Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

Verde: Maybe just keep it at the speed limit, Johnny. You never know around here.

I interject: Are the cops well-known for issuing speeding tickets down here?

Verde and Lefebvre: No, no, just the smoking.

I avoid the obvious follow-up: “Why would you risk the rest of your life just to smoke pot?” Lefebvre himself will be happy to take you on a legal tour through the minefield of the American parole system, how so many inmates, bored out of their skulls, or perhaps addicted, risk getting more time slapped on. And many do get caught and have their sentences extended, which is why the U.S. prison system is filled to the brim, why the U.S. has a drug problem, and why there is a War on Drugs — because the government created this black garden in order to maintain it. So Lefebvre will go on like this and then smoke pot every hour or two for six weeks, then start the stop process, then go clean, then piss, then do it all over again.

Why? Because Johnny likes smoking pot. He likes getting high, or maintaining a bit of a high. Not a blowout high, just a kind of go-through-the-day-a-bit-high kind of high. It’s a social drug. Is it a coping mechanism? I don’t know. Does it create agitation in him? I don’t know, although both his mom and Jane McMullen, with whom he intimately shared his life for nine years and who to this day runs part of his financial affairs, say they’ve never seen him so agitated and quick to anger as lately. He’s chafing at being unable to smoke up whenever he wants and buckling under pressure from the authorities always watching him. Pot smoking when he can is a reflexive response, but the longer the DOJ pecks at Lefebvre’s liver, the stronger the possibility he’ll lose his grand insouciance. He’s being tested. The great bon vivant-ism is suffering. And then there’s micromanaging his daughter’s wedding.

We get to Oldman Dam, step out of the car, and take a walk along a ridge. Below to the south is a lazy oxbow in the river. To the west is an angry sky dumping white stuff on the foothills. The mountains are already covered. The wet stuff blasts in our direction soon enough. We get soaked, then it’s over. We pop beers and laugh. The vista of foothills and mountains and farms and dancing sun and big black cloud is mesmerizing. Yeah, delete that action item for a weekend hideaway down here. Sometimes the best move is no move at all.

While in Calgary this time around I’ve been staying at a hotel for a few days before shifting over to a friend’s house. One day I end up back at Lefebvre’s house in lower Mount Royal — digs he bought in 2006 that he’ll put on the market next June for $1.6 million. We’ve been talking about DeSmogBlog, how it’s trying to raise the environment’s profile in the federal election campaign by mapping the greenest candidates for voters. In tight ridings where centrist or left-of-center parties compete with conservatives, the website suggests which candidate has the best chance of defeating the conservative. One of Jim Hoggan’s hires is on television talking up the issues. Lefebvre records it.

Later on, Emily and Pádraig drop by the house. They’ve arrived from Dublin to put the final touches on their wedding, which will take place October 18 at some secret, undisclosed location in the mountains (probably Lake Louise, maybe Jasper, but Lefebvre isn’t talking).

It’s time for me to take my leave and make way for family time. Lefebvre insists on giving me a lift back to the hotel, even though I enjoy the walk. I soon find out why. He lights up a joint in heavy traffic, heading along Seventeenth Avenue. At around Eleventh Street he notices an officer in a police car behind him. Instinctively he cups the short stub and lowers the window just a bit to exhale and rid the Toyota SUV of the potentially incriminating smell. False alarm — the cop is not after Lefebvre. He hasn’t run the plate through his computer and found out who the known felon is in front of him. Again, I wonder about the risk.

The next afternoon, a week before Emily’s wedding, Lefebvre and I go shopping. We’re looking at flatware and wine. We don’t need to go far. The Seventeenth Avenue SW commercial strip is two blocks south of his house, just down the hill. We head east and park the Toyota SUV a few blocks down, across from Rubaiyat. Lefebvre fishes for change. I offer a two-dollar coin. He says he’s thinks he’s got it. Then he encounters Calgary’s recently installed paperless parking system. You have to register your license plate with the meter. Lefebvre has more than half a dozen vehicles. He hasn’t yet memorized every plate number for every vehicle in Malibu, Salt Spring Island, Vancouver, and Calgary. He’s momentarily stymied. I run back to the vehicle and look at the plate number. I yell out the required combination of letters and numbers. “You know, this paperless system is supposed to be good for the environment and make parking more efficient,” he says, visibly agitated. “But it takes away the one fuckin’ thing you can’t get back — your time.”

Lefebvre needs several dozen sets of flatware for the wedding dinners. Emily and Pádraig’s celebration will go on for three days in the mountains. The couple wants the location to be a surprise for everyone. We cross the street and walk into Rubaiyat, the pricey store for high-end home goods and knickknacks and art. The staff, they’re no dummies. They snap to attention and greet Lefebvre like a king. And he is. He strides in with the look of a California hippie rock star — blue jeans, tan-colored shoes, coat with Asian dragon insignia, long blond-ish graying hair and beard. He greets them all with his good manners and charm and expects to be treated well. He will be. They know when he comes through the door he might drop a bundle — if he can find what he’s looking for or if they can pique his curiosity.

Wherever we go he introduces me, “This is my friend Bill, the writer from Toronto,” making sure everyone is part of his conversation. He engages with staff as he stalks the store, and he gets real picky about the exact type of flatware he’s looking for. He takes an instant liking to one particular design, but the store doesn’t have enough sets in stock for the wedding (he needs six dozen). The lady behind the counter suggests she can get on the phone to Italy, pronto, and maybe have the required additional sets flown in.

“I need them for next week.”

“Oh, I see. I don’t know, John, whether this is possible. I can try …”

The conversation seesaws back and forth. Lefebvre wants flatware and he wants it now. Can she do it? Probably not. After exhausting the discussion of that possibility, he moves on to another design — not as sleek, not as much artistic flair, perhaps even a little bland-looking, but they do have enough sets. He buys them, telling me they’ll be good for Stonehouse, too. Cha-ching. There goes a few grand. They deliver.

Next, we drive over to the Spirits of Kensington wine shop, one of Lefebvre’s favorites, near the Chicken on the Way at Fourteenth Street NW and Kensington Road. Most of Emily’s celebration booze will have to be purchased through the hotel, but he has to buy wine for the guest rooms and the campfire. Post wedding, the leftover wine will be put on a bus to Salt Spring, where Stonehouse will be opened officially. Nathalie, Lefebvre’s cook and housekeeper, later tells us, “It’s a good thing the first guests at Stonehouse were Irish. Now we know all the places beer can be spilled.”

On the way over, Lefebvre gets a call from Jane McMullen. She’s handling the forfeiture, and the DOJ has been pressuring her lately to start rustling up the money. No word on sentencing, but it wants the cash on file by end of year. She tells Lefebvre how it’s going and from where she’s decided to draw one part of the money. He trusts her completely with the task. She still takes care of him, just like the old days.