tion>
The
Redneck Riviera
Richard N. Côté
Corinthian Books
Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
Copyright © 2011 by Richard N. Côté, 483 Old Carolina Court, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Edition. First printing, 2001; second printing, 2008; second printing (includes minor revisions and ebook version), February 2011.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication
(Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)
Côté, Richard N., 1945-
The Redneck Riviera. A novel by Richard N. Côté. – 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-929175-17-8 (trade hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-929175-34-5 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-929175-47-5 (ebook edition)
I. Title
LC 2001091644
Converted to eBook format by http://www.eBookIt.com
“Tip Jar” dancing shoe by Pleaser USA, Inc.
Jacket design © 2008 by Richard N. Côté
Author portrait by Ron Anton Rocz
Corinthian Books
483 Old Carolina Court
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
+1 (843) 881-6080
“Honey, it’s not like when I was growing up here in the 50s. Myrtle Beach was a quiet, friendly, family beach place back then. Now it’s turned into the Redneck Riviera.”
Estelle Simmons, forty-year Myrtle Beach resident
_________________________________
Other books by the author:
Mary’s World: Love, War, and Family Ties
in Nineteenth-century Charleston
Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy
Strength and Honor: The Life of Dolley Madison
City of Heroes: The Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886
Even though South Carolina’s Redneck Riviera is quite real, this story is a work of fiction and is solely of my own creation. This isn’t a “formula” novel. It was created from a hundred sources and encounters in and outside of the Myrtle Beach area. What’s real? What’s not? You decide. That’s the fun of it.
I am indebted to the reference librarians of the Chapin Memorial Library, Myrtle Beach, for their assistance. At Corinthian Books, the skills of Diane Anderson, Margaret Grace were invaluable, as were the insights of Dra. Maria Cordova and Rose M. Tomlin. In 2011, Katherine Lastrapes and Allyson Field skillfully edited and updated the text for this, the latest version.
I also want to thank Sherry, Brooke, Sarah, Jennifer, and Robin in Myrtle Beach and dancer-entertainers “Peaches,” “Destiny,” “Isis,” “Natasha,” “Monica,” “Melissa,” “Kayla,” “Georgia,” “Nadine,” and “Leah” for sharing with me so candidly their real-life personal experiences in Redneck Riviera strip clubs. Thanks also to Guy Schmidt at the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy for the extensive information on clandestine d-methamphetamine labs and meth production.
Richard N. Côté
Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
February 9, 2011
1. High Cotton
Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina
Early May
Yahoo! Life rocks! Dolly Devereaux’s heart raced as she fluffed her platinum blonde hair and checked her blue eyeliner in the bathroom mirror. Outside, the light mist of rain from the gray clouds above did nothing to dampen her spirits. Nothing, she thought, is going to get me down today. Yesterday I was an employee, a drone, a seven-dollar-an-hour sales clerk. Today I’m the store manager, the boss, the queen bee of Fantasia Lingerie Store #23 in Myrtle Beach. Recalling a phrase she’d learned from her grandmother when she was just a baby growing up in rural Darlington, Dolly grinned and thought, Honey, you’s in high cotton now!
She couldn’t believe how casually the lingerie chain’s district manager had made the announcement to her and the other employees the day before. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal for him. After all, he supervised thirteen stores in three states. Wanda, the previous manager of Dolly’s store, had quit without warning just two days ago, and he had to make a quick replacement. “What the heck,” he probably thought to himself. “Take the blonde. She’s the oldest, and she can’t do any worse than the last one.”
It might have been a routine decision for him, Dolly thought, but it sure was a big deal for me. Yesterday I was working by the hour with no benefits. Today I have health insurance, sick leave, and in three more months, a 401(k). What the hell is a 401(k)? she thought when he told her, never letting on for a minute that she had no idea what it was. Who cares? she thought, smiling. It’s a benefit, it’s free, and nobody else in my family ever had one.
For Dolly, life in the North Myrtle Beach mobile home park where she spent her teenage years had centered around earning money after school to help her mother, Anne, with the cost of food, rent, electricity, and dodging the hands of her mother’s succession of boyfriends. The "trailer trash," as the city kids called her kind, didn’t spend much time worrying about 401(k) plans. But now, at the age of 36, her years of hard work and overtime had finally paid off. She had finally made it out of the trailer park and into the middle class. She was a manager. She was on a roll. She hoped the promotion wouldn’t cause trouble with the other three girls. But if it did, well, she was the manager now and they’d just have to live with it.
Dolly swung her long, dancer’s legs into her rusting blue Honda Civic and slammed the door shut, hoping the passenger side window wouldn’t jump out of its track again. She pulled out of the SeaVue Apartments parking lot in Murrell’s Inlet, turned left, and headed north toward Myrtle Beach.
As she pulled onto King’s Highway, as U.S. Highway 17 was known locally, a long, silver gasoline tanker sped by on the left, shrouding her car in a light-brown fog of rain, dirt, and road oil. Her windshield wipers, long overdue for replacement, smeared the thin brown soup across the windshield, making it even harder to see. Tomorrow, she thought, I might celebrate the Big Event by taking the car into the shop for some maintenance. Heck, maybe I’ll even splurge for some overdue dental work. The pay raise would bring her nearly $200 more a month. She was rich! Or as close to rich as any member of her family had ever gotten. She knew that she couldn’t give up her waitress job at Captain Willie’s yet, but the thought of the extra money from her day job made her head spin. Maybe it’s even time to move up from Budweiser to Heineken’s. But she quickly reconsidered. Nah. I like Budweiser.
As