The Gemini: Emancipation

31 - Witness

2002

At a quarter past three in the morning, copper toned houselights glow over 550 bodies. They're a choir, tuned not too shabby, singing along with Prince's words in a way that makes him grin. Pause.

"Naw, wait a minute."

On his cue the band stays put in the groove while he rounds back. He's got to hear it again. A unison this devoted deserves to breathe.

"Live music kickin from the band, they singin'..."

"Soul Psychodelicide," they chime.

"I like that," he pleases, cruising into the next bar. "The song's a year long and had been playing for months when he walked into the place. No one seemed to care, an introverted this-is-it look on most of their faces. Talkin' about you."

The same about him. If the lights were up they'd all see the expression hidden on his own face. The one time he forgets his shades is the one time he needs them the most.

This is it.

So he skirts outside the brightest point of the stage spotlight as much as he can, letting it shine on the others here with him instead. These contemporaries. His friends. They're all the support he's got tonight. His baby couldn't make it and, for once, it's for the best.

"Two words falling between the drops and the moans of his condition."

His baby told him that she had a daydream once, sandwiched between these lyrics, pressed up against a brick wall. In a time where they two didn't yet coexist. Prince would give it all to go back there. Take their coexistence backward to a time where he stood only on the brink. 1990. Young, guilty, but free. Day and night compared to now. Now, where his foot pressures down a detonator. The tiniest movement and...

"I wanna hear Maceo Parker play Joy In Repetition. You 'bout to hear Candy Dulfer play Joy In Repetition. You 'bout to hear Larry Graham play Joy In Repetition."

He started this after-show set by with a word to the audience; his hope to make the wait they endured worth while. The band coming to life now, Prince wouldn't mind taking them up til sunrise. There's a bomb clung to his back. He needs this moment not to end.

"Up on the mic repeatin' two words, over and over again, was this woman he had never noticed before he lost himself in the articulated manner in which she said them."

They sang them. Prince's words. These lyrics that he'd written while young and guilty. 550 copper toned voices pick up in unison again. His fill-in-the-blank exchange with them makes him float. Honored by their admiration, he commits it to memory. He's got no doubt in his mind that they'll be singing an opposite tune tomorrow.

"In the alley over by the curb he said, tell me..."

"What's your name?"

"What's yo name? She only said the words again, what? And it started to rain."

"Rain, rain, rain."

"Two words falling between the drops and the moans of his condition. Holding someone is truly believing, say it, there's..."

"Joy in repetition."

"Think it ain't? Say it."

"There's joy in repetition."

"She said, love me. Two words, say it now."