Part 3 - conclusion - of Tea with Rose by Erin Sankey
“Well, he farted. He had a couple of rounds in him and he just couldn't hold it anymore, so he let it go!” Rose let out a loud laugh. “Oh, my Marv, I loved him so, but man could he crack 'em.” Rose paused for a moment. “Marv, he was an excellent father. He worked at the local factory where he built equipment for machines. Every Sunday we would take a drive out to the country. We'd pick apples, sometimes we’d harvest strawberries, but I think our favorite pastime was to pull the pickup to the outskirts of Midway airport and watch the airplanes fly over our heads. We'd climb into the bed of the pickup, Christopher would sit in between us, and we'd just wait. It was such a rush —as my granddaughter would put it.” She took a sip of tea. “But things were about to change. Our carefree life as we knew it disappeared. The 1940's came and Marv was called off to war. My mother came to live with Christopher and me. It was a big help. I became a taxi cab driver at night to fill the void. I'd been with Marv since I was fifteen. I didn't know anything else. I’d pick up fares from downtown Chicago. Fares like Lana Turner, Orsen Wells, Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. They were some of my regulars. I knew the streets like the back of my hand and I’d take my fares to low key places—no paparazzi, if you get my drift.” She stopped to take a sip of tea. “Errol Flynn,” Blake said sneering. “I've heard about him.” Rose sneered back at him and nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” She ashed her cigarillo, took a drag and shook it off. “I was excited at first. I mean, big Hollywood stars in my cab. I was living the dream! Or so I thought,” she said, shaking her head. “But, as time went on, the stars would bring their friends or business associates with them. The dirt that came out of their mouths—it would make a seasoned Navy man blush. But that's a whole 'nother story. I lost my innocence driving that cab. And I was a mechanic!” Blake cringed and laughed at the same time. “Why’d you keep driving ‘em around?” he asked curiously. “It paid the bills and then some. I made four hundred a week. A lot of it was hush money.”
“Hush money?” “You know, don't tell the papers where they went. They really didn't want to be bothered, the big Hollywood stars. My advice, just enjoy them on the big screen.” She took the last drag off her cigarillo before putting it out. “In 1945, I turned thirty, Marv came home, the war was over. He was different, distant. He still loved me though. I had two more children with him, one right after the other. They call that Irish twins. I named them Grace and Adam. In 1948, Christopher left home—he was eighteen. He joined a carnival and sent me postcards from every town he set up. Marv and I opened a small grocery store, nothing too extravagant, just a corner store. We did well, Grace and Adam went to school, I was an adult raising them, but we still did crazy things now and again. Like one weekend we packed the kids up in the car and drove out to a rodeo. Marv knew one of the rodeo guys—they became friends during the war. He got to ride a bull straight out of the pen. I have the picture to prove it,” she said, picking up her purse. She dug through it and found the picture. She handed it to Blake. He took the picture from her and looked at it. There was Marv sitting on a bull in a pen wearing a cowboy hat and a flannel shirt with a lasso on his side and a meanlooking bull straddled between his legs.
