THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
2001 was the beginning of the end in my private security business and the start to a whole new world as we know it. The 9/11 attacks spun the world upside down and caught the INTEL community with their pants collectively around their ankles. 2001 was the year i lived dangerously and it all culminated with the near dismemberment of my penis! Yes it was that hardcore!
I had a very financially viable security consultancy private business and from time to time i utilised friends to fulfil tasks such as armed escort support and on banking runs for clients. We were entrusted with a lot of cash and my clients trusted me fully. I unfortunately could not reciprocate that trust in my utilisation of friends in the field. One was an ex police man who had the “street credibility of working for the security branch at John Vorster Square in Johannesburg “ and was also involved in Angola with me on the Executive Outcomes contract from 1993/94. Deon was a good guy( once )but suffered from the inability to keep his shit wired tightly and was a lush. I am saddened to have to admit this as he was my best friend but he just never could distinguish between work time and drunk time. Anyway, i digress and should stay on the path of the storyline and tell it with absolute truth and accuracy. I had after leaving EO in 1994 worked at first for a dude who owned a security company but had grown way out of his ability to run it as a sole proprietor and sub contracted me to help him out with the day to day operations of his very profitable little operation. This should have been my first red flag about the security industry in South Africa and the lengths that those involved in the industry will go to, to make money at the expense of those actually doing the graft. i worked on the ground in uniform as an example to the guards as how to look and conduct themselves while on site and we were in Joburg town the day the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party got all busy with each other where many Zulu Impi`s were shot full of lead. My boss and i were in the next road providing added security to our biggest client at the time, the chaos was absolutely amazing. A motorbike traffic cop came riding passed and had no helmet on and was screaming unintelligibly that the “munts” were killing each other! He had no weapon in his holster and we took it that in the chaos he had lost it. It was crazy and fun as hell all at once and we were living large running around toting our weapons and shooting our guns in the air like cowboys. This was bat country and law was secondary to everything else that day. Time went on and the groups involved “kissed and made up” and the elections loomed like a sword of Damocles over the country. Stories and rumour was abound and everyone was stockpiling for the imminent civil was and it was now that i was contracted to protect some very naive dilly Italian journalists covering our first “democratic: elections and i had roped Deon in to help me with the contract. Deon has had a drinking problem since school and was effective but trying all the time as we were doing serious work and his predilection for booze did pose many headaches while we were busy on the ground with our clients from Italy. It all went off ok in the end and Deon managed to keep his demon at bay, only just. I would later work with Deon on the Rolling Stones tour to the country as VIP drivers and we drove the band members around for two weeks without major problems although booze was a mainstay and overriding factor to Deon as it would prove to be in the future.
After many years of crazy shit and getting wild we ended up working for the same security company in Johannesburg where i was employed as the operations manager and Deon as a supervisor. We were very effective at our jobs and proved that our prior training was vital to the professionalism we showed at work. Unfortunately Deon could not entirely disengage himself from the bottle and would start arriving at work hung over and sometimes still pissed. It is worthwhile noting that in 1997/98 Deon and i worked for a company called Duchini and this is when he met his future wife and mother of his first born. This is also the time when i finally got divorced from the most miserable woman ever to stalk the face of the planet. The company ended up in liquidation and Deon was sent to work at the retail shop they had in Joburg town where he was supposedly the manager. I remained at the companies head office and stayed there till the liquidators paid us out. At this time Deon`s wife was many months pregnant and went to Baragwanath hospital to give birth to her child. We weren’t that close as friends prior to this and she and i had a mutually tolerant relationship due to my friendship with her husband. This would change when Deon would ask me to fetch his wife from the hospital when she was discharged and take her and his new born child home as he was in a pub closed to his work place and didn’t want to waste good drinking time. This persisted when i was asked to drive his wife and son to the clinic for the initial check ups. His wife and i simply began to grow closer together. Eventually i was driving her to work and picking her up from work while Deon was too focused on drinking. As it would happen they were told to vacate their flat due to non payment of rental and i said it was cool that they stay in my house a i had recently separated from my ex satanic wife. This was win, win for everyone. We would all frequent my Dad`s restaurant next door and talk while watching our favourite television program “The Soprano`s”, well it was her and my favourite program while Deon sat and stuttered at the bar. Our relationship was all but set in stone and she and i were connecting on a level that far super ceded her relationship with her own husband. One evening we decided to go home and put Deon`s son to bed and left Deon lurching at the bar and i and his wife were suddenly overcome by the necessity to jump each others bones which we did with much vigour. Little problem here, Deon decided to sway home and walked in while his wife was riding high up on the horse Rodeo style. I panicked a tad and ejected her off to the left and Deon then did the manly thing and threw the keys at me and launched himself over the bed and for some unknown reason to me grabbed my still erect penis and tried to yank it out from the root. I was horrified , mortified and felt all kinds of violated! He then punched me on the back of my head whereby i retorted that i would like to fight him like a man and pulled up my tracksuit pants and attacked this clown that had broken every written and unwritten rule in the mankind handbook! The fight soon degenerated into an all out one for one slug fest and the he broke a pottery plant pot on my head, this i didn’t take lightly and proceeded to use his general facial area to break the pots pieces into smaller pieces. We were worse than a WWE smackdown match and we were soon exhausted. Problem with Deon is he tends to bleed like a pig and was oozing haemoglobin from his mouth and nose all over my carpet in the room. All the while this was happening his wife sat there in a corner stricken with panic. He then made his way to the kitchen and i was worried he was retrieving a knife and on his return to the “battlefield” i smacked him on the left temple with my expanding “Fitzwilliam” baton which had the desired effect of instantaneously putting him down and out of the fight. He made his way to the bedroom he was renting in my house and his wife who was using a small broken piece of the plant pot as an ashtray went off to join him and his child who was sleeping in its cot. I was concerned about his swelling head due to the blow from the expanding baton and called the paramedics. On arrival the paramedics asked me if i had been shot due to all the blood and i replied that it wasn’t mine and let them in. The paramedic noted the for sale sign on the gate and complimented me on the tiles in the lounge and dining room, i volunteered to show him around and try flog the place to him. Deon was treated and his head wrapped in a bandage, his head resembled a planet and was immense. The paramedics left and told us they would not report the assaults that had taken place after seeing pictures of Deon and i from Angola on the bar wall and said it was just water under the bridge. The following morning Deon was sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and was brandishing a large screwdriver in his left hand and told me to take his wife and leave my house and when we get back he will be gone. His wife and i went off to the Jazz Cafe at the Glen shopping centre for a draught beer and this is when i informed her of the violation perpetrated upon my person by her husband. We laughed and the seriousness all but evaporated and i chalked it up to another one for rock n roll. Deon had that morning answered me when i asked how he felt and i was alluding to his swollen head and he misunderstood and answered me “how do you think i feel, seeing my wife impaled on my friends dick?” and this is where my alter ego “VLAD THE IMPALER” was born, I did the Transylvanian accent and all. The months after “the incident “were great except when Deon got drunk and stood by my front gate chucking stones on the roof and screaming obscenities like trailer trash and this occurred plenty . She and i dated for a while but like all things it came to an end and we moved on. I suppose it all boils down to shit happens?
While we were working for the security company where i was operations manager and Deon was the supervisor i had an event that was to change my path in life quite a bit. One Friday i was off duty and was moon lighting with a company doing cash trips to the bank with a guy named George Liverdos who was the contract liaison so to speak. He would call me up and if time permitted i would follow trucks to the borders for extra cash or do these Friday banking runs. It was July and it was the last Friday of the month, the bank was packed and when we approached we didn’t notice anything strange till we actually got inside and the reality set in that we had just walked into a bank robbery in progress! The atmosphere was heavy and the first batch of robbers were leaving with a hostage as we entered through the magnet controlled booths. The robbers were allowing people in but allowing anyone to exit and they were telling the clients in the bank to remain standing very still in the queues so as to not raise awareness. This obviously worked as we had not noticed this happening, we were too busy scanning our surroundings and people passing by on approaching the bank. One of the staff members was ushered past me just outside the bulk teller booth and i said to her “what is going on?” she replied with terror in her eyes that they were being robbed and this is when i noted the robber walking directly behind her with a .38 special revolver in pointed in the small of her back. The bank employees name was Rhea and she was panic stricken. The robber took no notice of me or George and marched her to the doors which work by magnet release and some idiot outside was holding the door ajar so the outer door could not release. The robber shouted angrily at the security guard to open the door but he couldn’t as a member of the public was preventing the magnet from closing the circuit thereby allowing the door to open. By now i had drawn my .45 ACP pistol and was fast approaching the robber who had a bag draped over his left forearm which contained cash and the .38 special in his right hand firmly pressed against Rhea`s back, i shouted loudly for him to drop his weapon. I was now only a few feet from him and i kept closing the gap aiming directly at his face. I tried to make a grab for the .38 special and with my right hand i smacked this clot on the head with the butt of my gun which shook him quite a bit, he then got very mad at me and started to bring the .38 special to firing point and he was fingering the trigger, i was busy bringing the second blow down onto his head with the butt of my pistol when i noticed this was going to get messy so i tipped my .45 ACP and placed the muzzle directly against his head and squeezed off the shot! The 180 grain Winchester silver tip hollow point penetrated his skull on the top left side and a piece of the jacket exited his right cheek. The robber was instantaneously incapacitated and went done like a sack of potatoes. His head was smoking from the muzzle blast which was at contact distance, this is the muzzle was against his head when the shot was fired and his brain tissue was ‘mushrooming” out the hole. It is noteworthy mentioning that it was still winter and i was wearing a big black and white camouflage jacket and donning ray bans inside the bank as i had a terrible eye infection in my right eye. I turned and immediately shouted the command for everyone to lie down immediately which was followed to a T as if they were all members of a rhythmic display team. I immediately asked who was armed as i didn’t want any surprises and one black dude volunteered that he was packing, i asked him sternly what the hell his story was and he replied that he was a police man. This was entirely plausible as the bank we were in ( Standard bank Jules street Malvern) is less than a hundred metres from the Cleveland police station and it was a Friday and the end of the month so it was completely possible that there would be cops in the bank doing their banking requirements, this particular “cop” was in civilian attire but i was thinking quick and my mind was racing with all the possible eventualities and i thumbed the safety on and holstered my piece telling the cop to take over on scene. He then jumped up and dashed past me and out the bank. I suspected he went for backup as it wasn’t two minutes and police started descending on the bank from every angle, hell there was even a helicopter circling outside. I gave my statement to the detectives that arrived on site along with about 20 members of the public, George and the branch manageress along with a very shaken Rhea. The branch was closed for further business and the customers were sent to the Bedford centre branch if they still had to conduct their banking requirements. George and i were allowed to leave the branch and we too made our way to the Bedford centre branch as we had not yet conducted our tasks. When we arrived at the Bedford branch we were greeted by a wall of security guards who immediately parted and allowed us entry. They had no doubt heard of this crazy white man wearing sun glasses and shooting robbers was coming to their branch. George and i entered and we noticed a few of the Malvern branch customers who on seeing us enter the bank left their spot in the queue and left the bank altogether. This was one hell of a day and when my boss found out at the security company , he told me to take the evening off as he didn’t want someone still wired with adrenaline on duty that night. I took this opportunity to take Deon`s wife to dinner at an Oriental restaurant. This shooting was not long after another in which i had entered my parents house while my mom was being held at gunpoint by three home invaders. That story ended with one of the bastards chest being “ventilated” 5 times by my .45ACP pistol, he however still managed to stumble off and die elsewhere.
2001 was a crap year in the big scheme of things and it nearly cost me not only my life but i was just about “de horned” like a Rhino. I am still shocked after all these years that Deon would do something so dire such as try and yank my tally wacker out by root!
Deon if you ever read this. “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?”
2002 had its share of really good times which were all spent at a restaurant called Ze`s in Oakdene and was run by a woman who i still have a deep almost cosmic connection with. Michelle and i ran what we called our tribe and it was just a load of pals who would get together and party till the cows came home. This was the last drive so to speak before mediocrity and what feels like old age set in. It has been a long time since i have gone APE (Animalus Particus Extremis) and i dearly miss the days at Ze`s with Michelle and the tribe and our very strange traditions and practices including the odd one called “bite club”. i was basically used as a chew toy. Michelle had bitten my arm one evening with so much ferocity that it left a scar that was visible for a few years thereafter. We were very much like the Bohemians of the Moulin Rouge. It was one hell of a cool year and unfortunately the last great party.
Its sad to grow old and live miserably!
Michael B Da Silva (former wild man desperately seeking one last hurrah)
http:michaelbdasilva.blogspot.com
http://thedasilvacode.com
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