You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy

I jumped out of the car and rushed into the house as soon as we got home from mass.  I flew up the staircase and leaped over my bed, tuning into WKIX and getting my double cassette deck ready. Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 was underway and I’d probably already missed some coveted songs. I sat on the floor under my window in the gap between the wall and my bedframe, ready to capture Rod Stewart’s Passion or whatever else I could time just right without Casey talking over the intro. When he did, I’d queue the cassette back up for the next song and hope to get a clean recording of Hold Me by Fleetwood Mac. Turns out, Hold Me was a Long-distance Dedication to Penny in Poughkeepsie. Kevin from Kingston had seen her in the food court and finally got up the nerve to ask her out, but when he turned away to pay for his Wetzel’s Pretzel, she was gone. I dreamed that one day I’d hear my name in one of those dedications.

The next best thing would be for a guy to like me enough to give me a mix tape, as if Lionel Ritchie were his personal Cyrano de Bergerac, speaking the truth of that teenage boy’s heart. But until somebody found me worthy of Endless Love, I’d have to make my own mixes.

I borrowed my friend Lori Lee’s 8-track of Billy Joel’s The Stranger when I was in 8th grade, and played it incessantly. When mom heard me listening to Only the Good Die Young, she stormed into the den and told me that song was forbidden in our house, which of course made me listen more closely and consider the Catholic girl’s predicament. I decided I’d rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints. “If you’re so good,” I cursed her under my breath, “Well then you’re going to die young!” Sadly, she did. But that is another story.

I came home from school one day and The Stranger 8-trac was unspooled in a tangle of shiny black curls on my bed. Mom vacuumed over my screams. Now I was going to have to buy Lori Lee a new one, and with what money? A $6 album would cost at least three hours of babysitting income.

  “Go a little crazy!” said the two-page ad in TV Guide. I’d seen those commercials on television and the promos in Tiger Beat magazine. The reliable face of Dick Clark smiled back, offering up a double music bonus. You could get eleven albums for just a PENNY! I dreamily circled my favorites in the tear out ads for months, but this time I decided to go for it.

First, I had to choose between records, cassettes or 8-tracs. I only had a cassette player in my room, But we had a turntable and a Fisher High Fidelity 8-trac player downstairs, and I owed Lori-Lee The Stranger in its original format, so a collection of 8-tracs it was. I felt like a rich person as I carefully chose my music, finally deciding on a combination of albums that might make me seem cool. Billy Joel - The Stranger for Lori-Lee and the new Glass Houses for me, Pat Benetar, Boston, Journey, The Police and Peter Frampton.

Of course, I wasn’t thinking of the agreement to purchase eight more selections at regular club prices plus shipping and handling over the next three years when I taped my penny to the postcard heading to Columbia House.

Once my miracle box arrived, I slowly and strategically added the contents to our family collection, as if 8-tracs were what I was saving all my money for. Crimes of Passion landed under the TV cabinet in February and Zenyatta Mondata in April. I gave my mother Simon & Garfunkle’s Greatest Hits for Mother’s Day and Chicago V to my father on Father’s Day to quizzical looks.

Every month new mailers came with sheets of stamps featuring pictures of album covers. As long as you sent them back saying you didn’t want that month’s selections, you didn’t have to send in any money. I was diligent about intercepting the mail and putting return postcards declining the next orders in neighbor’s mailboxes. I couldn’t fathom a way to pay for any more records without involving my parents. One month, I somehow missed the postcard and I ended up owning Telly Savalas’ Who Loves You Baby.

I couldn’t pay, so I didn’t.

  I nearly knocked my mother over one afternoon, rushing out the door as the mailman rounded the corner to our cul-de-sac. That likely got mom’s antenna up. The next month an envelope stamped with URGENT in red ink lay open on my bed. As I dropped my backpack on my desk and turned around to close my door and ponder next steps, mom caught the knob, and stood with her arms folded in expectation of my tears and excuses.

“How could you fall for such a scam!” my mother hissed. “And over something as silly as MUSIC! You could go to jail, young lady! You’re going to have to figure out how to pay for your mistakes and until you do, you’re not to come out of this room.”

Music wasn’t silly. It was my life. It was my escape. But I had only $2.18 in my piggy bank and no babysitting jobs lined up. I decided my only way out was death.

That night I put on Dark Side of the Moon and swallowed a whole bottle of aspirin. I figured that would show them. I remember waking up, soaked in sweat and being disappointed that my carefully crafted suicide note had not been discovered. And being relieved.

I told my mother I’d use all my Christmas money that year to pay off Columbia House, and that seemed to appease her. Then I asked mom if she’d ever considered suicide. “Absolutely not,” she replied. “God gave me life and only he determines when I die. Why would you ever ask such a thing?”

I contemplated my response while mom went on dusting the furniture, admonishing me about the importance of recognizing God’s plan. But I stood there pondering with disbelief someone who’d never even contemplated controlling their own exit from the earth.

I went back to my room to brood. Why she asked without waiting for an answer. Well, because I wondered if anyone would even care or notice my absence, if I had any actual relevance in the world. Because I thought about disappearing almost every day. Because I went to sleep at night dreaming of a funeral for myself like what Tom Sawyer witnessed, and wondered if St. Michael’s would be filled, which of my friends would come, if people would cry and what tributes they might share.

   “That Suzie was always up to something,” my neighbor Joy might say.

“That kid sure loved the spotlight. If there wasn’t a stage for her ideas, she’d make one.”

“I wish I’d been kinder to her.”

“I wish I hadn’t yelled at her so much.”

  Maybe representatives from Columbia House would show up and tell everyone I was a thief. OR maybe they’d forgive my debt if they thought I was gone and I could spend my Christmas money on whatever I wanted?

I intercepted several more threatening letters from the music company over the next few months and I decided that if Columbia House thought this wasn’t my house, they might just leave me alone. I wrote MOVED. NO LONGER LIVES HERE. WRONG ADDRESS on the postcards and envelopes and eventually they stopped coming.

Meanwhile, Casey Kasem kept reminding me to keep my feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. And that’s what I did and I eventually moved away for good.

As shared at Story Salon on October 2, 2024.