Shelton Family Saga

Chapter 35

Frankie

"I'm too sick to be out in this weather. You know I'm pregnant, and I got this morning sickness bad, huntee. You better call me."

That was the message Frankie left on Sharosta's voicemail. As soon as she heard it, she was instantly excited, but frustrated, also. She badly longed to see her friend Frankie. He was the fiercest "Queen" she had ever known to work a runway the way he did. He rarely missed a drag show, and made fabulous money winning them. He and Sharosta would hit the little shops searching for different bargain priced items he could fashionably put together. He had a true gift to find the most low end pieces; however, by the time he put the entire look together, it was show stopping, to say the least. He would prepare two days in advance by thoughtfully choosing his wardrobe along with opening the ironing board to lay out his wig and iron his hairpiece of selection. She silently giggled at the mention of him being pregnant. Frankie was rail thin. She couldn't imagine him carrying an unborn baby, not that he could anyway. Frankie was a male by birth, but you couldn't dare argue with him about his gender. He was adamant he knew who he was and by the way he talked, you just willingly went along with his story. After all, it was Frankie's story. He was the narrator of it. Besides, anyone who knew Frankie didn't want to argue with him. He was way too much fun to be around. Time spent with Frankie meant being carefree from the troubles of the world, laughing at every darn inconvenience life threw at you and just reveling in the moment. Summers down in Velma, Texas, a homely community twenty five miles northwest of Ft. Worth, were the best. Of course, the place was also scorching hot from the dry heat since there wasn't much humidity in that part of the state. It was a dry suffocating heat, much different than the humid wet warmth like that down in Southeast Texas, close to Houston.

Frankie wasn't just a friend, he was family. He was Shar's 1st cousin, the youngest son of her favorite uncle. Shar's Uncle Juntas and Aunt Aniya had long ago left Helmsville when Sharosta was around ten and Frankie was eight. They had moved down to Texas, a lil small place called Velma, and not long after arriving, Aniya had took sick from her diabetes. She went into a coma and never recovered. Frankie then went to stay with another family there locally in Velma, cause Juntas was a traveling man and always on the road. He would sometime see Frankie around town and give him money, but Frankie had adapted well to his new mom and dad, a pastor and first lady. 

Sharosta remembered the fun times from her childhood with Frankie; like the time she was in second grade and the Kindergartners came on the playground for recess, sure enough there was Frankie. He never stayed with his Kindergarten class, but ventured over to the merry go round where she was with her friends. He was different from the other boys. He didn't push the girls off the merry go round or pull their hair. Instead, he always fixed the ribbons on all their ponytails and showed them cute ways to knot their shirts that was really fashionable. He also giggled a lot and thought everything was funny, even when it wasn't. The only thing he didn't find funny was getting bad grades. The pastor and first lady that later adopted him had strict guidelines, and didn't tolerate bad grades. He always feared the backlash when he made a bad grade on a paper, which drove him to great lengths to hide it. It was really bad whenever the teacher would make him take home failing papers to be signed and brought back. Frankie sometimes wouldn't come back to school the next day, and whenever he did come back, he would somehow forget to bring his failing paper back signed; and, he hoped the teacher had forgotten about it, too. Yet and still, Frankie had a passion for fashion. Whenever the pastor and first lady were out of the house leaving him behind to babysit the family's pet rat terrier dog, he would go into the first lady's closet and try on her clothes. He didn't pass over anything. From her blazer jackets and fancy church hats right down to her lace trimmed thong panties, he tried it all on. He had an eccentric personality and quite a passion for fashion, so who would've ever thought he would end up staring down 25 to life at the county courthouse in the fight of his life, struggling for his freedom.