Full Service by Scotty Bowers Read Free Book Online Page A

comfortably as he could, he positioned himself so that he could overhear everything that would be said around the table. Then the butler threw open the doors between the dining room and the drawing room. He cleared his throat and announced that Cole was still not feeling well but that, as dinner was ready, we should take our seats around the table and that Cole would join us in time for dessert.
    By then everyone was suitably loaded, happy, hungry, and more than ready to sit down and dine, despite the absence of the host. Nameplates indicated where everybody was to be seated. I was placed at the left center of the table and as soon as I sat down, Cole, unseen beneath the table, inched himself over by my feet. The food was brought in and we began to eat. By prior arrangement Cole and I had figured out a complex system whereby he would pinch me or touch me on the ankle or calf if anyone spoke about him. Depending on how and where he touched me I would enter the conversation and try to elicit more details from the person speaking. If he wanted me to encourage someone to expand on what was being said about him he would only have to touch me on my knee and I would try to throw the discussion open to all those present. From his invisible place on the floor Cole was directing nothing less than an inquisition into the loyalty of his friends. As the wine flowed inhibitions and discretions were cast aside and everybody talked quite a lot about their host.
    Most of the remarks were complimentary. There was much praise for him. But every now and then a critical or bitchy remark would be made. Needless to say, Cole remained under the table, taking it all in. By the time dessert was served he had still not made an appearance, but by then nobody cared. For Cole it turned out to be a most revealing evening. His only complaint as I woke up in bed beside him the following morning was that he was suffering from excruciating pain in the stump of his leg from crouching beneath that table for almost two hours. I no longer remember what judgments or opinions he made about his guests that night. The fact that I cannot recall the details is not only because so much time has passed since that evening, but because secrets and seclusion were typical of Cole. But despite his insecurities and doubts I always found him to be an easygoing kind of guy. However, even though he confided in me, I don’t think I ever really fully understood him. I don’t think anyone did.
    For whatever reason, people have always found me easy to trust. I guess I’m a good listener, and I always take people on their own terms. Maybe some of that comes from being exposed to quite a wide variety of people at an early age. I was an adventurous kid in a big city.

5
     
Big City
     
    A fter we left the farm in Illinois we spent a few months in Joliet, where Dad was working at the Stateville Penitentiary. But it wasn’t long before he and Momma decided to get a divorce. In 1933, me, Momma, Donald, and Phyllis moved to Chicago, which was probably the most exciting metropolitan area in America at the time. It had undergone major reconstruction and development since the Great Fire of 1871. Streetcars clanged everywhere. New buildings pierced the skyline downtown and on the wide boulevard that snaked along the shore of Lake Michigan. Although we were still in the throes of the Depression, and money was as tight as anywhere else in the country, in the Windy City life crackled in all its infinite variety. Yes, there were breadlines and soup kitchens and beggars, but in addition to all the hardships that everyone endured many folks still managed to eke out a living and some even found cause to laugh and to look on the bright side of things. Chicago was a great place for an inquisitive, healthy young fellow like me to begin to discover big-city life. We took up residence in a small apartment on Oakwood Boulevard near Thirty-ninth Street, which was in a relatively poor neighborhood in the