Animals Strike Curious Poses

an ode to Prince on the 40th anniversary of Purple Rain

Photo by Manos Gkikas on Unsplash

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When I was a freshman in Reardan High School, my locker was surrounded by the lockers of four white girls—I'll call them M, D, C, and L. They were very kind seniors and sometimes flirted with me and sent me into shy reverie, though my brown skin camouflaged my blush. Why did they pay such close attention to an underclassman? They liked that I was smart and funny. They said so. But I also think they liked my eccentric Indian boy personality—my gentleness and singsong reservation accent and black hair that I wore much longer than all the crewcut white boys. I was the only Indian boy in the school—in the entire community—and that made me exotic—well, it made me faux-exotic since I was the same kind of bookish jock as many of my schoolmates.

I developed an especially close friendship with L. We sat by each other in an advanced algebra class and shared our life stories and secrets with each other. Our relationship existed somewhere closer to platonic than romantic. Our age difference was a proper obstacle and she also had a boyfriend—a rowdy football player who once punched a hole in a wall because I gave L a teddy bear for her birthday.

And I also wrote her a birthday poem that extolled her intelligence, beauty, and sense of humor. Looking back, it was the first love poem, the first ode, that I'd ever written. So, yeah, I completely understand her boyfriend's jealousy even as I condemn his violence. And I'm happy that he punched the wall instead of me.

After L graduated from high school, we lost contact. I heard she'd broken up with her boyfriend and I enjoyed mad crushes on a few classmates over the next couple of years.

Then, in 1984, L called me at home and asked if I wanted to go to a movie with her. Just as a friend. It was a date that wasn't a date.

At the time, Prince had become a huge star. His music was everywhere on the radio. I was poor but I loved his music so much that I bought a cassette of Purple Rain, the soundtrack for the movie of the same name.

I was aware that his music was sexy—incredibly so. He sang about meeting Nikki, the sex queen masturbating in a hotel lobby with a magazine—a song that had Tipper Gore pushing all the emergency censorship buttons that she could find and invent. But I'd grown up in a Native American culture where sex and its serious complications and slapstick foolishness were often topics of conversation. Indians talk dirty. It's a universal behavior. So I wasn't shy about singing along with Prince. And I was only a little bit shy when I suggested to L that we, on our non-date, should see Purple Rain, the movie.

But there can be quite the difference between the lyrical sexiness of music and the vivid sexuality of cinema.

And there was a huge cultural difference between me, the Indian boy heathen, and L, the white conservative Christian. I was approximately 30% feral and she was 97% church girl.

I'm laughing now as I recall L and I sitting beside each other in the theater as Prince and Appolonia acted out a graphic sex scene. And, looking back, I can say that it was an accurate love scene made sexier by that accuracy. I was electric and embarrassed with desire, yes, but I didn't feel that strongly about L. She and I hadn't and wouldn't ever have any physical contact beyond chaste hugs. It was Prince's art—his music and movie—that was transforming and elevating me.

He suddenly existed as a holy figure in my secular life. And I suddenly loved his genius in a profound way that I've never loved any musician I've ever heard, before or since.

L and I didn't talk about the movie after we left the theater in Spokane. I can only imagine her embarrassment. She just drove me back to Reardan where I was spending the night with a friend and his family. She hugged me good night and, a year later, happily blessed my romantic pairing with her younger sister, S.

Talk about the serious complications and slapstick foolishness of romance!

I dated S for two years. I haven't seen or talked her since we broke up in 1987 but I remember her with great fondness. Five or ten years back, my sisters chanced upon her in Spokane and she wished me well.

I've been married for thirty years to Diane, a smart, beautiful, and hilarious Native American woman—an enrolled Hidatsa Indian—who's approximately 62% Catholic and 10% feral from her early childhood living on various reservations.

I’ve written hundreds of love poems for her and will write hundreds of more odes to her.

And I remain in love with Prince and I'm writing this ode to him on the 40th anniversary of the release of Purple Rain.

I think that he's one of the major reasons why I've become a writer. His songs of love, lust, and heartbreak are epic. He’s the Iliad and Odyssey of my soul.

And I miss him.

And I mourn that he was in such agony that he accidentally overdosed on painkillers.

Great art carries a great price.

Fame is dangerous and destructive.

Great art and fame are fraternal twins that often wage war on each other.

But Prince remains alive and electric through his music. And that music still makes me feel electric and alive.

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