Why Wait?

 

From Uncle Vellanoff's Journal

 

While playing in Chicago there was a fire in the old Majestic Theater. The fire was not much and they figured it would be good as old in about two weeks. As we had not had a break for some time the management thought we could just wait for the theater to get fixed and go on with the run.

I was explaining this to my friend Guido, who was maitre d’ at the Oxtail Club out in West Chicago. He suggested that if I wanted to earn some money during the two weeks off from the theater I could be a waiter, as he was in desperate need of one. The idea was just bizarre enough to have some interest to me so I said “sure, why not?” During the first week things were going great and I was really enjoying myself. However I began to pick up on the fact that many of the late night diners were from the Chicago mob.

Well into the second week the place was raided by the police and one of these diners was shot for no other reason then that he was pointing a sawed-off shotgun at one of the policemen as well as discharging the thing, the gun that is, which seemed to also irritate the police to some extent. Well, as you can imagine, everybody in the restaurant was called before the court as a material witness for the prosecution. This did not excite me at all as witnessing against these people was not good for one’s future. However not having much choice and being an exemplary citizen, I did my best.

The state’s attorney asked me, “What were you doing when the police arrived?”

“Waiting, sir.”

“For what?”

“For money.”

“Who was supposed to give you money?”

“The man I was waiting for.”

The judge sat up straighter and the state’s attorney came closer, like they both smelled something juicy.

“Why was he going to give you money?”

“For waiting.”

The judge banged his gavel on the bench and yelled, “Enough of this! What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a waiter!”

At that point the judge yelled at me to get out of his courtroom and if I came back he would have me up on a charge of contempt. As you can imagine I was only too willing to leave.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: - - Once again the verbal history of the following incident has been heard before. Whether Uncle Vellanoff actually experienced the following or was just repeating something he had also heard is hard to tell, but here it is, just as he wrote it.)