We arrived at the club early - around 8 p.m. - and found a table. The music was already so loud it sounded like something being pulverized. Before we finished our first drinks, Leo's gaze narrowed on a couple of girls by the bar.

I had hardly said "Are you gonna" when Leo stood up, dipped his fingers in his rum and coke, and ran the hand through his hair. He winked and headed for the bar. His confidence - particularly with women - was so potent and overt, it deserved its own monogrammed smoking jacket. Why not? I'd seen him go home with girls who had thrown drinks in his face hours before.

He soon returned to our table with them. Our waitress came by and Leo ordered a round of drinks.

"This is my buddy, Nathan," he said, introducing me to Dina and Katie. I nodded. Leo continued, "We're from New York, looking for talent."

So, it was New York this time. We're actually from Windsor, Ontario, but that rarely fits the pick-up plans. I finished my English degree two months ago, and Leo dealt black jack at the Windsor casino. I was curious who we were going to be that night.

"What do you do?" Dina or Katie said - I had already forgotten who was who.

"Internet," Leo said. "We run a site called 'Babe.tv.'"

"Really?" one of the girls said, smirking. "What is it, a porn site?"

"No, no," Leo said. "It's a legitimate modeling agency."

So, I fell into my spectator-at-a-tennis-match role, watching gambits bandied across the table, nodding, laughing when Leo cracked jokes, drinking my drinks.

At one point, near midnight, Leo looked up. "Where the fuck's the waitress?" She hadn't been around for forty-five minutes. Leo was drunk, and our drinks had long gone dry. I was tired, ready to head back to the hotel, but Leo was drunk and on a roll with Dina and Katie.

He suddenly lurched to his feet and lumbered toward the bar.

As the girls chatted between themselves, I groped for some way to continue Leo's conversational momentum. Suddenly, some guy sat down in Leo's chair - some slick-haired, black-blazer-over-a-black-shirt-asshole. The girls seemed to know him. I leaned over and said, "My buddy'll be pissed at you sitting in his chair."

The guy didn’t even look at me.

"I'm not joking," I said, my voice all but lost in the pounding music.

"Fuck off-" the guy barely got the second word out when Leo returned, slamming fresh drinks on the table, spilling them everywhere. In one quick motion, Leo pulled the chair out from beneath Slick, sending him sprawling to the floor. If Leo had been sober that would have been enough, but he was drunk and he was angry. He gripped the chair by the back with both hands and slammed it down on the guy.

We fled the club - escaping down the steep EXIT staircase, with three guys after us. I didn't know if they were bouncers, or the Slick's buddies. If there's one thing I could say about Vancouver, there was no shortage of taxis. We caught one the moment we hit the sidewalk. As the driver pulled into traffic, Leo let out a whoop, and flipped our pursuers the finger through the back window.