Post-Father's Day Thoughts. Ronnie Hendrix.

Father's Day has been and Gone. I'm thinking of other men who made an impression on me.

Reluctantly, I think of Ronnie Hendrix, a roaming musician from Cape Town. I originally came to SA all pumped up for a great South African political and social adventure, instead I bumped into this freewheeling reprobate and my life went to hell. Ronnie had the faded matinee idol looks of the late Omar Sharif and couldn’t resist impersonating the actor at casinos and hotels.  To my undying shame, Ronnie once tried to pull off this shabby Omar impression at a lowly Johannesburg casino while I followed him around posing as his surly bodyguard; the evening did not end well.

Ronnie was incontestably the most unreliable, self-centred human being I have ever known. A walking, talking, larger than life Capetonian mischief-genie who believed the entire world had been created for his sole amusement and play. I met Ronnie in Hillbrow, at the end of a darkened, oxygen deprived bunker masquerading as a barely functional snooker hall. When Cape Town’s finest export introduced himself to me his first words were: “Hi, I’m Ronnie. I promise you, you’ll go through entire life without meeting anyone more brilliant than me.” Retrospectively, he wasn’t bragging.

Ronnie was the only human being I ever seen get high on the echo of his own voice. To my utter amazement women adored him. I lost track of the amount of husbands who turned up at our apartment threatening to shoot me if their wives ever dared to sleep with Ronnie again. I don’t think there was a nightclub or bar in Johannesburg Ronnie didn’t owe money too. The wonder was that the owners of these joints never insisted on getting their money back from him; they enjoyed his company too much and were afraid he wouldn’t return if they made a fuss about his debts.

I have to admit that my daily life was brighter, more lived, more everything when this world-class fraud was around.  During my time with Ronnie I grew up, lost all my English social and sexual inhibitions, lived my life to the full (if not well or wisely). Ronnie was not even close to being a father figure (to myself or anyone) but he was certainly the closest thing I’ve ever had to the mythical rogue uncle. I haven’t seen him in years and maybe that’s a good thing. I am now, after all, a chilled out, mellowed, responsible father of three.