Where there's a will, there's a way

Right place, wrong time.

I was drinking in the corner bar at the Amanzimtoti Beach Hotel, the same place I embarrassed myself by falling off my motorbike, when I met Winston. He’d just won the contract to renovate the hotel's basement bar, but he was on a really tight schedule, twenty-one days or bust. The new owners were prepared to pay whatever it cost, but it had to be done in three weeks, no f**king excuses.

They’d already advertised opening night, so game on. Winston offered me a job; his guy had let him down, and he was kind of desperate for help. The two of us, plus several dogs bodies (casual labourers) applied ourselves to this enormous undertaking, averaging fourteen-to-sixteen hours of bone-weary hard work every day, but we pulled it off and only just. It was so close, I’ll bet people went home that night with new paint stains on their clothes. Job done, congratulations, and bonuses all round.

Another lazy Sunday afternoon, we were chilling out at the pool bar (as in a swimming pool) and a brawl broke out. A bunch of local boys, too much piss and easy enough for me to break up. Don’t forget, before going off to the army, I was living in Amanzimtoti. I was one of the boys and everyone pretty much knew me. Leopards don’t change their spots, do they?

Cut another long story short, the new owner, Simon…? I forget his surname, was impressed. We’d also gotten to know each other quite well over the previous weeks, so he asked me if I thought I could manage his hotel.

Fifty-five rooms, a very well-known seafood and or curry restaurant, and four bars. The Corner bar (men only), the basement bar (the one we had recently renovated and now a live music venue), the Lounge bar (Ladies bar) and the Pool bar. This was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Salary's not much to boast about, but it included free digs, free food, and expenses. ‘Come on baby light my fire.’

And so I began my newfound career as a hotel manager. What a f**king blast. I can’t imagine what being a rock star must be like, but f**k me, this must have been close. I had p***y thrown at me from every direction. The lengths that some girls went to was mental and almost too much to cope with, but I managed somehow. Didn’t get much sleep though.

This was when I met Chantelle, my French Creole lady friend. She was very, very friendly indeed, but after a while, I thought, ‘wait a minute, there’s something wrong here.’I couldn’t figure out what it was though. Not until I took her to see Monty Pythons, ‘Meaning of Life.’ She f**king hated it and stormed out seconds before Mr Creosote exploded. She really wouldn’t have liked seeing that, and in a flash, I had it. I knew what the problem was. She had no sense of humour.

How could anyone alive not like, or be amused by either Monty Python, the little shop of horrors, the Blues Brothers, or the Rocky Horror picture show? F**k her. I left her to stew in the lobby until the movie ended and then drove her home without either of us saying a thing. Bye-bye , my love.

Being a hotel manager was right up my alley. I f**king loved my new job but during my six months at the helm, I only clearly remember three or four incidents that needed managing. Three of them were fairly amusing, and the fourth, not even a little bit f**king amusing.

The first was a female guest complaining about the noise from our Basement Bar (the one with the fire & soundproof doors) She claimed the music was keeping her awake and wasn’t particularly amused when I casually suggested that if she couldn’t sleep, maybe she wasn’t tired enough, so please stop bothering me. She was outraged, threatened to report me to the manager and make sure that I get fired for my positively unacceptable attitude, and my extremely rude demeanor. Talk to the hand, Lady.

Next was, yes, another female customer of ours. Much to our Indian Chef, Rakesh’s, annoyance, she very vociferously complained about her curry not being hot enough. Rakesh took this as a personal slight. With a bit of consternation on my part, but I was probably more amused, I watched as our very renowned and now very pissed off Chef ladled a couple of spoons of real Portuguese peri-peri sauce (made from African bird’s eye peppers, garlic, paprika and various other spices and is very f**king hot) onto her dish and then send it back out.

Hat’s off to the lady 'cause, without so much as another word, she ate every last scrap of her meal. I have to say though, I’ve never seen anyone, let alone a female, drink so much beer in one sitting. I was rather impressed. She would have made someone a good wife.

As the general manager, I had the authority to personally audition the resident bands and or musicians looking to play at our basement bar, or to find them. It took a while, but I landed an absolute gem. Chix V. I heard him singing at Magoo’s back in Durban and instinctively knew he was the man for us. Branded as the best thing to hit Durban’s music scene in a very long time. It took a lot of promises and cajoling, but I managed to sign him up.

What a bad mistake that turned out to be. He was f**king brilliant. People came from miles around to hear him play, but only If I could keep him sober enough. Stop him from falling off his bar stool mid-session. Lovey bloke, but as his employer (and he was on contract so I couldn’t just fire him) he proved to be one of my worst nightmares.

This is / was still a*******d South Africa, so most hotel staff were either Indians or Black Africans and I had to keep a real tight rein on them , especially the black guys, who’re notoriously lazy, and then this guy came along, a colored man. Honky (Caucasian) dad and a black (African) mom, which meant his very existence was against the law. He was also obviously quite well-educated and him being there, it didn’t make any sense, but I never really gave it any more thought until a few days later.

It was a few days before Christmas, and I was on my way to the local shopping mall (Sanlam shopping Center) headed for CNA, a national newsagent chain, to buy some blank cassettes for taped music to play while Chix was having his breaks, when one of my bar staff stopped me midway, asking if she could have an advance on her pay. Sure, no problem, the cassettes could wait, and we headed back to the hotel, so I could get to the petty cash tin.

As we stepped out of the mall, a very f**king distinctive bang went off and as an ex-soldier, my instincts screamed ‘bomb’! A f**king bomb had just been detonated. Right next to the CNA, right f**king next to where I would have been. It was total f**king c*****e, bodies and limbs strewn about; chaos ruled the day. People were in hysterics and that’s exactly when I thought about the well-educated c**t that I had employed, not directly, but he was still on my staff. That’s also when the very well disguised, but f**king nasty person in me, kicked in, and I found myself loping back to the hotel.

No way was he getting away with this, but he was gone. Of course, he was, and we never did find him, nor could we prove that he was even involved. I couldn’t deal with this s**t, not as a civilian, so I threw in the towel. I had to get the f**k out of there.