded. Without speaking, Mr. Finch unplugs the Baptist Church’s newest flash drive and slips the donation from God into his pocket.

Mr. Finch turns his attention back to Anthony’s confession. He devours every morsel of Tony’s words. His lips drip with the previously unshared knowledge. Tony’s illiberal feelings for the African American community are the appetizer. For the main course, he feasts on Tony’s admittance of performing a hit-and-run back in April. And for dessert, Mr. Finch savors Tony’s thoughts on his neighbor Lynn’s shower schedule. He washes it down with the fact that Tony’s wife, Susan, is an undercover police officer. By the end of the meal, Mr. Finch’s little book of voices is stuffed with the sins of a guilty man.

Mr. Finch finishes his dissection of Tony on Facebook. Five minutes later, Mr. Finch prints out and glues the sinner’s face to the top-right corner of page 29 of his little black book. He puts the computer to sleep, walks to the processing table, and continues his unquenchable hunt for the next lost journal.

III

Mr. Finch has perfected the art of spacing. He endures six months of waiting before making his phone call. He needs whoever lost a personal diary to forget where it could have gone. If the sinner knows that Mr. Finch has their journal, then they wouldn’t be sorry during the phone call. He or she would ignore Mr. Finch’s words and solely think about how to enact revenge.

Mr. Finch sets an alarm on his phone for August 13th titled “29” and waits.

He keeps busy, especially with money to spend. After converting the Bitcoin to cash, Mr. Finch pays the due taxes under the guise of gambling winnings. But he never gambles. He never drinks. He even quit smoking four years ago as an example for the nicotine addicts of the Church. He rides the bus or his bicycle, recycles, and cuts coupons. He enjoys photographing nature. Human nature. A new Canon superzoom lens, therefore, will do wonders for Mr. Finch’s covert work. The further he exists from the object being filmed, the better.

It’s an impossibly lonely task to correct the nature of sinners through donated artifacts and phone calls. Who would approve? No wife or husband, clearly. Friends would obviously flee. Kids tattle. No one can ever know. Spacing.

Mr. Finch has the community backing him. Even the sinners he has called respect him. But they must never know who made the call. For all they know, it was God. Spacing.

Sometimes he thinks about calling his Mother.

Spacing.

Mr. Finch’s alarm blares. 29.

IV

A San Pellegrino rests atop a donated Baccarat coaster on a donated walnut coffee table. Brahms whispers from all directions while the book of voices lies open on the donated lavender velvet sofa, ready to divulge its secrets. Mr. Finch taps his feet gracefully as he waltzes from the lock on his front door to the couch. The dance ends with a bow of respect toward the little black book before he takes a seat.

Each button dialed on his burner phone sends indulgent shock waves through Mr. Finch’s body. Mr. Finch activates his voice changer and ravenously awaits the inevitable pleas of remorse from Mr. Goretti’s sinning lips.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Goretti,” Mr. Finch begins.

“May I ask who is calling?”

“How’s Lynn looking tonight?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Lynn,” repeats Mr. Finch. “I hope the steam isn’t blocking your view of her through the window.”

Anthony says nothing.

“What are your thoughts on hit-and-runs, Mr. Goretti? I always wonder how people think they can get away with such atrocities. God always illuminates those monsters to the public’s eye eventually, don’t you think?”

Anthony says nothing.

“I understand that you don’t like your neighbors, Tony. Why ever did you move to Mississippi if you abhorred African-Americans so actively.”

Anthony says nothing. Mr. Finch, aching to hear the fear, goes in for the kill.

“God already knows about your little escapades, Anthony. But does your wife? Hm? Do you think Officer Susan Goretti would turn you in?”

“I don’t think she would turn me in, Mr. Finch.”

“Sadly, God already kn…” Clayton Finch realizes what was just said.

“Susan knows everything, Clay. About the journal. She actually loves your store, you know… says you have the best collection of framed artwork. I believe you know her by a different name. Does ‘Andrea’ ring a bell?”

Clayton says nothing.

“My lovely wife told me that there’s no chance a sweet church man would try to blackmail her, but I said, ‘Honey! Let me show you!’ She resisted for years, convinced of your innocence. She thought that because the call came months later that it couldn’t have been you. That’s until she heard Brahms playing on the store radio. Not many people still listen to Brahms, Clay.”

Clayton mutes the music.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it Clay? That your sins take place at the Church?”

Clayton is silent.

“You stole from the Church, Clay.”

“I don’t steal, Anthony.” Clayton can mutter nothing else.

“You still think there’s a Anthony?”

Clayton can’t breathe. The voice of his once victim pierces his eardrums like a steel icepick.

“I won’t lie, Clay, my face is lighting up just thinking about how you feel right now. I’m sure you know what that feels like.”

Clayton turns off his voice changer. “You know who I am. So what do you want?”.

“I want God to punish you for what you’ve done.”

“You want God to punish ME?” Clayton bellows. “I am his servant!”

“You are no servant. You stole a $20,000 donation from the Church. You extort the public, Clayton Finch. You terrorize innocent people for fun. God does not take pleasure in instilling fear, only you do.”

“I do not extort! I do not steal!” Clayton exclaims. “I rectify! I am rewarded! They are not innocent people! God chose me to carry out this work! He chose me to expose the sinners for what they’ve done! Who else could do it?”

“The state troopers.”

The phone disconnects. Clayton flips to the first leaf of his little black book.

Andrea Canny

268 Lincoln Blvd. – 662-555-8788

Beats dog Ruthie while drunk

State Trooper

Clayton, age 65, loved his work. He is due to retire momentarily.