I’m sitting on the floor, our old house on Sixth Street, the one that was demolished years ago. I’m young, younger than my daughter is now, probably 5. My aunt Tina is putting braids in my hair, tiny braids all over my head, and we are listening to the Purple Rain soundtrack. The music washes over me as we both look in the mirror at her handiwork.
I’m in the back seat of the white van that our academic team uses for field trips. We’re headed to some tournament, and I’m next to Drew, each with one ear bud in from a pair, and we’re listening to “7″ on constant repeat, the way you had to do it back then, stopping the tape and rewinding, letting it sink in before you are immersed in the sound again. Our heads are very close together, by necessity of sharing these damn ear buds. I wonder if he will ever kiss me. He won’t.
I finally end things with my high school boyfriend, two years past the expiration date of our relationship. After I get out of his truck for the very last time, I realize I left my beloved “The Hits/The B-Sides” CDs at his place, and that’s when I start to cry.
I’m on the dance floor, drunker than I have any right being, and “Pussy Control” comes on. For a few minutes I forget it all and dance.
My rebound relationship plays “Erotic City” for me in the car before he kisses me for the first time. I pretend I’ve never heard it before.
I’m working late at my first job, St. Louis, Missouri, 2002. Sitting around a conference room table, wearing a suit, with two similarly-dressed coworkers. We were none of us over 25, working until midnight, and we waited until the clients had all left before we turned on the radio. “Purple Rain” came on and we all started singing, quietly at first, then louder and louder, closing our laptops and standing up, pounding out the bass line on the cherry wood table, shuffling papers across the room. The song ends and we look at one another, embarrassed, heartened, and laugh.
It’s my 25th birthday and I’m sitting next to my (now-ex) husband. Atlanta. For my birthday he had bought us lower-level tickets to see Prince. He had come through my college town years before and I didn’t have the money, always regretting that missed opportunity. He plays a lot of new stuff, and I worry I might not get to hear my favorites, but then he takes an intermission and comes back out on stage, with a stool and an acoustic guitar. “I guess I should have known by the way you parked your car sideways...” and he’s off on a greatest hits set, just him, his guitar, and what seemed like a million fans of every race, age and gender. We sing every word. I lose my voice. In the middle of “Purple Rain” he pauses, listens to our impassioned sing-along, and becomes visibly emotional. He turns his head away from the microphone, turns back, wipes his eyes, whispers “thank you.” I begin to cry.
I put on weight in my 20s, a lot of it, more than I ever would have imagined sitting in that academic team van. The only thing that keeps me from losing hope is hearing him say “Move your big ass round this way so I can work on that zipper, bay-bay.” If Prince finds big asses sexy, then by God, someone else surely will.
When the One I Took a Chance On leaves, unexpectedly, the only thing I can think to do is binge-listen to “Nothing Compares 2 U”--not the Sinead version, the Prince one, with Rosie Gaines. The break in her voice, the emotion in his--it’s feeling my way through a world without him.
Today I pick up my daughter from after-school care. She asks why I’ve been crying, and I tell her someone I cared a lot about has died. We listen to “Kiss” and “Raspberry Beret” in the car on the way home. The music is what we have left. The catalog is finite now, but the music remains.
I guess life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.
No one in the whole universe will ever compare.