True to his word, Al called the next day to let us know he would take the job. Less than forty-eight hours later, we were back together. This time, our meeting was not in the boardroom of Dale’s law firm, but at the Celtic Corner, the Irish pub down the street.
On the phone, Al said he was fully engaged and therefore did not want to waste time. We knew he was effective but to pull together a meeting of busy professionals and get everyone to volunteer at such short notice, was an impressive logistical feat. I couldn’t help thinking that it was not just Dale and I Al scared the hell out of. It was everyone in town.
Taking a seat in the pub, I relaxed looking up at the finely carved woodwork on the high ceilings. I ordered a Guinness. Dale gave me a disapproving look.
“What? So, now I have to quit drinking now?” I said annoyed.
“Well… you know how some people are… Maybe I should drink the beer and you should order a soda water or something?” he replied.
“Soda water, what are you talking about?”
“Well, its Dartmouth after all. You know how conservative this town is.”
“Conservative, are you crazy? People in this town drink like a poet with a paycheck! And there are weed shops on every street corner and you are telling me I shouldn’t have a beer? Jesus, it’s bad enough I won’t have time to date, but now I can’t have a drink? Have you lost your mind? Hey, how about this idea? How about I wear a dress throughout the entire campaign and change my name to Carolyn?”
“Not a bad idea. Given the threats on your person, a gender reassignment plan would make it easier to hide you in plain sight,” he responded.
At that moment, Dale gave me a wide-eyed look. I turned toward the door to see where his attention had shifted.
Todd Taylor, another one of our old rugby acquaintances, had entered the pub. Todd and I had lost touch over the last few years. However, given that Dartmouth is a city with a small-town sensibility of knowing most people’s business, I was aware of his recent success directing his own marketing company. Having Todd on the team would be a great boost to our fortunes. On top of that, he was easy to look at. I grabbed the dark ruby Guinness before Dale could get his hands on it.
Walking in after Todd, I spotted another familiar face—Suzanne Powell. Suzanne looked stunning in a blue silk business suit. Another old friend from university, she had worked as a teacher for six years before becoming the youngest principal in the history of the Halifax Regional School Board.
Coming from a political family, Suzanne’s network of contacts was extensive. She was also a lot of fun to be around. Men loved her; a trait not shared by her own gender.
Todd arrive at the table a step or two before Suzanne. He put out a hand and looked favourably at the full Guinness on the table in front of me. I gave Dale a smug smirk.
“It’s a pleasure to see we haven’t died and gone to heaven. Al said we were going to have fun with this campaign and you know my motto. If it is not fun it is not worth doing,” said Todd.
I picked up my glass and tipped it to him.
Just then, Suzanne arrived at the table. She ordered a large Keiths.
Todd turned to see Suzanne grinning at him. They immediately embraced. Dale and I stood to greet her too.
“Suzanne, how are you? Wow, you look great!” said Todd.
I always wondered if they ever got together. The way they looked at each other, if they did not get together, then they should have.
At that moment the doorway darkened as Al entered slowly with his trademark maneuver of ducking his head through the doorway. Almost simultaneously, we stopped talking. Not surprisingly, when Al moved people noticed. Some concerned for their personal safety and others just marveling at the spectacle.
We seated ourselves around the table. After the drink orders were placed, all our attention quickly collected in Al’s direction. This just happened naturally without any call to order from him. Leadership comes to some people naturally.
Al had not yet said a word. He simply sat there with his eye glasses in his hand wiping the sweat from his forehead with a paper napkin he had folded in half. With his glasses back on, he looked at each of us for a moment before he began talking.
The energy at the table was good. This helped me relax a little. For the first time I was starting to enjoy this idea of running for public office. I still had quite a way to go before I would be comfortable with it, but I was making progress. Dale on the other hand was positively bubbling with enthusiasm. For a moment I wondered why he did not want to be the candidate given his obvious joy with these kinds of events.
“Anyone hungry?” asked Al.
Not waiting for a reply, he called a server over and placed an order for four pounds of chicken wings, two pounds hot and two pounds medium with blue cheese and ranch dressing on the side, and a hot artichoke dip.
“Okay, let’s get this started. First of all, I want to thank you for coming on such short notice. I appreciate you giving up your time. As you aware, our friend has recently been nominated to be the Conservative Candidate for Dartmouth and Cole Harbour and I want you to help him win the seat.”
Without giving anyone a chance to speak, Al continued.
“Each of you is here because I want you on the core team. Troy has asked me to chair the campaign. I have accepted. Dale has agreed to handle fundraising and be the official agent of the campaign. Todd, I want you to take on communications and marketing. Suzanne, I want you to recruit and coordinate the volunteers.”
“Seems small,” said Todd.
“Small is not the word I would use… I prefer to describe our core team as nimble. We need to be able to react quickly to events. We also need to have a strong level of trust if this campaign is going to succeed,” he explained.
“Sounds fun Al,” said Suzanne, “what is the timing like?”
“Technically an election can happen at any time. Realistically speaking, the fall at the earliest and next spring being considered the most likely timing,” he replied.
“Okay, works for me. I’m in,” replied Suzanne with her trademark infectious smile.
Todd looked at her and said, “Count me in too. It has been a while since we have had some old school fun!”
Dale gave me a knowing look which suggested conspiracy. When he caught my puzzled look, he leaned into me and whispered “Al called Suzanne last night and set this up for Todd. You don’t think he would leave this to chance, do you?”
“Hey,” Al interrupted us, “No secrets. For this campaign to be successful we will not have secrets or side-bar conversations. We will require information to flow freely and without filters or prejudices. On that note, let’s talk about the death threats. Dale tell us what you know.”
Dale then shared with the group how I was transformed from being a hardworking, community-based public librarian into an internationally-known protector of free speech and intellectual freedom just by being shot by a lunatic and saved by War and Peace.
The headline ‘Librarian owes life to Tolstoy’ was still trending wildly on social media. In the six weeks since my recovery, the story showed no signs yet of slowing down and while most of the attention was positive, there was significant negative chatter from left-leaning groups who labeled me as a promoter of hate speech and racist propaganda.
This point of view had been exasperated by the fact the far alt-right groups had adopted me as their latest poster boy since I took a bullet for the soccer mom with a Fatah on her head.
When we won the Conservative nomination for Dartmouth and Cole Harbour, the libertarian far-right groups were ecstatic and the lunatic fringe on the left went absolutely seagull shit crazy.
This attention on the fringes of the political spectrum lit up everyone in between, including one group that thinks public servants should not run for political office. Since the nomination win we received a total of twelve death threats, five of which local police consider credible. Security would be an issue.
This report however did not dampen the mood. We spent the rest of the hour getting caught up on the events of our lives over the past several years. Oddly, we did not talk about the election campaign much. We were having too much fun discussing old times to talk about the future, even if there were people plotting to kill me.
Troy Myers 