Harry and the Human Rights Violation: Chapter 5

When Harry had gotten off the phone with Jack, he went around the library and herding out the patrons. “We have to close now,” he repeated as he walked around the desks and tables. “There’s a small emergency. Nothing to fear, “he assured. “ I apologize for the inconvenience. We need to do some repairs, and this would disrupt the peace and quiet necessary for a public library. I’m very sorry.”

He didn’t even give patrons time to sign out their books. He whooshed them out the front and locked the door behind them. He felt a little bad for contravening government regulations on closings, but this was an emergency.

He went behind the front desk and poked his head into Josh’s office. Josh was slipping on his jacket.

“Take off that jacket, “Harry ordered. Josh stared. “We’re being inspected. Tomorrow. I got a tip-off.”

Josh cursed under his breath. “But I was going out with my girlfriend,” he protested.

“Never mind your girlfriend. You have to help me.” Harry stormed back into his office and Josh followed him. “They want my head. This place has got to be spic and span. Every book, every shelf has to be in its place. “

Josh pleaded with his eyes.

Harry took down the dusty binder with the LSC regulations. “You can make it up to your girlfriend. I can’t make it up to the boss.” He blew off some dust. Josh coughed.

“Watch it, I have allergies. “ He wiped his eyes. “I can’t imagine you could lose your job over this. This is the public sector.”

“Exactly, Josh. And when you’re a political embarrassment, they will find an excuse to fire you, and no one will come to your defense.” Harry snapped open the binder to have the regulations more handy. “Get the ladies to make sure every book is in their proper place. Then they should vacuum and dust and clean the bathrooms. “He felt a small surge of remorse swell inside of him. He felt bad about the way he expected his women employees to do the traditional dirty work. “It’s too bad they have to be involved.” He handed Josh a walkie-talkie.

Josh went and told the ladies the bad news. Harry went over the regulations and tried to focus on the most important ones. The most glaring infraction was the fact that two of the library’s four computers were out of action. Normally, Harry would phone up Larry, the IT guy at the LSC and get a ticket, but he did not have two weeks to wait for the man to show up and he certainly did not want anyone to know that he was aware of his “surprise” inspection. So he sat down at his computer and searched the internet for a computer technician willing to come to the library.

He tried to narrow down the search to places in and around New Concord, as he did not want to pay for travel costs. He found a guy by the name of Quentin Moss, who happened to be just a short drive down the street. He phoned him to see if he was available.

“Quentin Moss speaking.”

“Hello Mr. Moss. Would you be available to come over this very minute? I have something of an emergency that needs to be addressed right away.”

“This is my supper hour, and I wasn’t planning on doing any calls.”

“I’m really in a bind.”

“It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“A hundred-fifty bucks an hour.”

Harry was steamed. But he was in no mood to negotiate. He kept his cool. “Sure. Come over now to the library. Two of my computers are shot.”

“I’ll be right over.”

Harry wondered whether he should have paid for travel costs of someone cheaper.

He went back to the regulations and his eyes fell on the page dealing with accessibility. He remembered that the lock for the stall for handicapped patrons in the men’s washroom was broken. That had to be fixed. Otherwise it would like he did not care about Social Harmony, because he did not care enough about the privacy of disabled patrons, even though the only handicapped patron in town was Jordan, an army veteran who lost his legs because of a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Leaving that stall lock unfixed was tantamount to being unwelcoming of the disabled. And therefore intolerant.

Harry was not a man of manual labour. He called up his friend Leo, who was only too happy to show off his handy man skills and make himself useful.

Harry browsed for more regulations. His eyes fell on a line that stated that no book could be more than 413 millimeters in width. Otherwise, it had to be re-bound into two books at the bookbinding centre in Toronto. The Library Standards Commission was afraid that such heavy books would be inaccessible to little old ladies and medically fragile patrons. Harry grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Josh, have Mrs. Keeble and Mrs. Quigley remove any books over 4 centimeters.”

“Where do you want me to put them?”

Harry racked his brains. “In the storage closet under the stairs. Box them up so that they’re not obvious.”

He returned, nervous and sweaty to the regulations. His eyes fell on the line that stated that no encyclopedia set could be any older than ten years old. The Library Standards Commission was petrified of outdated facts and especially outdated values. He remembered that the Encyclopedia Britannica set he had was eleven years old. He radio Josh. “Josh, ditch the Britannicas, they’re too old.”

“Do you want me to put those in the storage, too?”

“Yeah, and make sure they’re hidden. But don’t make it too obvious that we’re hiding them, okay?”

Harry heard his cell phone ring. Quentin Moss wanted to be let in. Harry went over to the door and opened it for him and locked it again. Harry pointed him to the computers. “You turn them on, but they just freeze. The main software programs freeze up and you can’t use the internet.” He explained.

“This might take a while. I’ll have to get out my desktop and monitor and perform some diagnostics.”

“By the way, Quentin, if you could keep this quiet, I’d appreciate it.”

“Must be serious,” Quentin mumbled.

“I can’t talk about it. “

Quentin looked at him.

“Government business.”

“So?”

“Government business,” Harry repeated emphatically.

He took a wood block they had lying around and set it on the floor as a door stop so that Quentin could make multiple trips to his van. “And please close the door behind you when you’re finished getting everything in.”

As Quentin walked out the door, Leo showed up with his toolbox. Harry led him to the back of the library and into the men’s bathroom where he spotted the hospital-green handicapped stall. He walked over to the door to take a look at it. He found only holes, no loose lock.

“The slider’s missing,” he said.

They scanned the floor. “It’s gotta be here somewhere, “said Harry. He nervously looked behind the garbage bin and under the sink and behind the door. Nothing. Just white tiles. “Do they sell them at the hardware store downtown?”

“’Fraid not, “said Leo. “But let me check my toolbox.” He rummaged through his big black box, and scrounged through the fiddly bits—the nuts and the bolts and the screws and other unnamable parts. He picked up the pieces of a hook-and-eye lock. “This could work.”

Harry winced. That would look so cheap. And yet: what were his other options. It wouldn’t create the professional touch he was looking for. “It’ll have to do for now.”

Leo took out his drill, plugged it in and started making the holes he needed for the hook and eye lock. Harry left the bathroom and scooted back to the front desk to get to his sheets with the regulations on them.

He picked them up and fingered through them. There were so many. He didn’t know which one to start with—they were all on such minor things. He went back to his office to get more regulations to see if there were any that seemed more important.

The anxiety over this inspection was wearing him down. The constant surges of blood pressure, the running around were leaving him physically exhausted. I’m not going to last, he thought. He wondered whether he was perhaps overreacting. Maybe he should just take out Population Perils, satisfy the Human Rights Commission and save his job. Why was he doing all this, for some book?

Was there some grander principle at stake? He wondered. Was it his own stubbornness that was keeping him from untangling himself from this situation and finding lasting peace? Was his belief all that important in the grand scheme of things?

He sat down behind the front desk to regroup. He ran through the complaint one more time in his head, about how suggesting that any restriction on abortion was tantamount to misogyny. Did that make sense to him?

Of course not. Sincere and well-meaning people could have sincere and well-meaning differences of opinion. Launching a government investigation over such an insignificant grievance was not a good expenditure of taxpayer money. This complaint would not in any way advance Social Harmony.

He marveled at the pettiness of the whole situation. And the worse part was that he sympathized with Gisela Gruber. He shared her desire for the advancement of feminism. But in his mind, suggesting a restriction on a small number of abortions was no viable threat.

He was right and she was wrong.

That was his opinion. His own personal, subjective, fallible opinion. It seemed like such a petty reason to fight. He was pretty sure he was right. And he wasn’t a rabid misogynist because he believed in letting people have some differences of opinion. That was a foolish conclusion.

He felt a surge of anger. Is that what she thinks of me? That I’m a misogynist for letting this guy disagree?

This was all so foolish. And yet, if he backed down because of this complaint, it would mean that, in the public domain, she was right: Harry was a misogynist, because he protected misogynists.

He sighed. This was so ridiculous.

Mrs. Keeble, sporting her bifocals, approached him with a tattered green cover. The front cover was breaking off. “Harry, this book looks somewhat used. Perhaps we need to send it to the bookbinding office.”

It did look like it was on its last legs. “There’s no time for filling out the forms, “he told her. He radioed Josh. “Josh, box up all the books with covers breaking off. We stick those in the storage closet, too.”

Harry read the gold lettering on the cover:

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter

His eyeballs popped. She was the very antithesis of Social Harmony. Vile, lying, disgusting, abrasive, venomous, divisive, far-right wench. “Josh, how the hell did Ann Coulter end up in my library?”

He sounded bewildered. “Ann Coulter? I never ordered any Ann Coulter.”

Harry looked at the book in disgust. It was bound in standard green Government of Ontario binding. “I have an Ann Coulter book in my library.”

“I had noticed it, Mr. Harman, “confessed Mrs. Keeble, “but since no one complained, I didn’t say anything either. I thought perhaps you left it there for research purposes, “she explained.

Mrs. Keeble had a good heart. She would not have let an author like Ann Coulter be displayed in the library unless she thought there was a higher ulterior purpose. “Do we have any more of these books?”

“We might have a few more Ann Coulters. And perhaps some Rush Limbaughs, a Mark Steyn, and I think a Phyllis Schlafly.”

“Phyllis Schlaffly? “ His head sunk into his hands. “Phyllis Schlaffly? I’ve been here all these years and I never saw the Phyllis Schlaffly?”

He looked at the shelves. What else did was he not aware of?

All the books looked alike. Perhaps if the inspectors did not peer too closely, the titles would escape their notice.

“You know what? This is a library. I don’t have to agree with everything, here, “he said to appease his conscience. “Get this Ann Coulter to the bookbinding office.”

He began to wrestle with his decision. There impressionable minds who roamed those aisles. How would he feel if his library was some adolescent’s first encounter with extremist far right ideas?

On the other hand, maybe he might find out what exactly earned Ann Coulter’s reputation. He thought of her as a right-wing political slut, who put out with her columns so that vile right-wing haters could derive orgasmic delight out from the exposure of her bile. The more they praised her and relished her books, the more she wrote, satisfying their lust for hate. It was political porn for bigots, with the bod and looks to match.

To think that his library was spreading that kind of divisiveness made him sick.

He felt wearied by those divisive political debates. He just wanted Social Harmony to prevail. That was all that mattered. Knuckle-draggers like Ann Coulter sure didn’t. They were the reason why Canada needed the creed of Social Harmony. If it weren’t for those right-wingers, Canada would be just fine.

Quentin walked up to Harry to tell him the bad news about the computers. “You have a virus, and your wireless router is on the fritz.”

“How much?”

“Four hundred dollars. Plus labour.”

“Okay, do whatever you need to do, “Harry said as he waved him off.

Leo brought his toolbox to the front desk to tell Harry that he was done, and then left for home.

Harry went back to his binder and realized the impossibility of his task. To get every single regulation correct, so that his government boss would not be mad at him. He flipped through the pages. Hundreds and hundreds of them. He thought of them as hundred of mousetraps, waiting to snap his little toe and punish him for his negligence. All at the cost of deep mental anguish at the prospect of losing a job he loved.

He decided to just finish straightening out the place and hope for the best.

He turned out the lights at eight o’clock and prayed that there were no surprises waiting for him.