Full Service by Scotty Bowers Read Free Book Online Page B

South Side.
    Our new home was barely big enough for the four of us. Don and I shared a bedroom, tinier than anything we had before. Phyllis and Momma shared an equally cramped room. Don and I kept our secondhand bikes chained up downstairs in the dimly lit lobby of the building. The hallways were stuffy and moldy and a timer turned the lights off after ten minutes. A rickety staircase led up to our apartment, where Momma took on work as a seamstress. She also found piecemeal employment outside as a cleaning lady or by doing sewing and baking for people in their private homes.
    We kids were enrolled at Oakenwald Elementary School on South Lake Park Street. I adapted quickly enough, but I was itching to help Momma bring in an extra dime or two. I couldn’t stand seeing the way she had to slave away to support us. I really wanted to go out and find some kind of work of my own to augment her income. That’s when I discovered my entrepreneurial side. A few weeks after arriving in the city I got myself a part-time job delivering and selling newspapers. This job allowed me to visit many areas in and around Chicago, some very wealthy, and others not at all. I carried the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Herald Times, each of which sold for two cents. The profit margin for me was so small that I had to sell at least a dozen papers before I made a single penny. But I was thrilled to be earning something. I worked hard at it every single day after I got out of school. I would race Don home on my bike, forego lunch, hurriedly finish my homework, and set out on my beat. I was good at what I did. I sold a lot of newspapers and soon I began including the Saturday Evening Post in my inventory. This bumped up my profits but it was hardly enough to help Momma buy the groceries we needed so I expanded my activities. I saved up a little bit of cash and invested in a shoe-shine box, brushes, and shoe polish, making my services available as a combination newspaper deliverer and shoe-shine boy.
    This double role started taking me to new and interesting places. With Momma’s permission I began going downtown, where I stood outside bars and movie theaters, shining shoes for a nickel. Because I brought in much-needed cash Momma allowed me to stay out late at night. As my profits accumulated I could give Momma enough money to buy food for the whole family and still have some change left over to indulge in a few of the things I enjoyed doing.
    My buddies and I loved the movies, but a ticket cost ten cents. So a dozen of us would hang around outside the theater on a Saturday afternoon just before the matinee began. One of us would buy a ticket while the rest of us hid outside the emergency exits on the side or at the back of the building. As soon as the guy with the ticket had distracted the attention of the doorman the others would yank open the emergency-exit doors and dash inside. This invariably set off alarm bells but once inside the dark auditorium we were very difficult to spot. If the ushers went in with flashlights to find us some of us might occasionally get caught and thrown out but most of us would settle low into our seats and stay for the whole show. I loved the movies. I secretly harbored a wish about one day getting to meet those larger-than-life movie stars who stared down at me from the big silver screen. I especially fantasized about Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and Mae West. Watching those beautiful women made my crotch bulge.
    A CROSS THE STREET from where we lived on Oakwood Boulevard stood the Holy Angels Catholic Church. The priest who ministered there began to appear outside the church to watch me as I set out on my shoe-shine and newspaper route every day. He had obviously taken an interest in me. Leaning against the jamb beneath the cornice of the doorway, casually attired in slacks and his clerical collar, he would stare at me as I passed by. He was a slim, plain-looking man, probably in his early forties.