The Kansas Rascal

  Chapter 2

  BRADLEY NEWMAN

  Brad was a tall good-looking guy in his late forty’s, with a hint of grey in his hair that gave him a stately look. He had been married a couple of times, the first ending in divorce, neither party being able to see eye to eye with each other. After just a couple of years they called it a day and parted on reasonable terms with. Luckily there had been no children to argue over. However, his second marriage was a success, they were in love from the start. This was real love that only comes around once in a while. This was not a lover’s flirtation without long-term feelings, which a lot of people seem to experience. They would go and do everything together. Local people called them the umbilical twins because of their closeness. Life was good to them and they had boy who they named Steve. Sadly after twenty years of togetherness his wife passed away with breast cancer leaving a very big hole in his life, a wound that would take almost ten years to heal.

  Bradley Newman was born in May 1944 in the very small rural country town of Laidley situated in Southeast Queensland, just outside of Brisbane. The event took place in the house that belonged to one of his Aunts, where his mother was staying during the Second World War. While his father was away serving with the Australian Army in Europe. After the War and upon his father’s return and demobilisation from the Army, they all moved into their very first home in Laidley. This was where Bradley spent his early years growing up. Attending the local school and making lots of friends from around the area. His early education was about average for a young child, not standing out in a crowd. The one thing he was very interested in was the local swimming pool where he spent a lot of his spare time, Teaching himself to swim by the age of five.

  His parents bought a piano and it was hoped that Brad (as he became known as) would be able to learn to play. However, it was a little out of his reach and ability. Even after his mother had wrote the notes in pencil on the white keys to assist him. A one-finger method was all he achieved. Brad's interest span time was very short, instead of practising he just wanted to be out playing with all his school chums and skylarking about. Realising that it was a little beyond him, especially when it became evident that neither his mother nor father could master it either. The piano was sold and the subject dropped.

  That same year Brad left the junior school, and headed for another school for bigger children at the other end of the town. He was very lucky that the town was large enough to have both schools. Most children from the outlying districts spent several hours a week travelling on rickety old buses to reach their place of learning. Brad was just an average sort of youngster, with an education to suite, and he hated school, just doing enough to get him by. The whole exercise was one big bore for him. Although he knew he had to go, he just wasn’t going to do more than was necessary. Those four years was the longest four years that he would ever have to endure.

  To lighten up those years, he would always be skylarking about, he became the centre of attraction, the life and soul of the party. He was the guy who was always laughing. He was the guy who always had a funny answer to anybody’s questions. He would make fun of anybody including the teachers. In fact at times his sense of humour caused a few people to wonder about his sanity. Because he would always have a funny (funny to Brad) line, even in the blackest of situations that included death.

  During a music lesson supervised by a very young female teacher, the pupils were all singing a well known tune. Except Brad as he could not sing a note (in tune that is). He was doing his usual thing of sitting in the back row of the class amongst the girls, as he could always get a good laugh from them. Plus he liked and preferred their company. Everybody was singing away at the top of their voices, while Brad was just opening and shutting his mouth with no sound coming out. Halfway through the song the teacher who was standing at the front of the class started coughing and spluttering. Which finally turned into her choking very badly. Brad suddenly jumped up shouting "Is there a doctor in the house". "I'll get her to spit out that chewing gum, I’ve told her not to chew that stuff in class". Although by now Brad could see that the situation was deteriorating and becoming serious. With a couple of quick lines of the only song he could sing reasonably well he left the room to the straining sounds of. "Jailer bring me water, Jailer bring me water". The girls changing rooms were directly across the corridor from the music class. So Brad thought this would be a good reason to have a look and see what the girls got up to in there. He found the taps easily but he could not find a drinking glass. On the window shelf was a small bunch of flowers sitting in an old jam jar. So he took the flowers out and threw them away and filled up the dirty looking jam jar with some water from the tap. Rushing back into the Classroom to the strained tune of, "Well its Water Water everywhere and not a drop to drink", (a Guy Mitchell hit song of the day). Brad hastily gave the teacher the water. That poor teacher, it was embarrassing enough her choking in front of the class, without Brad scoring a few cheap laughs from her in this situation. By now the whole classroom was in an uproar. The teacher soon found her composure and brought the class to some resemblance of order. She thanked Brad for being the Good Samaritan and asked him to return to his seat. Which he did after taking a bow towards his fellow classmates, and then walked to his seat to a rapturous applause from everybody in the room. Brad made a good friend that day as the teacher would always pick on him to help her. In return Brad actually started to take an interest in music, and looked forward to the weekly music class, he even started to try and sing in tune.

  Upon leaving school he went to work for the local power board as an apprentice electrician. It was a trade he had always wanted to get into, now he was able to follow in his father's footsteps. The thought of having money in his pocket each week gave him a nice feeling. It was not long before his earlier introductions to music caught up with him and he thumbed a lift into Brisbane one day, where he purchased his very first Guitar. He would then spend many hours in his bedroom trying to master the skills needed to get a decent tune out of the thing. He was also spending some of his hard earned wages on little magic tricks, a skill he was also trying to teach himself. However, this was mainly card tricks, cards were cheaper to buy, easy to carry round and Brad thought the tricks were easier to learn. Not that professional magicians felt the same way about this line of thought.

  The novelty of work and its low wage only took two years to wear off. With all the extra night school work, and daily college for three months of the year. This stopped him joining in and going out with many of his friends, who all seemed to earned much more money than him. Mind you they were all labourers and unskilled. So against his parent’s wishes, who tried desperately to make him understand that, on his successful completion of the apprenticeship, he would be able to double his wage as against his mates. However, this was all to no avail and he walked out and broke his apprenticeship with the power board.

  Brad took a job with a local building firm and found himself on a shovel, digging hole and undertaking the usual jobs that labourers do in the building industry. The first big problem he came up against was that this type of work left his hands very rough and dry. This was the worst thing that could have happened while he was trying to learn to play the Guitar and specially trying to practice his magic card tricks. For this he needed very smooth hands so the playing cards would slide though his hands very easily. So reluctantly he gradually gave up the magic sessions and his Guitar playing, both of which, he was becoming very good at. The work and the life style forced him into this decision. Yes he was earning a lot more money now but he was also spending it, trying to keep up with all of his friends. By the end of the week his pockets were still empty and he had nothing to show for it.

  He felt like he had fallen in to a big hole, a type of trap that he could not get out of. So one morning he awoke told his mother that he was not going to work that day and that he would see her later. He then thumbed a lift into Brisbane, found the local Army recruiting office and by the e
nd of the day had signed on the dotted line. He was now a member of the Australian Army. His parents were not too keen on the idea but at least they agreed that in Laidley he did not seem to be going anywhere. With luck it would be the making of him and upon his return he would be a better person after the experience.

  He under took all of the usual training that Armies put their soldiers through and shone as a recruit. He always stood out amongst the other lads but for the right reasons. Upon the completion of his basic training, he volunteered and managed to get transfer into the Special Air Service. Before he knew it he was off to Perth where he underwent more training, but this time it was far more intense. Once again he stood out to all of the instructors on the course and made a name for himself, as a guy who got on with the job and never complained. On the completion of this special training he was given a couple of weeks leave. Then before he knew it he was whisked off to Vietnam on Active Service. This was a scenario that neither he nor his parents had ever envisaged. Although Brad took it all in his stride, he knew that there was a job to be done and if it was not him then it would be some other poor soul. Who would be called up and sent out there unwilling. For Brad well he had volunteered, that’s what he was being paid for. He had the attitude of so what, so let’s get out there and get the job finish and finished right.

  Brad spent nearly eighteen months fighting the Communists in South East Asia. During that time he made quite a name for himself being mentioned in dispatches twice, both times for rescuing friends under fire. However, on one occasion a mortar bomb had gone off beside him, killing the serviceman he was carry across his shoulder. Fortunately for Brad though he never took a hit, but the explosion was so close to him that it affected his ears. He was not able to hear for a week and when his hearing did return it also brought with it bad migraine attacks. This became such a problem that upon his return to Australia he was invalided out of the service. The military felt that while on active service he could be a liability to his comrades around him This was a bad blow to a guy who had set his heart on serving the full twenty-two years and picking up the full pension upon his release.

  So just five years after leaving the little country town of Laidley, here he was back and with no hint of a job. There are not many explosives experts wanted by the local farmers or building firms. One of the first things that he did on his return was to pick up his Guitar and later on a deck of cards. If he could not get a job then he would head for Brisbane and earn a living making music and magic.

  That’s exactly what he did for the next twenty-five years, he played in an array of Brisbane bands and when the gigs were not coming in he toured around the clubs performing his brand of magic with just a deck of cards. He was very lucky with his migraine attacks they did easy up on him, and what few attacks he got he managed to control them with many pain killing tablets.

  During this time he met up with a young Brisbane girl called Joan and they were married within six months of their first meeting. This was a big mistake for both of them. They constantly argued with each other and were not really a good match. The writing was and had been for a long time on the wall. Right from the start, even with the help from both their parents their marriage was not going to survive. In fact the strain was telling on Brad by the increase in the migraine attacks that he was experiencing. Within a couple of years it was all over. Brad moved out into rented accommodation. While his wife went back to live with her parents.

  Brad found himself struggling to survive on his own. What with paying for his own accommodation plus having to keep his now departed family, it was all one big struggle on a musicians not very regular income.

  Then came the night of a chance meeting with a young lady at one of the football clubs that his band was playing at. Brad found himself sitting next to her at one of the gaming machines known as pokies. They got chatting after she had just had a big win. Brad had said to her "Wow that will buy a few drinks", "Sure will" she replied, "What do you drink". He was taken aback a little and certainly not expecting the answer, but within a split second he found himself saying "Yeah I’ll have a beer".

  That night saw the birth of true love between them, it was all out of the blue and unrehearsed, but all the pieces just dropped into place perfectly. Her name was Brenda, and before they knew it they both fell madly in love, after meeting most evenings of the week. Brenda started to follow Brad to all of the band bookings and became a regular face alongside him.

  These were the days when they picked up the nickname of the "Umbilical Twins", they were the days when they were never seen a part. Within six months Brenda had moved in with Brad and they were sharing a life together. Brenda took a big interest in Brad’s music, helping him in any way possible. Being a seamstress by trade she delighted in making all of his stage cloths. Taking several weeks in designing and making him a very special Jacket that he could use for his magic show. It had lots of hidden pockets, a must for a magician. Being a one off design it was unique and Brad was the envy of most of the local Brisbane magicians.

  Their followed 20 years of devoted love and bliss between them and they were blessed with two very active, healthy children, a boy and a girl. They worshipped each other, it was a relationship that was made in heaven. It was as though they were good mates in that they did everything together, Brad even lost touch with a lot of his male friends not wanting to go out with them, preferring the company of Brenda for the full twenty four hours of the day. Brenda was eight years younger than Brad but it did not show, their taste and thinking was much the same. She worked in the textile business with a local factory as a supervisor. Brad would always take her and pick her up from work a routine that they did for years, just wanting to spend as much time together as possible. Their closeness showed with the birth of their first child Steve. They had read all the books on the subject together each night as they lay on their bed. They relied on each one hundred percent and not on other people, who always seemed so distant to them anyway. With the birth Brad took on a leading role in looking after their first-born. Realising that it was something that he had not experienced during his first marriage. He relished in the chores that always accompany a newborn child. It was also to last, never once did he come up with the old adage that it was women’s work. Plus he wasn’t worried what his mates thought after all he never saw much of them nowadays anyway.

  Sadly after twenty years of bliss Brads life was thrown into total turmoil. When Brenda developed breast cancer and died in a very short period of time. Leaving Brad devastated almost to the point where he had contemplated suicide. Brad had never considered himself as a singer, he sang the occasional song at a band gig. However to farewell his beloved Brenda he sang her favourite song during the church service. So started the long period of grieving and heartbreak that seemed to go on forever. It was his children, Steve and Jackie that helped him through this very rough time. Without them he would have just dropped off the radar and gone into a drunken, drug ridden stupor.

  It took almost five years for some resemblance of normality to return to his life. To forget his anguish he just concentrated on playing with his band and performing magic. Right now that was all he was cable off, but by performing almost every night it ensured his mind was on other things. The worst part was always the late nights, when his imagination ran riot. By performing late into the night it guaranteed that he would be dead tired when he returned home. So he would fall asleep almost immediately and would at least grab a few hours relaxation. Once he woke he would have to get up otherwise he would just lie there with his imagination running riot. It was best that he got up and tried to do something constructive.

  Steve his son bought him a present and introduced him to the world of computers. This was just what he needed something to get his brain back into the reality of life. Something that could open new doors for him, something that would not remind him of his heartbreaking past.

  So started another phase in his life. Learning of the modern world, that he had n
ot been part of during the past couple of years. In his thirst for knowledge on this new toy he started trying to write stories. Something that he had always promised himself, it was one of those going do jobs that never seem to come around. For Brad it had finally come around and he relished at the challenge. While honing his new found skills on the computer keyboard he was introduced into another side of this modern world. A world that allowed people from around the world to communicate with each by typing messages to one another on the keyboard.