A Southern Fried Cinderella

 Author's note: This is a sequel to "A Southern Fried Fairy Tale" I wrote back in 2010. For those interested this was revised on January 31, 2013.
Urgent note: Read the complete story here, all three parts. 



Trixie Anna Belle Duval reclined in an old lounge chair beside the small pool of the Happy Traveler Inn stuck in the middle of nowhere north of Charlotte, North Carolina contemplating the utter tragedy of her life. Two years earlier her situation seemed so much brighter, Trixie had become the senior exotic dancer at the Big Booty Social Club in Watertown, South Carolina earning standing ovations from her adoring fans each night along with wads of cash stuffed in her G-string. During that happy period of her life she remembered fondly how three important pillars of the Watertown County community each competed to make her their mistress. 

One being a county judge who also owned funeral home franchise with locations all through South Carolina. Another was a state senator and Klan member with aspirations for national office. The last was the senior preacher from the Watertown Baptist Mega-church  who told Trixie each night he prayed she would find Christ. Each man would secretly take tables in dark corners in the club and lust after her as she danced on stage. During her breaks, they would send her bouquets of roses, bottles of expensive perfumes, and other gifts along with little notes promising eternal devotion and that she would be taken care of for the rest of her life.

Hindsight being what it is Trixie figured now she could have taken each of the self-important twits for the ride of their lives while sucking them dry. The scope of her mistake was only made worse at that very moment by the irritating kids in the pool splashing water on her day-glow pink bikini and their fat and their balding dad who was ceaselessly leering at her from the other side ignoring his equally fat wife sitting beside him.         

Unfortunately, her current manager and lover Thad Lovelace entered her life during this period of sudden success and filled her head with dreams of performing in such sophisticated places like Atlanta, Dallas, and eventually the center of the universe for all exotic dancers, Las Vegas. Had Trixie ever turned the television away from the reality shows she loved and to one of the classic movie channels she would have realized that Thad was deliberating cultivating an appearance just like that of the British actor, David Niven complete with a clearly fake accent.

The only strange thing about him she did notice  was his strange obsession with 1970's leisure suits which he insisted on wearing in public. He believed they were on the verge of coming back in style and that when this event occurred he would be recognized nationally as a male fashion authority. For Trixie, it was a small eccentricity when compared to his smooth, sliver tongued voice and talented ability in bed.

Even though Trixie was never one for prolonged deep introspection and self-examination, she at least realized the seeds for her current downfall were sown as her career began its rapid ascent. A few weeks after meeting Thad and agreeing for him to be her manger her boyfriend at the time, a near moronic redneck named Billy Wainwright, discovered her infidelity and beat the hell out of Thad in front of the Big Booty Social Club. The police quickly stopped the altercation and dragged Billy away with Thad sneering as Trixie tenderly nursed his wounds but the last laugh belonged to her old boyfriend.

That very night after Billy was bailed out by his cousin he bought a scratch-off lottery ticket that hit big on the order of five-million dollars. What happened after that was a meteoric rise with Billy being introduced to all the right people who liked what they saw and carefully groomed him for even more incredible things. A careful shuffling of paperwork eliminated the worst aspects of Billy Wainwright’s life and the creation of other documents manufactured a far more favorable past.  It all culminated with Billy’s marriage to a Charleston debutant who could trace her linage to colonial times then his election to the governorship of South Carolina earlier in November.

During the period after her breakup Thad had kept his promise and got her gigs in several exotic dancing clubs in both Greenville and Spartanburg and entered into negotiations with scouts from some of the larger clubs in Atlanta and Jacksonville, Florida. It all ended when news of Billy’s election finally filtered down to Thad who promptly began believing the governor-elect was sending state law enforcement officers to shadow him for the ultimate purpose of revenge.

Thad’s response after a few days of paranoia was to throw everything they owned into their minivan and flee South Carolina forcing Trixie into the uncomfortable position of leaving with him and seeing her future success slip away or be marooned in the Upstate of South Carolina. A place she felt was even more uncouth and backward than her Watertown back on the coast. That began a long and chaotic odyssey as Thad did his best to slip away from the evil forces of Governor Wainwright.

 This resulted in six months of ceaseless traveling for Thad and Trixie with their ultimate destination the Happy Traveler Inn Thad promised they would stop and plan their next move. Much to Trixie’s surprise the next morning Thad abandoned her leaving only a note saying he was sorry but that he could move faster by himself. Thad promised to call once he arrived in Jacksonville, Florida where he hoped to get her a gig at a club there but it might be a long time since he was going to circumnavigate around South Carolina by traveling deeper into western North Carolina and then south through Georgia. Three weeks later Trixie found herself completely broke and having to clean rooms for the motel management to keep a place to stay and a have little money to buy food.

When she was not handling dirty sheets and cleaning toilets one of the things Trixie did to pass the time was to drift down to the small motel pool and dream of ways of skinning Thad Lovelace alive if he dared to show his face in front of her again. The other was to do her best to ignore the dried prune that ran the motel and her two daughters. Seeing the old prune approaching the pool Trixie steadied herself for the coming encounter.

The current manager of the Happy Traveler Inn was a woman by the name of Nina Pepper who Trixie believed possessed a disposition comparable to that of a deranged pit bull crossed with an old disgruntled hen. To her everyone in the world she had to interact with from her employees to the paying guests all suffered from some fatal character flaw. What mystified her most was the fact no one welcomed her friendly advice at correcting such blatant inadequacies which almost always revolved around the regular use of enemas and watching Dr. Phil who she believed was Jesus Christ just waiting for the right time to reveal his second coming.  

“Ms. Duval,” Nina said while leaning on the wrought iron fence surrounding the pool, “I’m going to need you to sit at the front desk this afternoon while Angel and Cynthia go into Charlotte to do some shopping. They will be attending a party tonight after the monster truck rally and want to look nice.”

Trixie could not help herself but snicker at the thought of her two shrieking wraiths running through some store trying on clothes. “Mrs. Pepper, I had no idea a monster truck rally was such a formal affair. Wouldn’t they be better served just to wear their usual slutty attire?”

This did not faze Nina Pepper in the least, “Ms, Duval be at the front desk by one o’clock or I will call the sheriff and have you forcibly removed. Your services here are far from vital to the operation of my business. ” She said with her voice dripping with disdain then turned and walked back towards the motel lobby.

***

Just to tick off Nina Pepper, Trixie was fifteen minutes late for her shift at the front desk. Walking into the lobby both Nina’s daughters, Angel and Cynthia, were sitting on one of the old couches looking at fashion magazines. Nina herself was behind the desk going over the expenses with Mr. Pepper, her husband and strangely enough a nice man despite being married to such an awful woman. Mr Pepper was confined to a wheel chair after suffering two heart attacks and a stroke, surprising only in the fact that any normal person who was forced to live would have surely long died from despair or suicide. It was he who had taken pity on Trixie after Thad left her high and dry offering her a room and small salary for working at the motel.

Trixie stood at the front desk for several minutes watching Nina harass Mr. Pepper over the motel finances wondering how the poor man could have survived this long married to such a woman. Only when Nina noticed Trixie did the she finally shut up.

“Well Ms. Duval, how nice for you to finally show up. Now please honor our arrangement and stay alert while representing the motel and what is the only home you have at the moment. At least you dressed respectable for your assignment.”

“So you like my sundress,” Trixie said as she twirled around satisfied with herself in choosing it sense her normal working attire was nothing but a sparkly g-string. The dress was the last item of clothes she bought before Thad had become obsessed with possible sinister forces out to get him. Trixie actually liked the flowery pattern and that it was loose allowing her to her almost naked despite the fact it exposed nothing in the way of skin.  

“My dear,” Mr. Pepper said in wide-eyed admiration, “you look absolutely delectable. If I was thirty years younger I’d chase you around this room.”

“Come now Howard,” Nina said disapprovingly, “if you get too excited you will get sick again and I will have to give you an enema for your own good.” Mr. Pepper promptly went silent while Nina watched over him disappointed she could not apply her favorite medical remedy.

Both Angel and Cynthia soon began clamoring to leave and after a brief lecture on proper motel etiquette from Nina the three were soon heading south towards Charlotte leaving Trixie at the desk and Mr. Pepper in the adjoining office watching television. Content to have Nina and her irksome daughters gone Trixie pulled out a magazine and began reading hoping for a quiet afternoon.

An hour later all that changed when the phone rang with someone on the other end demanding to talk with representative of the motel management. Trixie transferred the call over to a sleepy Mr. Pepper who went straight into a panic.

“What do you mean you never received the check?” he demanded going from a sweet old guy into a outraged business owner. “What a minute, let me check,” he said a second later with Trixie hearing the sounds of the old man rummaging through a desk covered with papers. “Son of a bitch, my step-daughter’s didn’t mail the payment!”Mr. Pepper exclaimed to the person on the phone with Trixie turning to see him clutching an envelope. “Yes, I understand you need the money in your hand by close of business today.” He further said to the person on the phone then hung up.

As Mr. Pepper rolled himself out to Trixie, she could see the old man was very upset. “Sweetie,” he said, “I have a very critical errand for you to run to the main bank in Charlotte.”

***

About the same time Trixie was receiving her instructions from her boss, Clyde Dwayne Cooper looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror of his mobile home and steeled himself for the battle he would face in a few hours. Instead of seeing an overweight and flabby man in his early 40’s with greasy blonde hair laying limply around his shoulders he saw himself as a southern Adonis with the muscular build of an ancient Norse warrior.

Reality was already a mental causality of war for Clyde because there was no room for fear or doubt in his mind because God himself wanted him to raise the clarion call for a crusade to save America. It had all come to him in a dream the night after the evil heathen was reelected president of the United States. For Clyde the whole plan was beautiful in its simplicity, the first step was to rob one of the big Charlotte banks to gain funds but more importantly notoriety for his cause of liberation. He already had a manifesto published on the internet but unfortunately, it’s only responses had come from several Nigerian businessmen asking for his bank account number so they could covertly transfer their money out of that country promising to handsomely reward him afterwards for his services.

Clyde was sure once he had successfully robbed his first bank and left printed copies of his book scattered about people hungry for freedom would rally to his cause. The next step after that was to purchase more weapons and link up with his growing number of followers.

For any objective observer of Clyde’s mental state it would have been obvious that the man suffered from a series of delusions. The first being how he visualized himself in appearance. Clyde believed he was a born military and political leader and over the course of several years had convinced himself that he was a direct descendant of both Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Truth be told in reality the year the Civil War began one of his ancestors was hanged for being a horse thief and another was committed to an insane asylum after contracting syphilis years earlier.

 Finally ready to accept the leadership role Fate was thrusting upon him he donned his black field jacket, gathered his two assault rifles and assorted handguns, and loaded everything into his car. As he drove off he finally came up with a proper symbol for what he thought would be his growing insurgence, a lone wolf ready to battle the evil socialistic forces of the world. 

Author's note: End of part one, this went long and I will finish in a week or so.