The Wages, An Illustrated Story | 11. Masterstroke | Trashy Debut
I found something in the pharmacy to soothe my poor tummy, then picked up a pretty purple hairbrush and hoped that treating myself to it would help me to feel better.
A radio filled the little store with the mellow tones of ‘Chevy Van’ by Sammy Johns. The trippy country-tinged song about a guy screwing a hitchhiker repeated its chorus to fade while I marvelled at how raunchy radio had been getting.
Another song started and it was so familiar that it sounded like nothing. I had heard this music in pieces while I added guitar to instrumental tracks, sang the main vocal and sweetened it with overdubs. I had spun a test-press 45 of it at home for my mama and papa who said, “Is that really our Crystal playing drums?” Every other play of this recording had been intentional. Hearing it at random was the sound of a dream coming true. My song ‘I Feel So Trashy’ was on the radio.
I froze and stared into the colourful packages in front of me. I was nowhere and everywhere. I clutched the hairbrush and antacid and looked around. A woman in a YSL suit checked a bottle of nail polish remover. Another woman tried to reason with a boy who demanded a bag of plastic dragonflies. A man with a combover burst in, whipped off a pair of sunglasses despite the overcast, and bolted to the pharmacists’ counter. I didn't expect everyone to start dancing, but they didn’t cover their ears and run out of the store. Today, my music became part of people’s lives. My loneliness was making friends over the airwaves, just like the voices of my heroes had made friends with me.
The radio announcer said, “That was Brandy Cinnamon Wages with a new song, ‘I Feel So Trashy.’ Up next at eleven-thirty we’ll have traffic, and we’ll check if there’s more rain or a sunny Saturday afternoon ahead in Toronto.”