Shelton Family Saga

Chapter 28

Burning the Bitch Down
February 1988

The stage was 12 x 24 with black skirting draped along the front edge and around both sides. There were a set of portable stairs positioned stage left, as well as stage right, and the backdrop was a huge vinyl mural that stretched 24 ft wide and hung 12 ft  from the ceiling to the floor. Music blared from the sound system. The event was called, Anything Goes. The little girl on the stage had her makeup immaculately applied by one of the professional hair & makeup vendors that had been listed on the paperwork. Her custom outfit had been commissioned by one of the best seamstress in the business, costing a whopping twelve hundred dollars; but, at least, it was less expensive than her thirty five hundred dollar dress. The outfit had been designed, cut and sewn perfectly to her look and measurements. Her mother had entered her into every event that was listed on the paperwork bringing the total entry fee to just over two thousand dollars. As Cazee worked the stage, her modeling coach stood behind the judges and off to the side, with a huge grin on her face. At $100 per hour, why shouldn't her coach have that ridiculously goofy grin spread across her face? The ballroom was standing room only and the crowd yelled, "WOOHOOO!" That was the thing in the world of glitz beauty pageants. The coaching cliques would yell "WOOHOOO" when one of their clique members were on the stage. That was fuel for Cazee. It reminded her of the days at her foster momma's house in South Carolina when her foster grandma (known as Big Momma) and aunties, uncles & cousins would all come over on the weekends and Big momma would put on her James Brown records. Cazee's real mom had been a crack addict who died from an overdose and her daddy Nick was a soldier in the U.S. Army who had been captured as a P.O.W. (Prisoner of War). Only problem with that story was there was no record of any war going on during her dad's disappearance; but supposedly, that's how she ended up at the Children's Home in Foster care. But, Cazee didn't care. Modeling on that big stage felt no different than dancing in the living room for big momma listening to The Godfather of Soul, James Brown, croon out his songs. It just drove her more. She lost herself in the music and went to town with her routine, strutting herself back and forth across the stage. She already knew her name would be the one getting called to go back onstage during the awards ceremony to accept the cash money grand prize. She was just good like that. She really couldn't believe someone had come up with the idea to give away a bunch of money for something she was so naturally good at. It just all came so naturally easy to her. Like taking candy from a baby. But most of all, she was happy to have a real mommy now. Her adoptive mother was the smartest and most beautiful woman in existence. There was no other mother that could come close to being as spectacular as her mom Vanessa.

*****

Vanessa was smart. Not like the average smart, but more like a slick city chick kind of smart. She had unbelievable talent and an even bigger work ethic. It was learned through a life of adversity and many days of being distraught. Only thing was that she was NOT a city girl, and never had been. She had grown up in a tiny town in Wyoming.

That little small town Vanessa grew up in was not the thing for her. She needed her independence, and had ventured out on her own when she was twenty years old. Life had been hard for her trying to make it on her own. It was harder than life had been in that North Wyoming town where she grew up. She had nothing back then. Only herself. But that was all she needed according to Lottie. Lottie was the Madam that owned the whorehouse where she boarded. She was a very ratchet Madam and although she preferred her home base in Albuquerque, she had a string of those whorehouses in multiple states. She had made it a family business. Her son was the most bona fide pimp around, traveling across the states in his big fancy Cadillac, taking the tricks with him to keep a steady rotation of new faces at all the different locations she owned. And when Lottie suddenly left town in 1978, her son Big Star had taken over everything. That's how Vanessa ended up pregnant in South Carolina. Young, unmarried and pregnant in 1978 by a random john. Vanessa had chosen to leave the baby at the children's home after it was born the next year. She then spent two more years of non stop whoring at Lottie's Place and by 1981 she had finally saved enough money to start her own business. A legitimate one at that. Before then, she had been reading books between johns. Lots of them. Books on business and self improvement. It all served her well, because she made it out of that world and into a whole different one. By 1986 she had five years of steady entrepreneurship to her credit. Her thoroughbred horse racing business was flourishing. She had bred, trained and raced so many horses it was unimaginable how lucratively profitable the business was. Her equestrian training center was one of the most highly sought after equestrian centers in the world. Having accomplished such success, she decided it was time she went back to the children's home orphanage, but this time as an upstanding business woman. She was one of the most affluent and respected women around and she officially adopted her natural born daughter back on the little girls seventh birthday. But Cazee had no idea that Vanessa was her birth mother. She also didn't know that Vanessa's name used to be Vaniti and she was the biggest trick turner across the nation. That life was far behind Vanessa now. Life had been hard back in 1961 when her grandma had died. It messed up Vaniti's mom to the point she just ran off and left baby Vaniti there with her family in Helmsville. She spent many days eating flapjacks and Karo syrup with her family there on Wagonwood Street before she left to turn tricks. It was a secret past that had no place in her life now. And by any means necessary, she had made sure it would stay that way forever when she did what she did. It had been a cold February night. Maybe it was early morning. She couldn't recall the exact details, except that she had been high on some pills and running away from Big Star, when she recognized her uncle's house. She had wanted to run inside to hide, but when she got there she saw Madam Lottie through a window at the back of the house. It was pitch black dark outside, but the light was on inside and she could see everything Madam was doing through the window by her silhouette. She was ransacking the place like she was madly in search of something. Vaniti wanted to go inside and confront her, but she spotted her uncle's Cadillac in the distance. It was parked alongside the curb, so she thought better of it. She looked around and saw a gas can on the ground around from the window by the backdoor. She knew her uncle liked to smoke peyote sometimes and kept matches outside in the backyard on a little card table over by a pecan tree. She despised the yard just as much as she did the house. She longed for the happier times back at her granddaddies house on Wagonwood Street. The times when her Uncle Hoochie would bring the family flapjacks and Karo syrup. Those times had been hard, but her Uncle Hoochie was her hero. He always saw that the whole family was taken care of, but things had changed. Her uncle had his own money and his own life now. All of her aunties were grown and living their own lives as well. So without haste, she looked at her Uncle Hoochie's house and did the first thing that came to her mind. She burnt that motherfucker to the ground and with Madam Lottie in it!