My First job as a Bodyguard

My First job as a Bodyguard

The first time I was hired as a bodyguard was back in the seventies when the drug world was going crazy and the disco places were jumping with weirdness and bizarre drug related demonstrations of love, peace and yes violence. Violence towards the peace makers and the ones who wanted no part of fighting a war or even fighting each other. 

The mood was mixed between aggressors and victims and sometimes the victims became the aggressors.  It depended whether or not they were liquored up or not how violent they became. Alcohol mixed with drugs can be a lethal or unpredictable combinations and awareness was the key.

I was never a great fighter. Hell, I wasn’t even a good fighter but I did learn a few things to survive. I knew that my body was hard wired to protect itself from harm if you know how to use your hands, your feet and your eyes. Knowing how to use your senses was the first step to becoming vigilant and aware of your surroundings and when you are taking the job 

assigned serious, you make sure that keeping on your toes is your normal instinctive style.

If you let your natural instinct guide you it will be beneficial to you and your body to let your senses take over at times. We all have a natural instinctual defense mechanism and it’s basically a three step process – startle (awake) – flinch (react) and push (away the danger). This is of course determined by your mindset to do the job and do it right. 

We also have to talk about the 3 D’s.  Detect, De-escalate and Defend.  So if we pay attention to these settings, have the correct body language and choice speech that says that you don’t want to fight you can avoid a large portion of altercations.  It is better to know if something bad is going to happen 10 yards away than it is to find out when the bad guy is in your face. That was what I was getting paid for; to avoid conflict and making sure she was safe at all times. 

The job was given to me by an influential businessman who owned a few nightclubs in the city and wanted to give his girlfriend the protection she needed to run on of his clubs at night. I had done some other security work for him when I was self-employed as a security contractor and he liked the way I did the business end as well as my mindset to do it right. No shortcuts and all business. 

She was indeed a beautiful lady. Her attractiveness would draw the men out of the crowd instantly and her protection need was not inside the club but rather once she was done for the night and wrapped up the bankroll, deposit and then home for the night. It was during those times she was vulnerable as the man didn’t trust anyone else with his money except her. 

She was a shaker and a mover. She was a woman with a figure like Marilyn Monroe as her real blonde hair stood out in the crowd where the strobe lights were hitting the dancers and as she shakes her ass for the customers and moved around and mingled with them all. She had a name but liked to be called by nicknames and her personality was as outgoing as it can be. Some said she was flirting but to me, she was making money.

 

My job was simple to some extent. All I had to do was escort her out the door, walk her to her car, follow her to the bank night deposit and follow her home. Basically I was being paid for paying attention to her along the way home. All that was done because there were dynamics in place that created conflict in the business world that started over who owned the proceeds from the vending machines inside the joint and who gets what share of the profits for the beer, liquor, and backroom gambling. 

The biggest conflict was over the vending machines and its profits. They were subleased and the organization that owned them were pure business men who relied on their regular cut and sometimes tried to bully or gouge a little bit more than agreed upon. 

This caused some ill feelings and sometimes resulted in fights but nothing that couldn’t be handled between them to keep it from spilling out in the street or public. I always worried more about that bunch than any others who may have expressed some kind of anger towards the boss or the boss’s lady.

The businessman also had an obsession with this woman. He thought every man out there wanted her and he wanted to make sure nobody got close enough to steal her away from him. I couldn’t say anything about his obsession but he made it clear I was to not ever fail him to protect her in so many words and suggestions. 

The best way I could protect her was to have a plan each and every night I watched her. I had to keep a mindset that was focused on her and her movements. I had to avoid making a routine that was predictable and switched between front door and back door randomly.

Inside the club she mingled and socially active but once it was near closing time, I had to step it up a little and makes sure the car, a very expensive Cadillac, was brought up to the back door or front door by one of the valets and secured. Then I would walk her to the car, insist she lock it in front of me, get in my car I parked behind her and follow her to the bank with the bankroll. 

This usually took place between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m. in the morning and it was dark in the city. Rats and mischief crawled around and all you had was your senses, your alert levels, your presence and your gun. It was a mindset of fear management and the fear of letting the businessman down was more than normal. 

It had huge repercussion for me if I failed him. I could only imagine the stress of the woman who carried the loot and felt his obsessive watch over her more intense than I did.  The club was closed on Sundays and that was my day of rest.