I grabbed the air horn and twisted it away from the protester. He stared at me dumbfounded like I did something wrong. Holding the air horn in my shaking hand, I wished holes would burn through the back of his skull. He glared back and started shouting.
“You can’t silence us! We won’t allow this right-wing propaganda! This is a public place! You can’t stop us!!”
At this point, both Bhat and Elizabeth were by my side trying to reason with this disciple of the unreasonable.
They asked the young man to sit down and listen to the presentation. They promised to take everyone’s questions, including his.
The marching protesters complete with blaring air horns were now all around us. Most had covered face to hide their identities . One masked protester pushed me. Finding it difficult to control my own anger, I asked them again to sit down so we could get on with the program. They responded by blowing horns in unison. They also began shouting obscenities.
The protester who had shoved me earlier came at me again. As he did, I caught a flash of saffron robe and a thin tanned arm in front of me. Bhat had thrust an open hand into the middle of the man’s chest. The masked man fell to the ground.
Elizabeth, in full angry bear soccer mom mode, ordered the protesters to take their seats or get the hell out. It was at this point when things went from bad to worse.
The CBC reporter with her selfie stick thrust her iPhone in the middle of the chaos. Elizabeth shouted. The protesters yelled back. Everyone became more agitated as each angry word hurled across the room. The presence of the camera on the pole, maneuvered expertly between us, acted like oxygen to a fire.
I made the quick decision to cancel the program. Any chance to have a civilized discussion was gone. I went back to the podium and shouted into the microphone.
“May I have your attention! I have an important announcement to make! Excuse me! May I have your attention please!!”
The intensity of my shouting had the desired effect on the growing chaos. The protestors and Elizabeth stopped shouting and looked toward the stage. Having everyone’s attention, I leaned into the podium and announced that today’s event would not happen due to the disruptive behavior. On behalf of the speakers and everyone who worked at Halifax Public Libraries, I apologized for this unfortunate chain of events.
After making this regrettable announcement, I watched the rows of people get up and leave, row after row of civilized people who had wasted their time visiting the Library today. As the host of these disappointed folks, a strong feeling of anger consumed me. I looked at the gaggle of now jubilant protesters dancing around in a circle holding their air horns high and blowing them as quickly as they could get their trigger-happy fingers to move. With my anger seething, I jumped down from the stage and snatched two of the horns.
“Stop this right now! Get the hell out of my library!!” I shouted.
One of the protesters shoved me from behind. I quickly turned and shoved him back knocking him to the ground.
“What the hell?!” he said
“Get out! All of you!” I screamed.
At this point, I figured we had hit absolute rock bottom. Fighting in a public library space, air horns, cancelled events, and world class speakers unable to speak. How could it get any worse? Then, it did.
“Leave him alone!” screamed a woman’s voice behind me. She was hysterical, curdled and barely coherent, unlike any voice I had heard before. This was followed by a collection of gasps and a couple seconds of silence.
I turned to confront this new interloper just in time to see her pull a hand-gun out of her jacket pocket and point it at me. Everyone around me screamed and scattered as she started firing the pistol.
Hearing the pops of the small gun sounding just like the fire crackers I stood frozen. I watched as one bullet splintered the book shelf to my left and another shattered a book standing in the display of Russian literature my co-worker Claire had put together to celebrate Tolstoy’s birthday just the day before.
It took more than this moment for me to comprehend what was going on. Is that a real gun? Was she shooting at me? Just as I accepted the unfortunate reality that, yes, it is a real gun and, yes, she is shooting in my direction, she corrected her aim and the muzzle flashed again as I dove to find cover behind a nearby book stack.
Feeling a smack to my side like a kick in the ribs, the last thing I remembered was hitting the ground and seeing Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ knocked from the shelf sprinkling shards of its thin newsprint pages like confetti over the floor and my fallen body.
Troy Myers 