Kevin Coval

Purple Rain Beat Downs

bart friedman and i loved Prince. in 3rd grade after school, mom not home till dinner, we’d barricade ourselves in the bedroom i shared with my brother; a red metal bunk bed, sheets white with red and blue geometric shapes that made the room look like a homework help show on PBS.

flipped a-side to b-side. back and forth in a yellow boom box. buttons big as toys
kids on the small bus would get at recess.


bart and i, until my brother bothered us and we’d beat his ass with noogies, wedgies
(back, frontal and flying), iron claws the Von Erich’s taught us in Texas League Wrestling typewriters— a knee on each arm, eric’s back flat on the carpet, banging his chest like an arcade keyboard, dinging his head to typeset the next line of red marks along his sternum— titty-twisters so raw one time he bled and i got grounded and had to do eric’s half of the chores for a week
cuz he was such a wuss.


bart and i would sync our pelvises to the Revolution’s baseline, whirling like we knew how
to use them. i’d be front man, royalty, mouthing in the mirror, a vacuum extension,
my microphone. bart whaled air guitar solos, before we knew what lace and lesbian sounded like. back to back, an isometric bridge, supporting each other’s weight. red-violet lights swirling
in the discoball-townhome-live-video-concert of our minds.