Fun-time Frankie

Was it attempted murder? It must have been attempted manslaughter at least…whatever that is?

Karen could see the fear etched on my face as I collapsed on top of the sleeping bag on the Peachey's floor. I don't know what she was asking me exactly, but I know my response.

“I think Frank just tried to kill me.”

You don’t think when you are sat on a veranda in Cungulla, Queensland at 11 o’clock at night that the boyfriend of the daughter of the family you are staying with is the local homicidal nutter...or maybe I should have? If there was a place where I could have been done in with no evidence, then Cungulla was it.

Let’s have a little rewind, though. As I stumbled through the bush in the pitch black in an attempt to orientate myself back to the cabin where all the family and my sister were asleep, the only light I really had was from the eyes peering through the undergrowth. I have no idea at all how many crocs surrounded me.

Would you have been able to stay composed?

Frank was the boyfriend of 16 year old Antonia and had yet to meet me. He quickly became acquainted with me, though. At the start of my terror that night, Frank had slunk out from the bushes at the end of the garden as I sat outside the cabin taking in the sounds of the darkness. As he stood in front of me he didn’t hesitate to offer a drink and a quad ride. In definite hindsight, “yeah…sounds good”, was not the best answer I could have given. But it was the answer I gave. So off I went on the back of the quad with him. It only took a minute and a couple of high speed sand dune jumps with him forcefully demanding that I DIDN’T hold on to him, for me to realise that this might have been a bad idea.

It only got weirder and scarier from there.

In the space of, what I believe to be about 40 minutes, he tried to throw me off the quad on the sand dunes, take me into his caravan (i.e. home) and get me stoned with his home-grown pot from the roof, and threaten me with a machete if I ever touch his girlfriend. However, they were all the warm-up acts to his main event of driving me out into the croc-infested bush to dump me there…I think to be eaten...I will never fully know.

I don’t think that I have ever been as scared for myself as in that moment of realisation that I could be totally savaged to death without anyone ever knowing.

I just wonder whether you would have gone off with Frank for a ride on the quad in the first place?

My fear the next day, however, quickly turned to confusion. Frank was in the living room as I came out of the bedroom in the morning. He was introduced to me by Antonia. I was stunned silent. Was it fear? Was it sheer confusion? I was in the village of the damned.

“Nice to meet you, Matt. If you ever want me to show you around these parts then give us a shout…I have a quad out back.”

He acted like he had never seen me. Had I been dreaming? Nope…this lunatic was real.

The family adored Frank and Antonia thought that the sun shone out of him. It was baffling that this was the same guy who had nearly turned me into a crocodile’s midnight snack. It was sad to think that they would never know and she would continue to love this crazy bastard. There was no way I could tell them. He had known them for years, and I was just the new guy staying from England. I would be the one who looked mental.

It’s a lesson of life I suppose. You should never just wander off into a crocodile landscape at night with a guy you’ve just met…especially one who just so happens to be the local village butcher. It has, though, given me a great antidote to any moment in my life of feelings of bad luck. I was severely lucky that night. I am sure that there is a parallel universe where a version of me turned the wrong way in the dark after being dumped in the bush and quickly ended up as nature's appetiser and not on top of that sleeping bag shaking in fear.

So, I ask you...

…do you know where and when you have been lucky?