For at time I was employed as a hired driver in NYC and I had a client who had a severely mentally handicapped daughter that went to a boarding school in New Jersey, I’m assuming she was somewhere in her teens. On certain Friday’s I would be sent to pick her up and bring her home for the weekend and as was custom, I would tune in to WNEW for the music (her father’s instructions) but she was always silent in the car, never speaking to me, wouldn’t meet my eyes, never saying anything the entire 2 hour drive home. We may have done 6 or 7 trips together, always the same quiet drive.
One Friday, we were stuck in traffic and we’re just sitting on the Turnpike, listening to the radio, song after song. Then, “Purple Rain” came on, and she launches into this full-throated, off key karaoke in the back seat, every word, every bent note. I’m sitting in the front seat a little freaked out because I didn’t know this behavior from her and I’m not really sure what to do. Then from nowhere she yells, “Robin, sing it, sing it” and next thing I know we’re belting the chorus, “purple rain, pur-r-ple rain” together at the top of our lungs.
After it was over, she went back into her quiet world. I looked at her in the rear view mirror and for the first time, she met my eyes and had a funny, indecipherable smile on her face.
I think Prince would have liked that.