Craig Sherborne

biography

A WILD AND THRILLING WORLD

Craig Sherborne

Damian Johnstone
The Wild Ones: The Life and Times of Johnny O'Keefe
Allen & Unwin, $29.95pb, 346pp
1 86508 479 4

In the summer of 1973/74 I met Johnny O'Keefe at the Travelodge in Adelaide. I was eleven. With my best friend Macka and my parents, I had travelled down from Sydney in the family Monaro (silver with an orange strip) for a holiday.
      One afternoon at the pool, I said to Macka, 'Look at that old fart splashing about in the deep end. Let's bomb him. See who gets closest.' I went first -- close. Macka got closer. Then me again. Then Macka.
      Then I landed on top of the man. He sank to the bottom. I thought I'd knocked him out. He surfaced, effing and blinding. When he wiped his long, blond hair from his eyes, I recognised him. It was a scarred face. 'You're...you're.' I snapped my finger for his name. 'You're the singer...You're Johnny O'Keefe.'
      He clapped his hands to his throat and frantically felt around his neck. 'My crucifix,' he said. 'You've torn it off, you little shit. Find it!' I sucked in a breath and dived. When there was no sign of it I came up for air. O'Keefe bellowed. 'Look again.' Macka and I combed every inch of the pool. Nothing. We went to the manager who said, 'It might have got sucked up into the filter.' By this time O'Keefe was sitting on the pool's edge dejected, smoking and sipping from a cocktail glass. I said, 'You sure you were wearing it?' After all, the papers said he took drugs. Macka said, 'Maybe he's taking the piss.' O'Keefe muttered, 'My mother gave it to me. That's the end of me. Bad luck from now on.'
      We weren't religious, my family. To us, Catholics talked a load of hooey. I said as much to O'Keefe. I added that my Mum was superstitious and that she licked her finger and dabbed her feet when she saw grey horses. I told him to do that in the absence of his cross.

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