I Had to Say Something (24 page)

I woke up at four, having slept maybe an hour. It felt odd not to be heading out the door to the gym. I got out of bed, ate a piece of fruit, and started clearing my mind.

My phone rang at about 5:15 a.m. Why was Greg calling me so early?

“Mike, it's Patricia Calhoun.” Uh oh. I hadn't talked to her since the prior week, and I'd given her no heads-up on what I was doing with Peter.

Patricia told me how the radio station had been teasing my interview all morning long. They weren't naming names, but she'd called Greg at the station to confirm that it was me. Does this woman ever sleep? To my pleasant surprise, Patricia wasn't angry. I told her that I did not know whether I was doing the right thing or not, but that this was something I felt I had to do. In reply, she told me not to name names just yet, and I told her I wouldn't. She then wished me well and hung up.

Waiting for Greg's call, I stayed away from the couch and instead sat upright in a chair, trying to think positive, calming thoughts. Greg was to call me about three minutes before the hour. I had a bottle of water beside me. I had no idea what to expect. I was as ready as I would ever be.

A few minutes before six, my phone rang, and it was Greg.

“I want Peter to call me Paul, and I will not name the pastor,” I repeated.

“No problem,” Greg assured me. “Are you ready?” I said yes, and Greg put me on hold. Well, here goes.

“I'd like to welcome Paul to the program,” Peter said, “and, boy, does he have a story to tell us.” Before Peter let me say anything, he read my e-mail on the air.

A million things ran through my mind. I had been telling
this story in my head over and over, and now it seemed odd to be telling it to the world finally. The fact that I was not in the studio made me feel better. In fact, it seemed just like a phone conversation.

Once Peter was done with his initial interview, he made some personal comments. “I think this man is telling us the truth,” he told his audience. “That's my gut reaction.”

It was so great to finally hear that. My heart soared a thousand feet into the air.

“I think this story has to come, and it has to come quickly,” Peter added. “I think this guy has the goods.”

But then Peter started taking calls and e-mails, and my soaring heart fell to my feet again.

“Peter, please do not encourage this man.”

“Pete, your guest is such a tease. I'll bet he's good at his job.”

“He's fishing for a payoff to keep this a secret.”

“In my opinion, this dude is nothing more than a fag trying to promote more of his kind.”

There were some people who believed and supported me, but most of them felt I was either lying or trying to stir the pot. I felt like crying every time I was called a fag or a prostitute.

During the commercial breaks, Peter spoke with me, giving me encouragement. I wasn't going to hang up on him, but I was feeling battered.

After a break, Peter came back and said, “I have been talking with this man off air, and I think he's sitting on a keg of dynamite.”

The calls and e-mails continued. The whole time, I kept watching the clock on my wall. I was so glad to see that it was almost seven o'clock. I was thoroughly exhausted and ready
to go to the gym. Then Peter told his audience that he was going to ask me to stick around for another hour.

I was drained and felt trapped, but I thought,
why not?
During a news break at the top of the hour, I told Peter that my client was Ted Haggard.

The name did not immediately register with him, so he pulled up Ted Haggard's name on an Internet search and then printed off some forty pages of information. I had hoped all of this was starting to make sense to him, but I could tell that the logic of it, if there was any, almost didn't matter. The calls and the e-mails kept coming, and that was good for ratings.

The second hour was almost all incoming calls. My guess is that about 80 percent of the callers were against me. Caller after caller seemed not only ill informed, but downright mean-spirited. I kept getting raked over the coals, and finally I said that someday soon those who doubted me would be eating their words. I kept getting egged on to cough up Ted's name, but I held my ground.

By the time eight o'clock rolled around, I could barely move or speak. I felt like I had been beaten up and left for dead, and to be honest, I was angry. No one who called in to Peter's show understood what I was trying to say. After I hung up with Peter, I went to the couch to lie down, but I left the radio on. Lo and behold, the next voice I heard on Peter's show was none other than Patricia Calhoun's.

“He is very compelling,” she told Peter's audience, “but it's going to come down to he said, he said.” Well, that's exactly what she'd told me in her office. She went on to say that as for the next leg of the story, we'd just have to wait and see what happened next.

I sat there numb. After her interview, Patricia called me to say that she thought I'd done a nice job on the air. I can't begin
to tell you how bad I felt. I thanked her and started to apologize profusely for not letting her run with the story. She told me she would have loved to have been the first to break it but that she was supportive and she understood. Speaking of reporters I'd left out in the cold, I needed to call Paula Woodward and let her know what I had done. I owed her an apology as well.

 

“May I call you back?” she asked when I spoke to her less than an hour later.

I said sure and hung up. I could only imagine the discussions that were taking place inside Paula's newsroom. They had been sitting on the story for months, and now they had been scooped by a talk-show host who I'd e-mailed less than a week earlier. Well, they hadn't been totally scooped. My name and Ted's name still weren't out there.

Unbeknownst to me, Paula was working another source on my story. Through her network of contacts, she'd found a guy who was willing to corroborate my story, but only if Ted denied doing anything and if New Life Church took no action.

Paula called me back before noon. “Mike, I need you to come down to the studio,” she said.

I was still drained from Peter's show, but I felt so bad about going behind her back that I was willing to do anything for her. “Can I ask what you want to see me about?”

“I just need to get you on tape.” Before I had a chance to think, I said I'd be at the station in thirty minutes.

I walked up to the front desk, and before I could say a word, the receptionist said, “Hi, Mike, I'll call Paula.” A young woman escorted me to the room where Paula was. She asked how I was and introduced me to her two assistants.

Everything was calm and friendly. Perhaps a little too calm and friendly. All three were discussing what they should do
with my story. I felt like a fifth wheel sitting in on their brainstorming session. After about an hour of their talking to each other and my saying nothing, I began to wonder if, once again, Paula was going to ask me more questions but do nothing with the story.

“I think we're done for now, Mike,” Paula finally said. “Thanks for coming to talk to us.”

This was getting old
, I thought. I gathered my things, and on my way out the door, I told Paula again how sorry I was about not letting her know before I went on the radio.

“I know, Mike,” she said. Always the professional, she added, “Thank you again for coming by.”

Later in the day, I received another call from Paula. “Can you come back to the studio?” she asked.

I envisioned another meeting like the one that morning, but I still felt I owed her for going to Peter. “Of course I can,” I told her. I stopped folding laundry, grabbed a light jacket, and drove down to the Channel 9 studios, which were less than a ten minute drive from my place.

Another woman met me at the front desk and took me back to the studio. This time, out of nowhere, came three or four people who sat me down, hooked me up with a microphone, and brought in a camera. I sat there calmly, but I was getting antsy again. I tried not to think about what they were going to ask me.

The cameraman adjusted his camera and then told the young woman he was rolling.

She leaned into me and spoke slowly. “Are you absolutely positive that the man you had sex with was Ted Haggard?”

What an odd question. I thought I had already answered that for Channel 9 with a very firm yes months before. “Yes,” I said as I looked at her.

“Could you tell me that in your own words?” she asked.

Okay. “Yes,” I said carefully. “I am absolutely positive that Ted Haggard was the man I had sex with.”

“Are you absolutely positive that Ted Haggard was the man with whom you had a three-year affair?” she asked again.

Was there a problem with my first answer?
“Yes, I am,” I said again, this time more emphatically.
God, what are you trying to get at? Why would I make all this stuff up?

“Are you positive that Ted Haggard used meth in your presence?”

“Yes,” I again said carefully. “I am positive he used meth in my presence.”

“And did you sell meth to Ted Haggard?”

“No, I did not sell meth to Ted Haggard.”

The woman leaned back in her chair. “Thank you, Mike, we just needed to have confirmation on tape,” she said, unclipping the microphone from my shirt. In a flash, everyone left the room, leaving me all alone. Maybe Channel 9 was finally moving on this story.

I got the sense that something was going on in the newsroom. The action seemed more intense than normal. I got excited, thinking that maybe Paula had cornered Ted Haggard, but at the same time I was still sad about it all.

I could also tell that the newsroom staff was not happy with me. They'd had this story for the last few months and had been sitting on it, waiting for something to happen. Then along comes a talk-radio host who, based on just one e-mail, brought me on his show. I wouldn't have been happy either if I were them, but I hoped they could understand where I was coming from. I had to say something or I was going to go nuts.

One woman came in briefly, smiled, and said, “What were you thinking?”

She smiled again and left the room without saying another word.

Now I was starting to get upset. I wanted to remind them that I'd been waiting for them, and waiting, and waiting.
I came into your offices months ago with this story, and now you're upset at me for not waiting even longer?
But I didn't say that. I sat and watched all the excitement. It seemed that they had everyone in the newsroom working on this story, but as best as I could tell, they were getting nowhere with it.

Sitting there with nothing to do, my eyes started to wander. There was a ton of paper and notes all over the desk where I sat. On one notepad facing away from me were some scribbles, and right in the middle of it, in big black letters, were the words “New Life Church.” Underneath it was a phone number with a 719 area code.

I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to dial the number.

“Is Ted Haggard there?” I asked.

The church operator put me through to his assistant, who told me that he was busy. “Would you like to leave a message?” she asked politely.

I said no and hung up. That should have been the end of it, but as I looked out into the newsroom, a strange feeling came over me. Sure, I was truly angry with Ted, but I still felt an obligation to Art.

After another twenty minutes, I dialed the New Life number again.

“He is on the other line,” the assistant said again. “May I take a message?”

“I'll just call back,” I responded, ending the call quickly.
Was someone from Channel 9 already down there talking to him?
I wondered.

As the day wore on, I was having second thoughts about my decision to speak out. I was not wavering on exposing Ted Haggard's hypocrisy. But I was starting to wonder if it was worth all the trouble. Honestly, is anything worth all the trouble?

I decided to call New Life Church again, but Ted's assistant gave me the same answer. “I am a close friend of Ted's, and I really need to talk with him,” I said. “Is it possible for you to give me his cell phone number?”

To my shock, she gave it to me.

Staring down at the number, I realized that I had no idea what to do with it. When I looked up, I saw everyone in the newsroom still scrambling.
Oh hell
, I thought. Ted's life was about to be ruined, and I owed it to him to say something.

Up until that afternoon in Channel 9, I did not have a number for him. I never did. That's how I protected my clients and myself. I later learned that he had given his phone number to one of the local adult bookstores so they could call him when the items he ordered came in.

Using my right thumb, I punched his number into my cell phone and nervously pushed send. I got a connection, but his phone just kept ringing. Then, all of the sudden, I got his voice mail.

I swallowed hard. I couldn't decide if I should tell him to come clean or to run and hide. “Ted, Art, whatever your name is,” I said with an awful lot of intensity, “this is Mike. Listen, the press is at my door, and I really think we need to talk.” I spoke out the ten digits of my cell phone number, but hell, he already had that. “Call me!”

After I hung up, I realized that I was acting on impulse, just like I had when I e-mailed Paula, then Patricia, then Peter.

“Mike,” a newsroom staffer said, poking her head inside the door. “Would you be willing to go to Colorado Springs with us?” she said.