7) The Road to Fame... Continued
Part 2 of 2
Click here for Part 1 (if you missed it)
In 1941, Parkey was invited to box at San Quentin prison. Their yearly Fourth of July show, Parkey had a round trip ticket to San Quentin. Parkey, who was in half way shape, boxed the middleweight champion of the prison, and got a decision over him. This was one of the few fights Sharkey won. It was during World War II and Sharkey got a ten-dollar bill for his fight and a V for Victory pin.
When World War II began, I discovered the fact that the guys that had been members of my pirate gang and with me, too, in the C.C.C. camp, entered the U.S. Military service. You can believe me, I assure you, that every one of the gang, upon returning from World War II’s hell, wore medals of varied honorary distinction: Each man had earned the medal he wore. They all had become good soldiers. When I had tried to join up for military duty in World War II I was rejected because I could not qualify physically for active service.
But some sort of work I must do, and I was aware of the fact. I decided I would operate an independent taxicab along Bayshore Highway in East Palo Alto, California. My first taxicab I owned and operated was an old laundry truck. A little later I owned and operated a 1924 model Buick automobile. I sold that “heap” some time later to a junk dealer in Reno, Nevada. One day a lady and a gentleman had hired me to drive them on a journey they had planned. They were going to get married in Reno, and while driving them to the place in the old Buick, the motor went dead on a mountain summit in the Donner Pass. They got out of the car and we pushed the heap across Donner Summit. We had a harrowing trip all in all, but quite calmly the lady and gentleman proceeded on after paying me, and eventually they became man and wife and joked about how we three escaped being killed in that Buick “heap”.
I treasure my collection of signatures of several hundred men of the U.S. Military Forces. I gave free taxi service to those men on numerous occasions. In time, I needed even more gas, so I wrote to President Truman asking help because I was giving so much free taxi service to the men in the military service. By the time I received a letter of reply, World War II had come to an end.
While I had been on the telephone the waitress had put knock-out drops in my liquor. I did not notice anything and when I found my boss solid drunk I decided a drink would help me carry him to a cab. I drank down the glass of liquor containing the knock-out drops and before I could get to the cab with my boss, I, too, lost consciousness.
In 1950 my oldest cab was a 1928 Cadillac. Used to have a hand pump on the dash board. I would have to pump the gas into the motor to get it started. My customers would get disgusted sometimes waiting for me to start this old ‘28 Cadillac, and they would call another cab. I soon got rid of that Cadillac. I was tired of losing business.
Parkey in his career as a lone taxi driver, one cab, never had much money, but he had a lot of fun. Sometimes when his customers were a little short he would drive them for just a few beers or a meal or two. Once in awhile Parkey would get himself loaded on beer, his customers would have to drive him home in his cab. Anyway, Parkey had fun, headaches and all.
In a way I was aided by some good power in my dilemma regarding how gas ration tickets should be obtained. One of my regular customers was a man operating a turkey ranch. About twice a week the turkey rancher got drunk and was a paying taxi customer. He would insist that I allow him to fill up my automobile gas tank with his gas coupons being used instead of my own gas tickets which I owned only in theory. People are kind-hearted and I do not hesitate about admitting I was many times given needed gas coupons and somehow I think those people helped me to keep my taxicab service operating. On one occasion I burned up a lot of gasoline chasing a “hit and run” driver for those most interested.
In 1947, I found my taxicab business had become a headache. I discovered I had a competitor and the man was the owner of a liquor bar in which I had spent considerable amounts of money paying for beer I drank. I discontinued frequenting his bar and began thinking about going into the business of selling liquor as a cocktail bar owner. I was now a married man. I got a place to operate a liquor bar and a soft drink firm painted the building for me. I was going to operate the bar in my wife’s name. The State Board of Equalization officials stopped me rapidly. They refused me an operating license because of my previous record of arrests (minor charges only) by the police. They had stopped me in my honest efforts to earn money. My wife and I began having a nightmare named hard times. We were practically broke. Money we needed badly. We began sleeping on the floor of a card room in a liquor bar. The first night a drunk set the place on fire. I awakened and got some water and with it I stopped the fire. My wife and I did not sleep there in that card room any more.
In 1947 when ex-President Hoover was gone from his home at Stanford University, California, a soldier friend of Parkey Sharkey’s was going with the housekeeper at Hoover’s house. The housekeeper had a party, and invited her soldier friends and Parkey Sharkey. Beer, wine and the best of food. Parkey sometimes wonders years later, suppose old man Hoover had come home to his house that night and found me and this soldier dancing in his living room with his housekeeper.
In 1952, I left my wife and hitch-hiked out of Palo Alto to San Francisco. I walked down San Francisco’s “skid row” and met a newsboy. He remembered me in my former pugilistic days and had seen me fight in the ring in San Francisco. He gave me a dollar and I was able to eat that night. His good-hearted aid caused me to remember more about my former “fighting days” in the pugilistic sports world. I had been a pugilist in the fight ring in San Francisco, in the cities of Oakland, Redwood City, Fresno and San Jose. I had boxed at Stanford University, King City, Santa Monica and at the World’s Fair in San Francisco in 1939. I had put on a comedy boxing bout for the prisoners in San Quentin Prison in the year of 1942. I had filled similar engagements for various benevolent fellowship lodges and charity benefits in halls. I had filled comedy boxing engagements at picnic ground gatherings and at carnivals. As a pugilist and a comedy boxer I had been a drawing card from 1933 to 1940. I was doing a fast lot of remembering about my past boxing career.
Parkey in one of his first tries to crash Hollywood in 1942 picked up two hitch-hikers on his trip, one a hobo and one a soldier. Parkey let them drive his taxi all the way to Hollywood for the free ride. Parkey rode in the back seat with a case of beer to keep himself company. Arriving in Hollywood, Parkey went to all the studios. They did not need him then, so he jumped in his taxi and came back to Palo Alto again.
In 1952 the kind-hearted newsboy had also given me a newspaper, and as I studied the Help Wanted ads, I read one ad which interested me. The advertiser wanted a man to work as a night club greeter. I went around and got the job. I was paid for working as a “bouncer.” The night club was located on the San Francisco waterfront.
The job I filled was plenty rough. Sailors “on leave” from various ships came into the club. They usually became drunk and rowdy. Any one of the drunken sailors was strong enough and rough and mean enough to throw any person in the San Francisco Bay at 3 a.m. if they happened not to like the particular person, and no one person would ever know anything about the incident. I got along well with the sailors that got drunk. I understood the sailors. I had been there!
One night I had to take a guy out of the night club the hard way. He had pulled a knife and threatened a customer. When I moved in and started punching I was punched in the nose and my shirt was ripped off my back. The guy and I fought and tumbled from the second floor downstairs to the first floor. I got the knife away from him and the police arrived, and after asking some questions, they decided to jail the man I had been forced to eject from the night club. I was more or less convinced that I was in danger of the loss of my life while doing my work.
While I was standing there, a prosperous looking fellow of jovial nature asked me if he could hire my services as his body guard. He said he was going to search for a lost gold mine in Mexico. He said I would receive a cash advance from him of one hundred dollars if I would accept the job, and I rapidly pocketed the advance in salary of one hundred dollars. I went into the night club and contacted my boss and resigned the job of “bouncing” nasty customers.
My new boss and I took an airplane to Hollywood, California. There we devoted one night to hitting all the gay liquor bars and my boss put me to bed solid drunk. The next morning I did feel bad and offered to resign my job telling my boss I felt I was supposed to keep him safe and sober. He laughed and reassured me we were almost immediately taking an airplane headed for Mexico, which we did.
After we arrived in Mexico we hit a little town near the U.S. border and entered a little liquor bar. My boss was carrying a large sum of money and while we had some drinks he became a very gay-spirited person and flashed about the large roll of U.S. currency money he was carrying on his person. I noticed a Mexican taxi driver whispering to the waitress and began thinking we were going to be robbed. I tried to telephone the police but could not get a telephone connection through because the Mexican telephone operator could not understand my English.
While I had been on the telephone the waitress had put knock-out drops in my liquor. I did not notice anything and when I found my boss solid drunk I decided a drink would help me carry him to a cab. I drank down the glass of liquor containing the knock-out drops and before I could get to the cab with my boss, I, too, lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness again I found my boss beside me quite dead. The taxi driver had hit him on the head with a club and robbed him of all his money. I, too, had been robbed of all of my money. I was again the “Lady Good Luck’s” protected one and thankful to find myself yet among the living souls on this earth. I instinctively knew I must return to the United States and report to the police the fact my boss had been murdered by the Mexican taxi driver. I returned to the Mexican town and noticed the police there considered me a suspicious character, so I went down an alley way and climbed up onto the roof of a building and stayed there until nightfall.
I descended from my hiding place when I felt the dark would give me some degree of protection from being too easily recognized as an American. As I came back through the alley I spotted a bus full of Mexicans going to the U.S.A. border. I got into that bus and laid down so I would not be seen by the Mexican police, whom I believed, were looking for me, as I thought perhaps some Mexican had found the body of the man I had been working for. If the murder had been reported I knew I would be arrested on suspicion of being a murderer and then thrown in a filthy Mexican jail and probably never have a fair and just court trial.
P.S.: Don’t ever get in trouble in Mexico. Sometimes they throw away the key on people, and it takes a long time to get out, unless you have money.
Our bus got to the U.S.A. border and I was allowed to pass across because it was transporting Mexican farm laborers to a job in the United States about ten miles inland to a ranch site. When the bus got to the ranch I got out with the Mexican laborers and managed to hitch-hike a ride with a man driving a hot rod automobile that he owned. He drove me to the San Diego, California police station, and I promptly reported and described to the police the full factual details. Eventually, the Mexican taxi driver was arrested and given a court trial and found guilty of second degree murder. I left San Diego and went to Hollywood, California, where I gave my story to a newspaper concerning my Mexico experience. When the story was published I got a lot of publicity and was given one hundred dollars to pay my way back home to East Palo Alto, California. Before I departed from Hollywood, I appeared on TV in a Groucho Marx show. The cinema artist and lovely lady, Greer Garson, seeing me on the TV show promptly gave me a job in a film she was appearing in as a star. I also appeared in another TV show and movie. I got fired because I could not remember the dialogue lines I was given. I was wearing a pair of cowboy boots and they were so tight that I was too miserable to remember and speak the dialogue when my scenes were to be filmed.
In 1951 Parkey lost his home, taxi, and everything he had. He went to the poor house in San Mateo, California. He only stayed one night and walked away over the hills in the rain. Standing under a tree in the rain he put his thumb out for a ride. A car stopped, and the driver knew Parkey as he went to school with him years ago. Parkey’s old school mate was now a used car salesman. He got Parkey a room for the night and next day took him to his used car lot and fixed Parkey up with a used car for a taxi, and Parkey was back in business again and did not have to walk the streets begging for a job and getting turned down.
Returning to East Palo Alto, I have again begun operating my taxicab for customers, I shall point out to you all the interesting people and places I know about, and I urge you never to ask me to drive you to Mexico. Make it Hollywood, California.
In 1941, during the war years, as Parkey cruised the bars, he played the slot machines a lot. Stopping in this bar near Palo Alto, Parkey lost all his money playing a ten cent slot machine.
The machine was in the backroom of this bar, and people were dancing in the bar. The bathroom was empty and Parkey asked a friend of his to watch the door. As Parkey’s friend watched the door, Parkey lifted up the slot machine in the private room of the bar and carried it into the bathroom while nobody was looking.
In the bathroom, Parkey said to his friend, “Open the window.” Parkey’s friend did, and Parkey pushed the slot machine out of the window to the ground below.
He and his friend then walked out of the bar through the dance hall like nothing had happened. Walking to the back of the bar outside, it was raining and Parkey fell in the mud a couple of times with the slot machine in his arms getting it to the taxi. Parkey got the slot machine in the back of his cab, and with his friend drove to a deserted road where they broke it open and got about thirty dollars in dimes out of it.
Slot machines are always outlawed in California. Parkey said, This is the first time I ever hit the jackpot, and then, had to take the slot machine to do it to get my money back.
This little book is an amazing piece of Californian history. Buy yourself a copy.
These excerpts from the book Whiskey Road by Parkey Sharkey are published by Powerless Press™ and Chapin & Wardwell Book Publishers.
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