Bouncers and Bodyguards (29 page)

‘Do you know who I am?’ she screamed.

‘Yes. It says on your badge that you are a police security officer,’ I replied without emotion.

Out of nowhere, the set manager arrived. ‘What seems to be the problem here?’ she asked sweetly. I was lucky she’d shown up, because in another second I reckon the police security officer would have probably shot me or eaten me whole.

‘I am sorry,’ the set manager cooed, ‘but he is following very strict instructions.’ The police security officer mumbled something or other under her breath as she wandered off, escorted by the set manager to the café cart that had just appeared. This thing was a fucking cake shop on a trolley with everything you could wish for. But we weren’t allowed to touch it, as security was not catered for.

Later that night, the feeling of us versus them (us being security and them being the ‘filmies’, the people wearing tool bags and carrying gaffer tape, running around madly making Hollywood happen) was broken down a little. A filmie was struggling to push a trolley full of stuff up a steep street, and I saw him and gave him a hand. Apparently, up until that point the guards hadn’t lifted a finger to help, so this guy was very grateful, and he introduced me to the people I needed to know. As a result, I soon got to know who was who as far as the filmies went. In terms of food, water, coffee, toilets, etc., I went straight to the head of each queue and got permission for security to have access rights to catering and the like. In exchange, we made arrangements for lines of communication to be set up to assist the caterers and the other site suppliers with access issues and deliveries. I had gone from a guard standing next to a generator five miles from the action to a ‘get things done’ guy who knew all the right people. However, I still got rotated through shitty locations and posts, mainly because none of the others could do the job properly, and the job still had to be done.

One night, I was standing at a shitty position doing access control. It was cold, exposed and I had been dealing all day with bloody tourists with cameras asking, ‘Where Tom Clooooze?’ I was tired and feeling a tad flat. Out of the blue, the head bodyguard came down and said to me, ‘Tom is driving himself to the set and will be coming through here shortly. Don’t cause him any grief. Just let him through without any fuss or hoo-ha. Understand?’

‘Righto. No problem,’ I said.

One of the filmies came rushing past with his ID badge out, and I gave him a wave. A bit later, a couple of lost tourists asked me what was going on, and I told them to move over the road to the viewing area. Then, another filmie came past, so I gave him a wave, too. I then noticed a guy at the bottom of the hill walking towards me. He was wearing a baseball cap, which was partially covering his face. Alarm bells started going off in my head, because he was exhibiting signs of being some dodgy bastard out to knock something off or steal anything not nailed down. To make matters worse, he was sticking to the shadows. Taking into consideration my earlier briefing, perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that I saw a dodgy bastard – not a megastar trying to be low key.

The dodgy-looking bloke finally made it up to the checkpoint and tried to come past. I asked him where he thought he was going, and he told me that he was going onto the film set. I moved in front of him. ‘Excuse me, sir. Do you have your Photo ID handy?’ I asked.

‘They didn’t give me one,’ he replied.

People will try anything to get into a movie set, so I wasn’t buying this guy’s story for a second. ‘Well, mate, you’ll have to move over there to the visitors’ viewing gallery. Thanks.’ I pointed in the direction of the viewing gallery and was just about to say, ‘What part of “fuck off over there” don’t you understand?’ when the guy tilted his face a little, allowing the light to shine on it. Fuck me. It was Tom Cruise, mega fucking star, known the world over, and I was giving him fucking attitude because he didn’t have a photo ID badge. In my defence, he was considerably shorter in the flesh than his publicity photos suggested.

About 20 minutes later, the head bodyguard came down to my position. ‘Was it you?’ he asked. Considering I was the only fucker at the post, I couldn’t lie. ‘Um, yes, it was.’ I had visions of receiving my DTUM (don’t turn up Monday) notice. But the head bodyguard was pissing himself laughing. I presumed he was some sort of sadistic prick, getting his kicks from sacking me. ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

‘Well, Tom appreciates the fact that with almost 50 grand a day being spent on this film, security is so tight that even he can’t get in without photo ID.’ I was waiting for the punchline, but it didn’t seem to be coming. ‘We’ll talk some more tomorrow, but well done.’ Say What? Well done? It turned out that Tom was happy not to be recognised and had a chuckle over it.

That incident meant that I went from doing menial jobs to being responsible for coordinating set lockdowns during filming. I would rush around with two headsets on separate channels and another mike pinned to the lapel of my jacket on another channel. The two headsets were tuned to security and the filmies, and the lapel one was for my ‘response squad’, which would deal with shit if and when it happened. This position gave me the opportunity to talk to the crew, including John Woo, the director of the movie, and I loved every minute of it. At the same time, I always ensured that the guards got fed, rotated and looked after as best as could be expected on such a job. The hours were long, and you were on your feet all day. It could be very boring, but you still had to do your job.

I got some offers of further movie work at the end of the filming, which I was very grateful for, but I declined because of the distance I would need to travel. Nonetheless, I did have fun on that movie set!

Not every job I did was like a scene out of the
Keystone Cops
, and one in particular will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was sitting in my boss’s office one day when a call came in requesting two armed guards as soon as possible. It wasn’t often that we were told to expedite our arrival at a site, but this was no ordinary job. My boss and I responded to the call and made our way over to the Department of Community Services building. Upon arrival, we were greeted by people who looked very relieved to see us. As we sat down for a briefing, a senior police officer arrived with a folder. What I was about to become involved in would change my whole outlook on life.

The police officer asked us about our firearms and what our status was. I had a Smith and Wesson 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, which held sixteen rounds, and two spare clips, which held fifteen rounds each. It was a beautiful piece of equipment. My boss was old fashioned in his tastes: his was a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum with two spare speed-loaders. I had seen him empty that beast faster than a guy with a Glock semi-automatic and have good grouping at distance. The policeman expressed satisfaction with the equipment and our abilities – we were both members of a pistol club and practised after work on mock buildings with man targets and training rounds. It was the best we could do, given the lack of access to more sophisticated facilities as civilians. I’d always figured that if I was going to carry a gun, I had better be damn sure I knew what, when, how and why . . . and then some. I’d trained with blockages until I knew the motions like clockwork, improved my draw motions and learned the value of maintenance. I was confident and knew that I could face a situation and rely on muscle memory as a natural reflex. I’d grown up with my dad’s old .22 bolt-action rifle and knew what constituted responsible behaviour around firearms, so I guess this was just further training with a different type of tool.

The police officer then told us the reason for our attendance. In a nutshell, a guy with a drug habit who lived with his missus and three kiddies had run up a lot of bad debts, and no one would sell to him. His particular choice of slow death was amphetamines, more commonly known as ‘speed’. He’d told his missus to go out and get some for him, but she’d said no, so the gutless freak had poured lawnmower fuel over the three kiddies and threatened to set them on fire unless she did what he’d told her. Somehow, calm had been restored, and the kiddies had survived. It was at that point that Community Services had got involved, rescuing the kids and sending them to a safe house. The gutless freak had then rung up the Community Services office and told them he was going to kill everyone in the office. That’s when we’d been called.

The policeman continued with the briefing by informing us of the following:

The policeman then added that if this psycho entered the premises and had any objects in his hand we were to ‘aim for centre body mass’.

‘What the bloody hell am I doing here?’ I thought. ‘Fuck, I knew I should have done the lunch run.’

We spent several weeks playing cat and mouse with this freak, and we ended up having to get vests, as he’d apparently acquired a shotgun and bragged about it to someone who’d spilled to the police, who then told us. The situation was becoming more dangerous, but complacency was starting to set in with the office staff we were protecting. They would congregate in the car park in full view, making them easy targets. One day, I lost my patience with one group who were having a laugh and completely forgetting what was going on. I asked them several times to move into the safety of the building, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. I was getting pissed off, as I didn’t want them to be exposed like this, given what I knew. In the end, I politely advised them that I wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest as a fashion accessory but because a nasty man was threatening to kill them all. As much as it may have been harsh, I achieved what I needed: them out of the line of fire.

After approximately six weeks, we had a meeting to discuss whether we should stand down, as nothing had happened and the enormous cost of having us there was impacting on the department’s budget. This meeting took place on a Wednesday night. It was decided on the Thursday morning that we would stand down on the Friday night and simply be on call if required. On Thursday afternoon at about 5.45 p.m., freak boy was arrested five blocks from the site. He had consumed numerous grams of speed, armed himself with countless knives and was on his way to the office to carry out his threat of killing all the community workers. Two things led to his arrest. One of his friends had seen us at the office, kitted up and looking the biz. When he’d asked someone about us, he’d been told that we were under orders to ‘shoot to kill’ and we had laser sights and stun grenades – pure shit, really. The friend then went back to freak boy and told him all this bullshit in front of freak boy’s mother. When freak boy tooled up and headed for the office, his mother rang the cops, because she figured that we would kill him outright, based on the bullshit she’d heard from the friend.

It took five police officers to take him down and restrain him. When they got him back to the police station, he raved like Charles Manson about how he was going to do this and that. He ended up doing time and getting his comeuppance in jail for the drug debts and for what he had done to his kiddies. Scumbag.

I have one final story to put another grin on your dial. I once did a close protection job for a gay businessman who owned a nightclub and had lots of money. Now, I don’t really care which side of the bed your slippers are on – just don’t think you can put them on mine. Only Mrs Buckwell gets to shag me, lucky thing, or maybe some nymphet who has come backstage for autographs. However, each to their own is my point of view.

My brief was simple: if he picked someone up, I was to go back to the hotel (I had a separate room!) and make sure his wallet wasn’t rolled. Anyway, we were in a nightclub, and there was very little smoke around, as most gay people are health freaks of some kind. My client decided that he was going to light up his pipe. The stuff stank – and I smoke! He was in the middle of the dance floor, trying to be a 20-something in a 50-something body, and started puffing out his rancid pipe stench everywhere. I knew it wasn’t going to be a pretty ending, and sure enough a massive cross-dresser walked up and knocked the pipe flying. The client grabbed me and said, ‘What are you going to do about that?’ He stank of alcohol and tobacco.

‘We’re leaving,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve made a lot of people unhappy, and there is only one of me.’

With that, he sheepishly walked outside, hailed a cab and handed me a wad of notes. ‘I won’t need you any further tonight. I am going home to grow up.’ His cab took off, and I never saw him again. I reckon I spent at least the following 20 minutes pissing myself laughing.

Damien Buckwell, based in New South Wales, Australia, has been in the security industry more years than he cares to remember. He has been a part of the Intercept team since mid 2004, providing a complete range of training services for the security industry. He is currently studying for a Bachelor of Arts in security, terrorism and counter-terrorism. Contrary to what he has led you to believe, he really does like the English and sings ‘God Save the Queen’ every night before going to bed.

You can contact Damien at [email protected]

I
started working the doors back in the 1980s when I was a crane driver by day. One evening, my wife said to me, ‘Why don’t you take up a hobby?’ Around the same time, a doorman job was advertised in the
Lowestoft Journal
. I had some fighting experience – I’d boxed for my school and then for the Isle of Wight, where I grew up – so I popped along for an interview for the position. I got the job. Karen Shaw, who owned Snaps nightclub in Lowestoft, said I was to start that Friday evening. I was thirty years of age, about ten stone and had never worked the doors before. When I went to the club on the Friday night, the other doormen looked down on me. I will never forget that first night; they all looked down on me because I was small.