Illustration by Drew Shannon
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Not all stepfathers are cloned from something out of a Charles Dickens novel.
Take mine for instance. He was nothing like David Copperfield’s Edward Murdstone.
In the mid-1960s, two months before he was going to marry my mother, George Cameron told me that he had no intention of trying to replace my dad. For a confirmed bachelor about to marry a widow with an 18-year-old daughter, he seemed to have his future family relations challenges pretty well figured out. He knew that my dad and I had been very close, and two years after his death I still really missed him. George then went on to say that he would never tell me what to do or what not to do. He felt that at my age I was old enough to make my own decisions, choose my own friends and go wherever I wanted. He put the icing on the cake by saying he would always be there for me if there was ever anything I needed.
“WOW!” I thought. “What a great guy.”
It was at this point, however, that George made his first newbie-dad mistake. He concluded this heartwarming conversation with some advice, “but never go to the Penthouse.”
I had never thought of going until George said not to. I had seen the nightclub’s giant marquees with photos of scantily clad women and knew that it had a reputation. My curiosity was aroused.
Needless to say, I couldn’t get there fast enough. I called a few friends and invited them to join me the following Saturday night.
In those days, everyone in Vancouver knew the Penthouse. Located at 1019 Seymour Street, it was known as an after-hours cabaret and bottle club with a reputation of tough customers. According to historian Daniel Francis in his book Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver’s Sex Trade, the three-storey establishment was the city’s most notorious nightspot: a hangout for show business celebrities, late-night barflies, hoodlums and high-rollers. It was also a revolving door for sex workers.
The Penthouse was not licensed to sell alcohol, so customers arrived with brown paper bags just the right size to hold a 26 oz bottle of whatever they wanted to drink which they’d stash under a table. The club offered patrons set-ups – glasses with ice and their choice of mix for any illegal refreshments. For years, the Vancouver Police Department regularly strolled through, shining their flashlights under tables and confiscating all the paper bags they could find. That’s if there were any left after waiters had scurried through, warning everyone that there was going to be a raid.
But I didn’t know any of that until much later.
On the appointed night, my friends and I sashayed up to the club’s bouncer like we owned the place, brown paper bags in hand. Being underage, I was dressed in an outfit designed to make me look older than 21 (the legal drinking age at the time): black linen knee-length sheath with a long strand of pearls and high-heeled black sandals, paired with my mother’s borrowed mink jacket.
We checked our coats and opted for the main floor entertainment (thinking the upper two floors might be out of our experience range) and settled around a small table near the door. We were so excited. We didn’t know where to look first – at the blonde bombshell on stage erotically caressing her hand-held mic as she shook her way through her number or the nearby cigar-smoking guys who sure looked tough. We weren’t there long before we started hearing whispers: “Raid!” Suddenly the fun part turned into the scary part. What if I got arrested for drinking underage? Or, worse still, what if someone stole my mother’s mink jacket? I should have listened to George.
As soon as the police left, we slowly rose from our chairs and as casually as possible hightailed it to the front door, rescued our coats and made a beeline for our car, stifling our relief and laughter.
On Sunday morning, George arrived to take my mom out to brunch. Sporting a big smile and a wink, he whispered, “How did you enjoy the Penthouse?” He said that the instant he told me not to go there he knew he had made a big mistake. I was embarrassed that he’d seen through me but grinned and told him it was unbelievable and scary. I told him I’d pay more attention to his advice in future.
George and my mom were happily married for over 25 years. When I got married, George was a great father-in-law and, when I had a child, a loving grandfather. Over the years he was often the first person I turned to for advice. George’s wise counsel never steered me wrong.
Pauline Buck lives in Abbotsford, B.C.