My Pinup by Hilton Als

Author:Hilton Als
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811234504
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2022-11-01T00:00:01+00:00

I wanted to live with him, Prince. But first let me tell you why I couldn’t live with you. Before I parted from the great artist that early evening in St. Louis, he said, excitedly, “I’m having an epiphany, I’m having an epiphany! Can you come back after the show?” Of course I could. Watching him onstage not ten or fifteen minutes later—it was as though none of the preceding had ever happened, or had ever happened in a way that was separate from the show business I was watching now. And it wasn’t different. Not for Prince, whose genius was as natural to him as if nothing remarkable had happened. Or it had happened, and was part of the day that led to the night of him performing with as much ease as he offered me a bottle of water. He teased the packed house with: “And who said I couldn’t fill a stadium?” The audience roared as he played one song after another, a brilliant medley of wit and musicianship taking us higher. I tried not to love him more than I already did; after all, I was a reporter. But as much as the reporter was there, so too there was myself—and another and another self—and none of us could help but be amazed that this was happening after the show: going backstage, and then leaving because I didn’t know who to contact, but then a girl was running after us, saying, “Mister! Mister! Prince wants to see you!” She was plump, lovely, and dark, and out of breath, saying, “He would have killed me if I didn’t find you!” Then she escorted me to a room where Prince was getting his makeup refreshed moments after the show, and he said, turning his beautiful turtle head to me when he saw me, “Hey,” and then, to his makeup artist: “Put on number 14.” Meaning the eyelashes he wanted to put on for a little post-show conference. He was my Dorothy Parker. After that, I waited outside Prince’s room while he went in to set something up. When I was asked in, I found Prince sitting on the sofa with funk legend Larry Graham, and Graham’s wife. They were all holding Bibles. They wanted to talk to me about Jehovah, and what it meant to be a Jehovah’s Witness.

We weren’t in that semidark room long, or more specifically, I can’t remember all that we said; I tend to go blank when it comes to Jesus. What I remember is the specificity of their feeling. Their certainty that Jehovah was the way, and what I remember, too, is how pretty and little Prince looked in relation to the Grahams. Because they weren’t friends so much as parents, and was he maybe looking for a true brother? Had he been looking for one, and another and another, his whole life? Presently a guard told him it was time to go to the after party. Apparently they had bought out a bar downtown.

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