DAVID'S MOM

Posted  March 2009 as a follow up to the last post about David. Hopefully last of reruns for a while.

David's mom was quite well off financially which explained David's full pillow case. Only on rare occasions did she and David come into the bank together. I believed however that she loved the boy for they lived together and she kept his 15 pass books fat with money. 

While David was either mentally ill or just really slow, I couldn't tell. His mother was able to fit more comfortably into society than her son. She did at least have verbal skills, wasn't as threatening, and seemed to like people.

I had been filled in ( this time correctly) by my fellow tellers on the story of Ruth. She was married to a man named Emanuel, who was in shipping. The only thing is, they did not live on the same continent. He normally lived year round in a mansion on Majorca in Spain and she and David lived in Florida.

The money came regularly from Emanuel, but as best as I could tell, no contact. She would drag out old pictures of him every time she deposited his check. He was quite handsome and she was a beautiful woman in a different time period. There were no pictures of her, her husband and David together. I wondered if David might have been the cause of the estrangement. Surely Emanuel knew of her grooming habits before they married.

It was much easier to be sympathetic towards David than his Mom. David had no control over his situation, she did. Ruth may have had better social skills than her son but she was one "dirty" woman. Her hygiene was appalling. 

When she would flow ( that is the best way to describe how she moved as she was incredibly graceful for a heavy woman) to our teller windows, the first scent you got as she cleared the door was of a very expensive, overpowering perfume.

As she settled in for what was usually a long visit (which seemed much longer with all the breath holding), the body odors mingled sickeningly with the perfume. Her armpits reeked, her hair stank and looked greasy. I don't want to even go to into the other odors that wafted around her from her nether regions and it was all  topped off by fetid breath. 

It made us better understand the different continents between her and Emanuel. She was bad enough that the tellers on either side of me did not need to worry about having customers as long as Ruth was there. She knew how to clear a room.

She was made up to the point that a drag queen would have thought was tacky. She evidently did not remove make up but just added to what was all ready there. It certainly was thick. I am sure the only removal was what ever rubbed off on the pillow at night. 

I tried not to think of what Ruth and David's home looked like. However, I did not worry about the tiny dog that she often brought in tucked under her arm. That position could kill a human but the pooch seemed very happy. I mean, think of what a dog loves to roll in.

While David came in and left quickly, she came in for a visit. We were her social event of the day. She would talk of her husband, her son, and her clubs. I seriously wondered about any clubs unless all the members had terminal sinuses and could smell nothing.  

Her prides were her charities, her son and her dog. Ruth apparently had a good heart, just a really suffocating odor. Her voice carried and had a sing song quality. When she was at your window, you knew the whole bank was aware.  

David must have told his Mom about the teller rating system he had established for even when we were busy, she would wait in line for me. No good deed goes unpunished.

Eventually I left the main office to become a head teller at branch in another city, so I lost contact with David and his mom. I understood though that after David was incarcerated, she no longer came in and no one knew what happened to her. Maybe with David out of the picture, she went back to Spain and Emanuel. I really don't know.

Such a strange pair. I often wondered who brought whom down? Did Ruth let her self go trying to raise David or was David the result of Ruth's odd behavior?  I felt badly for both of them and hoped professional help was in their futures.   

Knowing David and Ruth makes one realize that no matter how flawed we all are, things could really be worse and we should feel blessed.  Wealth certainly is no cure all.