FRANKLIN—A downtown Franklin merchant of the street corner will close up shop after more than 2 years in the business.
Fancy (last name redacted), 18, has sold her wares to countless men, boys, and the occasional woman in Western Tidewater since February 2011. Fancy’s last day will be Saturday, March 30.
“It’s time. I am ready. I made it out of that rickety shack, momma died, and I ain’t been back,” Fancy said. “I had a conversation with the Lord and was told ‘You’ve done your work.’”
She will have a going-out-of-business “blow”-out sale, but has no immediate plans for her famed corner.
After middle school, Fancy’s family came to Boykins where the only way to get out of that town was through drug sales, having a wicked jump shot, a giant flood, or peddling your “talents.” During high school, Fancy’s mother, grew ill, leaving Fancy no choice but to go to work to support her family. “We didn’t have money for food or rent, to say the least we were hard pressed,” said Fancy. “When she looked at me and took a ragged breath and said, ‘your Pa’s run off and I’m real sick and the baby’s gonna starve to death,’ well, that changes a person.”
Looking through her Facebook photo album, chronicling her time as a late night entertainer, Fancy points out the clipping from The Jivewater News. She pointed to the cropped picture attached to the article. The best advertising for her ever was that article, letting all the boys know about her skills. After that, it was only a matter of time before an elegant Franklin townhouse flat was in her future.
A young Gump Yaksummore was among the many clients Fancy enjoyed.
“She was very generous entertaining all the boys on weekends and after school. She was very kind,” said the former Franklin mayoral candidate. “It was a wonderful hangout and a focal point for a lot of boys. On Saturday mornings, there were half-off specials. We could get half and half for half off in back.”
He, along with his father and brother, bought all their good times from Fancy there.
“The quality was great,” Yaksummore said.
“Fortunately, it’s an institution that’s easy to replace, and its something our town could use,” he added. “I’m sorry that end of her career is coming.”
“She has the nicest ass I’ve ever known,” said Jonathan Dunlow, who remembered needing a date for his prom. Lacking the $1000, Fancy was his escort at no charge.
“Two weeks later I paid her back by letting her operate in the Wal-Mart parking lot,” said Dunlow, the Franklin Wal-Mart Greeter. “It was going great for her, until that little slip-up with the law. Still, my prom night was epic.”
Before the Great Flood of Boykins, Fancy did tons of business with a lot of men in town. Afterward, her stock was greatly reduced because all the men were either washed out of town on a Schlitz raft, or drowned in the deluge.
“After that, I never came back to Boykins and moved my operation to Downtown Franklin,” she said.
Once she did 25 proms in a week. Then there was the time she did 17 weddings for one weekend.
Fancy can remember when she first arrived in town, downtown Franklin was a busy place.
“If they weren’t downtown, they weren’t real working girls,” she said. “Then the showy out of town “services” came along…”
Fancy realizes her choices may reflect poorly on her, but to her detractors, she would say, “I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with my head hung down in shame. You know, I might have been born just plain white trash, but Fancy was my name. Now in this world there’s a lot of self-righteous hypocrites that would call me bad, and criticize Mama for turning me out, no matter how little we had. But though I ain’t had to worry ’bout nothin’, for nigh on a couple years, I can still hear the desperation in my poor Mama’s voice ringin’ in my ear…”
Fancy hopes to settle down, now that she’s retired, and hopes to spend more time with her 3 children, all results of her career choice. Fancy never once missed a day of work, however, exhibiting a stellar work ethic. In the end though, it appears Fancy has indeed won at the game of life. After she successfully managed to get out of that lifestyle without any serious arrests, or the more likely fate of winding up in some guy’s trunk, she is grateful that she was able to make her mother’s words prophetic, as she just bought a home in Windsor. “Did mama move me up town? Well, I guess she did!”