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was going on. “What the hell.” Harold said nothing but he glared at me with his cold, dark eyes. “What did you say to him? You insulted my friend. Don’t you ever insult my friends like that again,” he hissed.
Rage surged through my body like a jolt of electricity. The same instincts that kept me alive on the streets of Philly locked in. My muscles tensed, my heart raced, my jaw clenched. I was ready to whip his ass. Nobody had slapped me since I was a kid. Then as quickly as the rage came over me, I stopped myself.
I was smart enough to realize that if I’d struck Harold right then, I’d have hurt him and found myself in very serious trouble. I looked Harold straight in the eye and growled, “Don’t you ever think about putting your hands on me again! Not ever again!” Harold stepped back and we left it at that.
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Teddy was the bigger man in the situation…in fact, he was a bigger man than most, because I think I speak for most men when I say that had another man slapped us, we probably would have caught an assault case. Much respect to Teddy P. for displaying self-restraint and being a thinker in that situation though. But wait, there’s more…
Teddy P. on what happened when he grew tired of himself and his fellow Blue Notes sleeping in run-down motels while on tour, barely having enough money in their pockets to survive, and ultimately deciding to be the person to go to Harold Melvin’s plush hotel suite and question him about it. After Teddy arrived to Melvin’s hotel, he said the place was laid and there was a high end doorman greeting him at the door. According to Teddy, this happened next:
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“Harold, here you are in this suite and the other guys are sitting down in Hollywood with no money.” Harold stared at him blankly, as if to say, “So?”
Pendergrass then said, “You just don’t get it, man. We work our asses off and are barely scraping by and you’re up here having a big fucking party. It’s just not right.
Harold said, “Just a minute,” I followed him into his bedroom, as I peeked around the door frame, Harold, with his back to me, lifted up…
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