Member-only story
Prince’s Purple Virginity
It was 11 pm on a Saturday night and I finished my last limo run, which was a carload of senior high school girls trying to be Janet Jackson’s back-up singers. One girl asked me in an uppity tone, “So what else have you done besides drive a limo?”
“I signed artists to record contracts.”
She laughed hysterically and commented on how funny I was. My humor apparently was worth an extra $10 tip. I then understood what Louie Perez, drummer of Los Lobos meant when he said: “I went from being a Grammy-award winning artist to fifteen minutes later pushing a cart in Ralph’s Market and buying some Pampers.”
I was ready to call it quits until limo headquarters buzzed me and said I had two new customers ready for pick up. I usually only got an address and showed up at the booked time. These customers however, were out of the ordinary. Dispatch told me it was a couple of VIPs from the kingdom of Purple. Not sure what that meant I headed back out on to the Chanhassen fast lane.
I pulled up to a purple-painted house with a large, purple windmill in the backyard. A light came on and two people exited the front door. I stood ready as I usually did at the rear limo door. I gulped when I recognized who my customers were. I had never met Prince up close before and his real height was not hidden by his platform shoes. I was 5 feet 7 inches tall, and maybe his head touched the bottom of my chin. He smiled and thanked me for opening the limo door. I loved his purple suit. It was a cross between Disney and porn fantasy. His sexy date, Carmen Electra, the glamour model looked good in anything. I think one of her boobs was bigger than Prince’s head. She followed Prince into the back seat. I closed the door and jumped in the driver’s seat. The perfume inside the limo was thicker than the pink cotton candy at the Minnesota State Fair on a hot summer night.
“Where would you like to go Mr. Prince?” I caught myself, blushing.
I knew stories about Prince because my wife’s cousin was St. Paul, Peterson, the lead singer in one of Prince’s sidebands called, “The Family.” The two parted ways in a legal dispute and I was not privy to the details, but St. Paul was an inner purple camp during the heyday of “Purple Rain” (1984). And so were other relative in-laws, Jason Peterson DeLaire who…
