By Michael Eddy

After a break, there was a spokes meeting in the basement of a building on Saint Denis. The space was painted by an unknowable number of hands, but my memory recalls that it was a black colour. The ceilings were very high and one descended a set of stairs to reach what at other times was a music venue. It had a cinematic, stage-set quality; in some sense that it was unbelievable that it was allowed to exist. Some authority somewhere, in their own interests, would have shut it down in the real world- so it came to me as a fragment of the imaginary, of movies. In another way, it absorbed or reflected the cliched imagery of subculture that was found in movies that catered to my generation, particularly the ones that had been adapted from comic books. The place was absolutely packed with people. Everyone sat awkwardly on the floor facing the small stage; we tried to stay with our affinity groups so that we could cast our votes together.

Before the details of the snake march were to be discussed, there was a call for any undercover police to leave or to reveal their identities. Of course, no one left. The snake march was a method of keeping from being encircled by the hordes of police who were riding around in rented private buses or marching in phalanxes. It involved key persons at either end of the long column of marchers working with flags and walkie-talkies to create a spontaneous and unpredictable route to the convention centre where the ministers were meeting, and where the protesters would stage a demonstration. There were further warnings about the substances and the tactics that might be used, and briefings on things like jail solidarity, on where people should be depending on what actions they planned to take, and the probable depictions by the media.

Most people slept in the basement of the building back at the university, strewn all over the carpeted concrete, but I knew some friends in town, so I stayed with them, and we would all meet before seven the next morning. I made sure to bring along as little as possible that could identify me if I was grabbed. Whether or not it really makes sense to use those kinds of tactics with police, I don't know. Maybe it is a character trait I harbour, the secret hope to simply slip by a bureaucratic inevitable. So, empty-pocketed, off I skipped with my friends down the fresh morning asphalt. I remember the clarity of the sky and early morning sun reflected from the shopfront windows downtown, and the sharpness of all edges.

The snake march laced its way to the convention centre. We passed holes in plate glass windows of the usual suspects, the chain restaurants, and a gaping one in the facade of some women's wear boutique, the latter probably targeted because of someone's affinity for materials rather than any specific malevolence on its part. They were silent, beautiful holes, the way shattered glass usually is.




The group reached the area that was to host our demonstration. Attention alternated between the mass of cops before us and the building in which the meeting was taking place. I imagined various scenarios of how the noise might distract a minister from the business at hand. I wondered if they even noticed; the building itself became the register of acknowledgement, like an emotionless face. I waited for a black silhouette to appear against an upper window, like a pupil emerging from the corner of an eye. The mass of cops was mobile behind the barriers; things were happening, protocols put into motion. It was not long before they advanced, in flanks and straight on. A decision was announced among the protesters- to head back to the green zone; we retreated hurriedly and en masse. I walked with my friends down rue Sainte Catherines, far behind a reinvigorated and accelerated snake march. We would all meet back at the green zone and talk about what had happened.

Standing around in a huge crowd in an undeveloped lot beside a bookstore, I wondered when the conclusion speech, the debriefing would happen. It was almost certain that the minister's talks had gone on undisturbed. At the intersection down the street, a wave of police formed. My friends and I decided that maybe it was a good time to leave. We walked up the hill and saw another wave of police. For some reason, no one had suspected that this would happen- the green zone was a pacific territory, a non-violent gathering space. I thought that it had been an agreement. Oh, well. The waves closed in.

Michael Eddy was born in New York. He grew up in Nova Scotia. He tried to maintain a distinguishable New York accent until about the age of 18. Alas, the result is something Chretienian, a placeless speech, inadequate to satisfy either locality. He now lives in Frankfurt, Germany.