High Times at City Hall

Toronto Star Crack Video

“Rob Ford in crack cocaine video scandal.” My daughter, Stephanie, reads from the Toronto Star like she’s waiting for the punch line. She squints at me. “This is a joke right?”

Sure is. The joke that’s my career.

I want to tear that paper from her hand, crumple it into balls and shove those balls down senior reporter Kevin Donovan’s throat until he screams like a girl. Then, I want to take those spit soaked newspaper balls and shove them one at a time up Robyn Doolittle’s cute little ass. She’ll hate me even more if I make her come.

OK, good. That image relaxed me enough so I can smile at my daughter.

“Reporters write stories to sell papers,” I tell her. “Not to tell the truth.”

“I know.” Steffie smiles back. She looks a lot older than eight right now. “I don’t get why it’s funny, though.”

I pour her breakfast cereal and mine. Side by side. Count Chocula.

“Have a monsterful breakfast today,” I sing as I pour the milk.

Renata tried to make up a monster song about Greek yogurt and berries to make that sound like a fun and delicious breakfast. But Steffie is my girl; she wasn’t buying into any health food crap.

Steffie grins her naughty grin as I set her bowl in front of her. “Know what color my dress is?”

I wrinkle my forehead. “Is it salmon? Fuschia? Rose?” We’ve had this exact conversation nearly every day for two years.

“No, Dad! It’s commie pink!” She giggles so hard that she bends at the waist.

“Oh!” I take the newspaper and smooth it out in front of me. I’ve watched the news clip seventeen times already since it came out last night, but I better read this thing in full. Know thine enemy.

I try to remember doing crack. I’m sure it’s true. I get so drunk, I’m up for anything. Hell, even last night I downed so much vodka that I woke up in yesterday's clothes.

But who the fuck was recording me that night? And if the Star didn’t buy the video, where is it now? Hopefully still with those Somalis. If it is, I got guys who can get it back. If they’ve sold it already, I'm gonna need a supremely kickass plan B. And an even better lawyer.

What I really need is for the lawyer I do have to return my fucking phone call. I don't care if it is 7 a.m. He should be in my living room telling me what to say to those reporters when I walk out that door.

Steffie reaches for the remote and turns on the TV. My fat face, front and center.

I shove more cereal into my mouth.

My face fades, and now they're showing Kevin Donovan, lame little commie, announcing for the eighteenth time his title as senior reporter for the Toronto Star. Whatever. The title probably impresses his mother.

He tells how he and Robyn Doolittle had a backseat meeting in a car in the parking lot of an Etobicoke apartment block. Dude acts like he had to enter a dangerous war zone to come back with this oh-so-important story to bust the mayor. But fair enough, Kevin. I guess to a skinny guy in a plaid shirt, a car with a Somali drug dealer is like Iraq to a real man.

Robyn comes onscreen. She hates my guts, but she’s hot. Those lips are so slutty. They’d feel great wrapped around my—ah, shit, can’t think like that with my little girl in the room.

Steffie watches, eyes wide open. I don’t know how she manages to get her cereal into her mouth without spilling it, because she’s certainly not looking at her bowl.

I want to tell her to turn the TV off, to shut this bullshit out of our lives. It’s nothing to do with how I run the city, which is better than any mayor who ever walked Toronto’s streets.

But Steffie’s gonna have to deal with this at school. I need to give her one good line to say back when the other kids attack her dad.

A commercial break comes on. She looks at me.

“Dad, is any of this true?”

“I’m sure the part about me calling Justin Bieber a fag is true. Oops, I mean Justin Trudeau. I get them mixed up all the time.”

In the next federal election, I plan to spend my own money on a billboard that says: Vote for Justin Trudeau for Student Council. 

“Ew,” Steffie says. “How can you get them mixed up? Justin Bieber’s not gay. He’s hot.”

“Steph! I told you you’re not allowed to think anyone’s hot until you’re sixteen.”

I should probably also tell her not to be a homophobe, that you can be hot and gay at the same time. But that would be like Cheech and Chong preaching the evils of pot. I'll leave the social lessons to Renata.

She rolls her eyes. “You didn’t smoke crack, right? That’s the part they’re making up.”

“Yeah. That part’s fiction.” Jesus fuck, I hate myself for lying to my daughter. But it’s better than telling her I was too drunk to remember.

I have to get my hands on that video. And on the neck of the opportunistic meathead who recorded it.

My phone rings. Dennis Morris. My lawyer. Fucking finally, he strolls out of bed.

But Steffie first.

I tell her, “The kids are gonna be on you today. About this video that maybe doesn’t even exist. When they are, you tell them Winston Churchill was a drunk, and he saved the world from Hitler.”

She looks at me. “Can’t I just say the truth? That the video’s a lie?”

“Damn right you can. I’m just giving you some extra ammo.”

“For my hater gun.” She moves her arms like she’s holding an assault rifle.

“That’s right.”

I click Answer. Morris better have something good.