The Album: Purple Rain Prince and the Revolution
The Story: "Lilly," my mother called quietly from the living room. "Come in here. You need to watch this." Purple Rain was on one of the movie stations. I was grounded from watching them, but by her husband, not by her. She'd yielded authority to him but thought she could keep the peace by trying to be on my side when he wasn't around. She was wrong, but at the moment, I didn't care. I wanted to see this.
Is Purple Rain a good movie? Probably not. I have no idea. I know the soundtrack is amazing and very significant to my life. I got the album first, then the purple single of Purple Rain. Then during Christmas of my fifth-grade year, I was given a cassette tape of it, which was kind of out of order....they gave me the tape before I was given my big gift, my first boom box.
Prince was DIIIIRRRRTY and sang about dirty things and I loved him for that. He also sang about pain and the frustration of not being able to fix his situations. I loved the complexity of someone who could talk about aching and being unable to control anything but also convincing you the truth about him being a star.
Prince was tiny and had hair like an old lady. Most of his clothes were taken from the same section of the store AS the old lady clothes, and yet he was masculine and sexy all the same. I loved listening to how the music would fade as the tape ended, it was a great way to fall asleep.
Not that I got to do that for very long. Back when I was in 4th grade, I'd informed the mother's husband that he would NOT be hitting me anymore. He didn't, but this meant I was subject to other punishments. Chief among them was removing anything I valued from my possession at the smallest of infractions. Soon after that Christmas, my boombox was taken from me. I couldn't watch tv. I couldn't even just hang out in my room, which complicated things because you could basically see the tv from every public space. Abusive asshats rarely make any sense.
By the time I was in 6th grade, I'd learned to roll with the narcissism. It helped that he'd recently failed utterly out of college and now did not one thing at all of use.
One day while I was in the living room trying to avoid the tv with my eyes while I read, evil mother's husband started in on how all the musicians I liked were gay.
"They're not," I told him. Then told his ugly, pasty, fatass that those men would always have more women than he ever would.
He got up and tried to hit me. I caught his arm and dug in my nails. He was an adult, I was 12, but I would not be harmed by this creature. I kept sinking my nails in, my eyes locked with his, showing him no fear and no respect because those were two of the things he craved.
He pulled his arm away, blood was on my fingers. I thought he was going to the bathroom to deal with his wounds, but instead, he went into my room. He came out with my Rio album and broke it.
Time stopped. I got very calm, like some new level of power was settling in me. I could feel my mouth twisting into a smile, a bigger smile than I ever smiled. It wasn't pleasant kind of smile. He asked me what I thought of what he just did, with that smug 'yeah, I'm still in charge' tone that I would hate from people for the rest of my life.
"Right now, nothing." My eyes moved to the ladder used to access the attic where he and my mother slept. "But you have to go to sleep eventually and the tools are down here."
Okay, admittedly, I probably had no idea how to use tools on a ladder in a way that would either rig it for him to fall or trap him up there forever, but my tone must have convinced him I did. I have no idea if he told my mom or what he may have done to her. For all I know, she could have been watching the whole thing and just cowering in a corner. One of them must have had a moment of clarity though because she soon took my brother and me away from him and ended the marriage.
No one has ever hit me again.
Thank you to: Prince for being Prince
The Lesson Learned: Fortune favors the bold, even the TOO bold.
I'll never presume to know everyone's situation and so I won't say that what works for me would work in every case. However, I know that in my life, when I have told people what I would and would not tolerate, things have been better for me. I will always be the one to grab the arm that is trying to hit me and dig my nails in as deep as I can, to the bone if needed. While I do this, I will look the monster in the eye and show them my immortal, indomitable soul so they understand how impossible this is for them. In the situations where this has been required, the monsters were soon gone.
Also, my mom never forgave me for ruining her marriage and tried to guilt me about this when she felt I was ruining her next horrible marriage.
I am never going to feel guilty about destroying awful things. People think destruction is always bad, but it isn't. Destruction, like creation, is a tool open to all people, one we use to survive. It's powerful and you have to be careful with it, but it is necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment