I WAS GRATEFUL

We met ten years ago in Teddy and the Telegraphs. I sang and played guitar. I was Teddy. Alice came on as a bassist—female bassists were all the rage for a little while there—and started writing with me almost immediately. It was not appreciated by Don Powell, the keyboard player and principal songwriter. Don had written our two regional hits, “New Veneer” and “Lemon Letter,” and he fancied himself a savant because he had been a strong student in high school and was certain that he would have gone on to great success in college had he applied. “I did not,” he said. “Music called.” Alice and I wrote fourteen or fifteen songs together with all kinds of titles, “Big-Time Shirt,” “Ice Brain,” “The Key That Never Fits the Hole,” “London Blanket,” and more, and it was only after the last one that she shattered me by telling me that she was leaving to write with Don. “Do you hear ‘New Veneer’?” she said. “It is an act of genius. What you and I are doing, it’s…” She didn’t complete the sentence and for that I was grateful. She and Don quickly coupled, not just creatively but in all respects. Their cries could be heard outside the dressing room. Don, who had always been cordial to me ,not was positively jolly. Most days he would laugh. I held Alice accountable, because I believe she spoke of me to him or, worse, did not. 

©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas