Radioman

By Dave Nichols

The choice of title for the book and my favourite story is derived from my early career in broadcasting. Frustrated actors, timorous types and sociopathic narcissists who come alive in front of a microphone, have always inhabited the radio world. Our Radioman ups the ante.
I enjoy blurring the lines between fantasy and reality in an attempt to invite the reader into remote but still possible scenarios. By supplementing each new story with poems of a related nature, I try to keep readers in the mood, rather than release them too soon to their emotional comfort zone.
We have all witnessed the troubled misfits who find themselves in my stories and poems. By frequently using first person narration, I find myself better engaged to understand each characters proclivities.
Simons Bath introduces us to Simon, the man-boy, who sees things differently than most of us and turns childish fantasy into realityat least for him.
The tortured Harold Wharton in A Dying Breed was developed from my own complex relationship with my British father.
Natures Way features a character that goes to hell with himself, in a way that is nefariously memorable and generously twisted.
A Novel Affair is a dark fantasy-love story about a writer getting into places that are usually best left alone, but Myles Blainey goes much too far into his writing world with alarming consequences.
The poems wrap themselves around each story as darkness, humour, fantasy and big surprises work to achieve my fundamental responsibility to the reader: Entertain!
Cheers,
Dave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453598146

Dave Nichols

Dave Nichols was born in Sydney Nova Scotia, Canada. He spent his early years in broadcasting, hosting and announcing in both radio and television. University included a major in English and minor in music followed by studies in radio and television arts. Now residing in Toronto and engaged in an acting career for too many years to mention, Dave is a keen sailor, skier and aviator but has never quite figured out how to pay for these extravagances. He has 3 grown children, all living in the Toronto area and this is his first book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Dave Nichols.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010915516

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4535-9813-9

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4535-9812-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4535-9814-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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88123

CONTENTS

1. Nature’s Way (Balls of Steel, September ’97, Middleman,

Praise the Lord, Microsoft, So What, Amen)

2. Simon’s Bath (Childish, Changes, Islaand Mentality,

Daughter, My Children, Straight and Narrow)

3. Radioman (Big Bang, Bonfire, Tasting Air,

Supreme Being, Outside, Shit and Shoes)

4. Ghosts of Port Hood (Guts, Squadrons, The Lot, Great War,

Falling, French Foreign Legion, Strange Yearnings, Gift)

5. A Dying Breed A Dying Breed (Old Paint, The Moth, Agnostic,

Once A Jolly Swag Man, Vigilance, Scoreboard,

Morpheus Strolls NYC 1996, Good Dog)

6. Happy Land (Foal, Short and Sweet, Port Hood,

No Accident, Cooking for One, Comfort, God)

7. Dreamshoot The Movie (Antoine, Smoke,

Watching Wales, Isms, Circle, No More Funky Dreams)

8. A Novel Affair (Inverness Stones, 10 Billion Men,

Strife, You Only, Arsepain, Snakeskin, Ready, Blind)

This book is dedicated to my children,

Andrew, Leslie and Graham.

No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed, no man truly knows another.

—Thomas Brown, English physician and writer.

From Religio Medici.

NATURE’S WAY

Part 1

I’d read numerous accounts of adopted children and the search for their birth parents. There were startling similarities to the stories and the emotional hangover that appeared to be never ending. Unless of course, the natural parents were found. Then, it was practically a given that a happy ending ensued.

My own search began in my mid thirties, although when I think about it now, it began long before, and was surely hard wired to my evolving personality.

Just like water off a duck’s back, my mother would remark when it appeared that my reaction to an unpleasant situation would be lacking in bravery. She knew my weaknesses and was damned if she was going to let them get to me. She was a brick… if not an entire brick wall… placed strategically in front of her children. A kind of oracle. Scottish though, not Greek.

Visiting with relatives was always an awkward experience that left me feeling lonely and confused. I simply couldn’t understand why I was the only one in any family gathering that didn’t look remotely like anyone else. Even my sister didn’t belong to me. She was adopted from another family. My strongest feeling was one of disconnection, practically from the human race.

My day dreams were dominated by thoughts of freedom, control, perfectly-in-touch-with-my self—isims. Everyone in my sleeping dreams wanted to simply either ignore me or kill me.

Being distressed usually means having to deal with that which threatens one’s balance. My balance teetered on the abyss more often than not. I turned on the radio. Ten seconds before, Lionel Ritchie’s song Hello smashed me in the face, and had me reeling from an impending anxiety attack. Who was I? The romantic song guru of the 1980s spoke to me at exactly 5:05 p.m.

A cold sweat, then—who was I? where am I? where the hell are you?

It was obvious where song guru was. He was in the radio. And I was rounding the bend.

You’re in the file, Mr. Nevis, she said, with copious amounts of indifference and condescension.

That’s very interesting, I replied.

The person in charge of information for the Department of Social Services was an efficient bastion of civil servileness.

Could you possibly give me just some basic information about my parents… their last known whereabouts… anything at all?

No, I’m sorry. That’s classified.

Well, could you please tell me how I might find something or someone who might be willing… .

This is classified information. You will have to talk to the Director of Family Services or perhaps the Chief Justice of the Family Court. Or you might try your Member of Parliament… .

I had already turned her off. I’d heard it all before.

I am a person, but the system does not think it in my or society’s best interest that I be fully trusted with privileged information. They, of course, complete strangers, have complete access and know all there is to know about me. Perhaps they see me as a threat to their archaic bureaucracy. Perhaps they are right.

The government building that held my birth records and the people who worked there symbolized the supreme injustice that led to my identity crisis… a viral worm that expertly eroded my soul and parlayed my obsession into hellish deliverance.

I can barely describe the intensity of my pursuit. I phoned, wrote, badgered and provoked every potential source that might lead to me finding at least one of my birth parents or relatives. Fits and starts. Rest and regroup.

I am wounded, but not slain. I’ll lay me down and rest awhile, and then I’ll fight again. John Diefenbaker said it and did it. So would I!

The Parent Finders group that I had joined nearly 10 years into my search, reached me one evening while I was in New York on business. How appropriate, I thought, that I should be given vital information on my origins, in a city where everyone is looking for the Holy Grail.

Both of my natural parents were alive. I gave the kind and resourceful people at Parent Finders the go-ahead to make contact and attempt to bridge the gap. And I waited. I was used to that.

Fear, hurt, anger. These were my constituents and the only real emotions I understood. Emboldened at first with the promise of resolution, the tidal bore delivered me once again to the mud flats and the curse. The refusal for reunion from the female was unequivocal. No response from the male.

Part 2

My childhood

He was a son-of-a-bitch spy… her too probably. I overheard this type of conversation by the next door neighbors all the time. Both of them were up to no good, that’s for Goddamn sure! God help that boy, if it’s ever proven!

They said it loudly, just to make sure I heard from the other side of the fence. The ears of an eight year old. My parents, who’d adopted me at birth, weren’t able to explain. They said it was outrageous.

Always