One Too Many!

One Too Many

21^st September 2011

Another formal night has reared its ugly head and we’ve got a long night ahead of us. What we didn’t know, or expect was that tonight was going to be very different from the rest… and it wasn’t for a good reason.

We did everything like usual, set up went smoothly, we had an hour to rest – some sleep others down endless amounts of Red Bull to get through the night. 

Before the meeting, the cabin doors open and Hernan's music starts blaring. We're all in and out of our cabins, talking, laughing and gearing ourselves up for the night ahead while climbing into our tuxedos. Once ready, we al head up for the meeting. Only then, does formal night begin.

Once the meeting was over and we knew which sections we were to shoot in Ressi, we went about setting up pentabs and cameras in our studios. Sanela, Zoran and Fabio were all on Deck 3 while I was one above. 

Throughout the first session we could hear Fabio’s constant “tune” of “bo, bo, bo, bo, boooo”. He’d ask passengers “Are you Italian?” he’d then start singing his tune. He’d do exactly the same if they were Brazilian too. It drove everyone nuts but you couldn't help but laugh. It made us all laugh. Some of us would laugh and shout “Argh no, not again!” or "Here he goes again". Sometimes we’d get him started and that would be it… none stop "Forza Italia Bo, bo, bo, bo, booooo!!"

Two Brazilian women came into my studio and Fabio popped up out of nowhere. “Are you Brazilian?” followed by his little tune. Next he started posing my guests for three photos in Portuguese. It saved me from a lame attempt of speaking Portuguese. I couldn't help but wonder, why wasn’t Fabio in his studio shooting? Looking at him, you can see it’d had one too many to drink and the smell of booze was over powering. Telling him to bugger off and get into his studio, he left with a bit of a sad face. 

For sure, I didn’t want him getting caught outside his studio, especially if he was drunk. Yes, he can drive us potty when he’s pissed but at the same time, he’s still a member of the team and we’d cover up for him as best as we could. He was leaving in just over a week for vacation too.

The night was quite overall and there really wasn’t much for us to do but stand around, smudge as best as we could and watch the time slowly pass by. Fabio was messing around with Zoran and Sanela with me watching and listening from above. 

Reuben came walking out of the gallery. Quickly calling Sanela (quiet enough so Reuben couldn’t hear) I signalled to her that Reuben was about and to get Fabio back into his studio. She tried her best but failed. Reuben spotted him and as far as I knew, sent him back onto LSP. I’d made a disappearing act back into my studio which was only a couple of steps away.

I was in the gallery for second Ressi and noticed Sanela shooting LSP. Originally I thought Fabio had gone into Ressi and Sanela had replaced him to keep a studio open. For the final session I didn’t see a peek of Fabio and wondered why. Nipping over to Zoran, I asked where Fabio was. Basically, Reuben had caught him drunk and sent him down to the cabin in case a guest complained or security caught on. Not good and things got much worse.

During break down Fabio came up as drunk as ever wearing his farmer fat cap. He was picking up autopoles in large sums and pegging it down the stairs with them. It was an accident waiting to happen. It was a bloody good job Reuben didn’t see him!! Once the job was done Fabio took some pizza and was sent downstairs to his cabin, again.

I had to run around and do some things in the lab before meeting the other photographers. 

Walking into the corridor, everyone was looking down and worried. Why? Fabio had been reported to security who, of course, had come to breathalyse him. Things couldn’t get any worse. Of course he failed the test, all you had to do was smell his breath and you’d be as pissed as a fart, too! That wasn’t the point though. We’d done our best to keep him out of sight from security. Fabio’s Sea Pass Card had been taken by security and he was under "cabin arrest". Confined to his cabin, a member of security would come along every thirty minutes to make sure Fabio was still there. All alcohol, whether Fabio's or not, was removed from the cabin.

Sitting in the cabin, the entire atmosphere was at an all time low. It wasn’t a shock or surprise, but we just didn’t expect it to happen, especially as he was leaving so soon. We all thought he’d got away with it and we'd done enough to cover him. Yes, it’s obviously Fabio brought this on himself and he needed help in some way, but no matter what happens, you don’t want to see someone in his situation. A situation where we were sure Fabio would get fired. You never want to see one of your team mates fired.

Now, it was simply a case of waiting. Waiting to see what would happen to Fabio. We all knew the end result. Hoping against hope, we all had our fingers crossed that he might just get away with a slap on the wrists as he was due to sign-off in just over a week.