Toothless

Lights come up on a nearly empty stage just a few instruments & microphones on stands set up.

"Ladies & Gents, presenting our opening act the cover band "Toothless" for your listening pleasure."  The crowd begins to yell out obscenities at the band as they come on-stage.  But the band keeps coming and the lead singer stops turns to his bandmates, smiles and begins to pump his right fist in the air.  The band begins to play the Lynnrd Skynnrd song "Simple Man."  The crowd begins to boo and suddenly the singer opens his mouth and begins to sing anyway, the crowd gets deafly quiet as the toothless singer makes his point clear, he can sing.

By the time he reached for fourth or fifth song in the set they are all cheering & dancing along with the band who were clearly enjoying themselves despite being a "cover band" for a bigger band.  By the last song in their set the girls were all standing next to the stage singing along with the singer, Toothless and flirting with their eyes.  He ignored it all and walked off when they were done not even stopping for a bow.

The bigger band walked on and began to play not even acknowledging "Toothless" as they passed in the side-stage area.  But that was alright with the guys as they clearly knew what they were there for, to get the people going, drinking and enjoying the show ready for the name brand band to play their new album for them.  As the band played the cover band went to the bar for a drink and suddenly were swarmed by men & women alike thanking them for playing before "these sell-outs."

Toothless was as polite as possible knowing full well that if most of the women weren't consuming alcohol he would just be another guy missing his teeth and paid no nevermind.  He drank his soda since he stopped drinking booze years ago and went on home to his wife & kids with a big smile on his toothless face.  He never took a dime from the band just asked that they make sure he could have all the soda he wanted during and after their show for free, they loved him for that.  It made their continuing to perform more possible because each could work less at other jobs and rehearse more with him during the week to get better, to learn new material, etc…

One day he was sitting at the dining room table reading the sports page and his son walked in, "hey Dad did you know you are on the internet?"  Of course, he had no idea that someone had recorded that show that night and posted it online and it was getting big hits.  And naturally they were more interested in the toothless aspect than his ability to sing that well without his teeth.  He would always joke, "No lisp, no spits, no errors."

Within weeks an agent called and wanted to meet the band for a possible recording deal but toothless wasn't interested despite his bandmates needing this big break.  "I like what we are doing now and it isn't my fault that person put us on the web for all the world to fuss over."  They begged and begged till he finally gave in only to hear, "we need to get you some teeth and then we can get started on recording your demo."  He walked out on the meeting without saying a word.

Months went by and not a show was performed as he began playing with his kids band in their garage/rehearsal studio playing the new music he didn't like that much but it allowed him to sing and no one asked him to put his teeth in.  No one ever asked him why he never wore the dentures he had or asked if he could sing with them in.  Which he couldn't do but since no one ever asked, he never spoke up. 

A year later the band "Toothless" became "Rocky & the toots" without him and signed a deal despite him being the real reason they were offered a deal in the first place.  He didn't care he restarted "Toothless" with new bandmates that included his son on bass, his daughter on lead guitar & his nephew on drums.  They did all the old covers he did with the previous band but now they played school dances, proms & wedding parties and the like.  He never was recorded again without his permission and passed away after a show during his daughters wedding with "Simple Man" playing on the radio.