Number Two (16 page)

The next morning we made a very important decision.

We woke up, had one last coffee on the dock, and then packed up all the food—cooked, uncooked, and otherwise—as well as the remaining wine and vodka we thought we'd need to keep us buzzed for an entire week, and stuffed it all into the trunk of my car along with our clothes. We locked up the cottage and tore out of the driveway. Almost at the turn to the main road, we saw the kids from next door all gathered at the back of their cottage, preparing their wetsuits and wakeboards for another day in paradise in the Canadian wilderness.

“Where are you guys going?” asked an affable young man who had clearly grown up spending every summer happily frolicking at
this cottage, first with his family and now with his friends, his skin probably leathery from adapting to the myriad of mosquito attacks he had endured since he was a boy.

“I just don't think this was the place for us,” I said before bidding him a warm goodbye and driving off.

We dropped the keys in an envelope and then left them in the mailbox of the rental agency in the middle of town, keeping the engine running the entire time. We were a bit anxious to get to our next destination and we kept driving. We knew exactly where we needed to go. We got back on the 400, then onto the 401, and passed Number 9 Channel Nine Court in Scarborough, the home of TSN. We kept driving past the eastern suburbs of the city, past the Big Apple stand on the side of the highway where they sold the most delicious apple pies, and then through beautiful Prince Edward County near Kingston a couple hours later. Prince Edward County is Ontario's new wine country—Ontario's version of the Hamptons—and we love going there, but that wasn't where we needed to be now.

We kept driving past Cornwall, over the Quebec border, and then finally reached the outskirts of our destination.

Beautiful Montreal.

There are so many amazing cities in my home country. Toronto will always feel like home to me. As will Edmonton. Winnipeg is an unexpected treasure, and I have friends there I will cherish for life. I never have a bad time in Saskatoon or Halifax. But Montreal tops them all. Everything about the city puts me at ease. I could live there at a moment's notice. And this week, even though we had pre-paid for a cottage that was now going to sit empty for the next six days, Montreal's sweet embrace was going to make us forget all about that poor man who had to come all the way from Markham and been forced to
abandon his anniversary dinner, all about the mosquitoes and the world's worst barbeque.

We drove through the city, through Montreal's
centre-ville
, and past office buildings and
Couche-Tards
and St. Hubert chicken restaurants, until we finally arrived at our destination: Boulevard Saint Laurent. “The Main.” We pulled into the newly refurbished and mercifully modern and clean Opus Hotel at the corner of St. Laurent and Sherbrooke and were immediately greeted by a smiling porter who took our bags and led us to the front desk. We were given a beautiful room overlooking the street with a shower big enough for two that we may have lingered in for over an hour.

Filth and memories of the past two days washed away, we left the car with the valet and hopped into a cab to Montreal's Atwater neighbourhood and my favourite restaurant in the entire nation—and perhaps the whole world—Joe Beef. The tiny little bistro owned by friends and co–head chefs David McMillan and Frederic Morin had taken the city's food scene by storm and charmed the likes of Anthony Bourdain and David Chang. We squeezed into a tiny wooden table, the entire place absolutely rammed, and ordered the first of many wonderfully made cocktails before I tucked into my appetizer, the Foie Gras Double Down, a takeoff on the KFC sandwich of the same name. In KFC's version, the sandwich “bread” is two pieces of chicken breast. Joe Beef's version uses two thick slabs of foie gras—foie gras to envelop the sandwich! This over-the-top indulgence, followed by a spectacular and fully cooked steak that enjoyed the kiss of real flames instead of a tiny flickering one, was more than enough to restore mind and body on that beautiful summer night. We passed out on 300-thread-count sheets that night, and as Chobi slumbered beside me in peaceful bliss I stared up at the ceiling.

I had wanted to spend the entirety of that evening on the dock with a drink in hand, taking in the spectacular Muskoka night sky filled with stars. Now I was still staring upwards, but the sky was obscured by a newly spackled and gleaming white ceiling. I was staring into nothingness, and I cracked a little smile. We had found our dream cottage after all.

B
y the time I moved to Los Angeles I was ready to visit all the places I had heard and read about: the beaches at Malibu, the Laurel Canyon neighbourhood where so many musical icons had lived during the late 1960s and early '70s, and of course the San Fernando Valley where all the greatest adult films in the world were made. There was no “Porn Disneyland” where one could go and learn more about the history of the genre, just a massive suburban sprawl hiding its secrets carefully.

My friend Ben Zigelstein, who directed studio shows for TSN, came down to L.A. just a few months after we moved there to visit his screenwriter brother and messaged me about getting together. I told him I wanted to visit a strip club in the Valley when a porn star was dancing there. I wanted to see the Valley in person and I wanted to see a porn star up close—a real live porn star in the ultimate porn
star habitat. As luck would have it, the week Ben was visiting a porn star
was
going to be dancing at a club in the Valley. The porn star in question was Kristina Rose, a beautiful, petite Latina behind whose innocent smile lurked a foul mouth that made even me blush. I imagined she would have a tremendously entertaining stage presence. I don't think it's what Ben had in mind when he asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink that evening, but I was pretty confident that even if the night turned out to be a total disaster we would have a good time. It
was
a strip club after all.

My wife approved the outing on the condition that I took another female friend along. Julie Stewart Binks worked alongside me at Fox Sports 1 after spending the first portion of her on-air career at CTV Regina. Julie was always up for fun, and when I mentioned to her that I wanted to go to a strip club in the Valley she didn't even bat an eyelash. So after a delicious meal at Petty Cash Taqueria on Beverly Boulevard near La Brea, we hopped into an Uber Black Car and began the trip “over the hill.” Normally, anyone familiar with Los Angeles might say to themselves, “Isn't an Uber from Hollywood to the Valley a little expensive?” And they would be absolutely correct. But having just arrived in the city on a work visa, I didn't want to risk any possibility whatsoever of getting caught with a DUI—a little extra money for the Uber would be worth it.

After heading up the 101 we exited on Sepulveda near Ventura Boulevard in Van Nuys. “It looks like Regina,” commented Julie.

We drove down a pretty dark stretch of Oxnard right next to a Costco en route to the Spearmint Rhino, a chain of strip clubs with locations all over Los Angeles and a famous branch in Vegas. Having really only been to American strip clubs in Vegas, I was curious to see how this club in the Valley stacked up—pardon the pun.

We pulled up to the front door and were asked for a $20 cover, which seemed fair enough. I paid quickly, excited to step inside,
get a drink, and check out the action. The three of us wandered up to the bar and asked for some vodka and we got a look that said, “Don't you realize you can't order booze here?”

We did
not
realize you couldn't order booze there.

Have you ever been to a strip club? Have you ever been to one completely, 100 percent sober? There's a difference. There's a
big
difference. No matter what you think of strip clubs, I think we can all agree that alcohol should probably be available. Without alcohol, it was a little like watching girls dance at a dimly lit Starbucks that happened to smell like really, really cheap perfume and a smattering of broken dreams. The club was not quite dark enough either, just a little
too
bright. Despite all these obstacles, we decided to sit on “pervert's row” right in front of the stage. And a tiny stage it was. At the world-famous Brass Rail strip club in Toronto the stage is rectangular and features two poles for maximum movement and dexterity. By comparison, this stage was tiny, which meant the performers were literally right in your face. I suppose that was the point.

As we walked in I saw Kristina Rose standing at one of the back booths with a ton of her merchandise arranged on the table for sale. This “merchandise” consisted of signed posters and DVDs, as well as signed boxes that contained pocket vaginas, which were replicas of Kristina's own vagina made of rubber that could be taken home and used for reasons I'm still very much unclear on, despite my years of watching adult films. Do you put the rubber vagina on the bed and then get on top to penetrate it? Do you lie on your back and then secure the rubber vagina on top of your erection like a floppy hat at the beach? I can't imagine any situation in which a man using one of Kristina's rubber vaginas wouldn't look completely hilarious to someone who happened to barge in and catch him in the act. Nonetheless, Kristina had sold a few of those
vaginas that evening, as well as a ton of pics. She was smiling and seemed happy. I didn't approach her right away for fear of looking like the kind of guy who took an Uber all the way to the Valley just to see her, even though I
had
just taken an Uber all the way to the Valley just to see her.

As it turns out, I wasn't alone.

There were various characters joining us on pervert's row surrounding the tiny stage that Saturday evening, and most of them seemed pretty sober. Directly next to us sat a young guy, early twenties, who had a stack of one-dollar bills ready to shower on Kristina so she would shake her booty directly in front of him. I imagined that this kid was a lot like me. He had probably gone to a sleepover with his friends when he was about twelve years old and someone had a laptop and showed him a pornographic movie for the first time and he became hooked. Why else would he be here all alone on a Saturday night, unless he was just plain anti-social? In my sober state I was a little sad that this young guy was sitting in the front row with us and not out at a club with friends meeting real girls and having a good time. He looked completely tense and I wished I could've bought him a shot to loosen him up a bit, but I obviously couldn't, and that would have been a bit creepy anyway. Besides, I had already established my creepy bonafides by showing up to this joint in the first place.

Next to the young kid sat the kind of couple I imagined lived all over the San Fernando Valley. The guy looked like a classic California beach bum, mid- to late forties, long blond hair, a shirt cut off at the sleeves, and pale blue jeans with high-top sneakers. He had several bracelets around his wrist, a couple of shell necklaces, and earrings in both ears. For all I knew he was a pimp, or Kristina's manager, or maybe he just pumped gas at that Costco next door. Either way, he had a much younger girl with him who appeared
to have been briefed about the no-alcohol policy at the club and had taken the necessary steps beforehand to ensure she did not show up sober to the proceedings. She had on a dirty T-shirt and jeans, and her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She could have been a runaway or a potential porn-star-in-waiting, or she was simply sitting next to her dad, who had brought her here because he had custody for the weekend.

Then there was Eric Duhatschek.

Not the
real
Eric Duhatschek, longtime sportswriter for one of Canada's national newspapers, the
Globe and Mail
,
who hailed from Calgary. Knowing Eric even just a little, I figured he was probably not the kind of guy I would find in a place like this. And besides, the Flames weren't in town that weekend. This guy did, however, bear an uncanny resemblance to the respected hockey scribe: thin, glasses, balding; he also looked just a smidge like the Nazi whose face melts off at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.
There was no real reason for me to pay any special attention to this man, but something about him set me off right away. He was sitting at the far side of the stage from us, directly next to the stage door so he would be the first to see Kristina saunter out into the spotlight.

More importantly, he came bearing gifts.

He had actual presents for Kristina: two large gift bags that sat on the chair beside him, a chair that would otherwise have gone unoccupied. By the look of things, it appeared that the guy had brought clothes or possibly even lingerie. I couldn't make out the name of the store on either bag, but it's safe to say he had brought along something he hoped Kristina would wear for him in a private setting or perhaps just take a picture of herself wearing and send to him so he could keep it close by on the nightstand. He stared straight ahead and said nothing, a Coke in front of him barely touched. Julie asked me why I was so preoccupied with the guy,
and the only answer I could muster was that he was going to be competing with me for this former porn star's attention and he had come prepared with a more impressive arsenal. I was so ill-prepared that I didn't even have any one-dollar bills in my pocket to shower on Kristina when she eventually arrived on stage. I think I was a little gun shy after all my strip club experiences in Alberta.

As I explained to my friends that evening, in Alberta the strip clubs were pretty much the same as they were all across Canada, save for one notable exception: Instead of showering the girls with one-dollar bills like they did in the U.S. or just sitting there indifferently like they did in Ontario or Quebec, the standard and accepted practice was to
throw loonies on stage at the girls while they danced
. I will give you a moment to go back and read that sentence again because I'm sure if you haven't been to an Alberta strip club you might be in shock. But that's not even the half of it. Not only were you encouraged to throw heavy one-dollar coins in the direction of dancing women like they were some sort of attraction in the circus, you were encouraged by the girls themselves to aim the loonies directly at their vaginas.

Directly
at their vaginas.

Sometimes strippers would hold 8-by-10 photos of themselves up to their vaginas to give patrons a larger target. As far as I know this is still standard practice in Alberta strip clubs and obviously began when Canada switched from one-dollar bills to one-dollar coins in 1987. In the U.S. they're still using paper money, and I'm sure it's appreciated by the ladies on stage.

Back in the Valley, the dancers came out one by one—the warm-up acts, if you will. There was the skinny blonde with no breasts and the curvy brunette with fake breasts; all of them seemed pretty indifferent to us sitting and staring at them, and with no alcohol to loosen up the patrons the entire thing was truly depress
ing. “I hope Kristina is next,” I kept saying to Ben and Julie, but time after time I was disappointed as the curtain opened to reveal another Angelino vixen. We had consumed several drinks at Petty Cash, but the booze had worn off and now I had deep regrets about dragging my two friends along to witness this depressing spectacle.

And then out of the corner of my eye I spotted Kristina hurriedly making her way through the club to the backstage area. Five minutes of giddy anticipation later it was show time. The first few beats of “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” by Eve and Gwen Stefani blasted over the club's PA system, and the strip club DJ, perhaps the most noble of all professions, allowed his smooth and assured voice to permeate the evening.

“Laaaadies and gentlemennn . . . it's time for your headliner. Please welcome to the stage . . . the star of adult films for Wicked Pictures, Vivid Pictures, Evil Angel, Elegant Angel, and more . . . All the way from the San Fernando Valley to the San Fernando Valley . . . it's Kristina Rose!”

Then the curtain opened.

The crowd was suddenly brought to life by the sight of this four-foot-eleven manic-pixie dream girl with brown hair and a killer smile. Kristina's energy was off the charts, and she came out screaming and skipping and rustling up everyone's hair and generally turning a dud of an evening into a great one. Before you say “it must be the cocaine,” Kristina has sworn in interviews that she doesn't touch the stuff, while admitting to being the world's biggest pothead this side of Snoop Dogg. Not sure if I believed her or not but I was damn sure I didn't care. It wasn't as if I was lusting after this woman, I was just in awe of her full commitment to the task at hand. The club wasn't full—far from it—it was actually mostly empty, but Kristina made it feel like
the
place to be that night. At that moment, she was a true entertainer.

And there she was, paying
way
too much attention to Eric Duhatschek.

She spent time with everyone around pervert's row, but since I had no one-dollar bills to shower on her, she politely moved on to the May-to-December L.A. couple who seemed to have an endless supply tucked into their pockets and literally made them rain on her as she shook her ample booty. The young guy who arrived by himself got plenty of attention too. Then it was back to Duhatschek again and finally to the pole, which she worked like a pro. My mouth was open the entire time. What a rank amateur I was, just sitting there with my friends like an idiot.

When Kristina was finished, she disappeared backstage and I thought she was done for the evening, but just a few minutes later she returned to the table at the back to hawk more of her merchandise.

“Go chat with her, get a picture,” said Julie and Ben.

“Why not?” I thought, as I tried to casually speed-walk my way to the back of the club where Kristina was chatting with—you guessed it—Eric Duhatschek.

I couldn't believe this imposter had out-creeped me and managed to get to the front of the line first. Okay, truthfully there wasn't actually a line. It was just me and him. Rather, it was just Kristina talking to Duhatschek, with me standing behind them like the creepiest human who ever walked the face of the planet Earth.
I should be home drinking a beer in front of the TV watching
Saturday Night Live
right now
, I thought. What the hell possessed me to chase after some bizarre teenage fantasy about meeting one of my favourite porn stars? I was a happily married man for Christ's sake! Did I think Kristina was going to fall in love with me on the spot and ask me to take her away from this seedy world? Not to mention the fact that I had directed an inordinate amount of vitriol at a man
who was probably just lonely and wanted to bask in the affections of a girl who was more than happy to take his gifts and probably his money. No harm was really being done here. I suddenly felt a whole lot of shame, and I decided to turn around, gather my friends, and Uber us all back to Hollywood so I could find a proper bar to buy them a few drinks and forget this whole trip to the Valley ever happened.