Thursday, March 19, 2009

DAVID'S MOM



David's mom was quite well off financially which explained Davids 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 not a whole lot swifter but she 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 he knew of her grooming habits before they married.


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 was of a very expensive perfume.


As she settled in for what was usually a long visit(which seemed longer with all the breath holding), the body odors mingled sickeningly with the perfume. Her pits reeked, her hair stunk, and I don't want to even go to into the other odors that wafted around her. It made us 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, 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. I did not worry about her tiny dog that she often brought in, tucked under her arm. That position could kill a human but the pooch was 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, her clubs(I had my doubts there, unless all the club members had terminal sinuses and could smell nothing), her charities, and her dog. Her voice carried and had a sing song quality. When she was at your window, you knew the whole bank was aware.


I found out that David kept a black book of tellers in each of the banks he had accounts. I discovered this black book (which was actually green) one day when I was hunting for the particular pass book he wanted. All the tellers in 5 banks were rated in this book. I noticed I had many little gold stars beside my name. After the initial experience with David, I had made a special effort to be nice to him out of guilt. He must have told Ruth for if we were busy, she would wait in line for me. No good deed goes unpunished.


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. I 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? At the very least, they gave me material for two blogs posts years later.



4 comments :

  1. Such an interesting story. I remember some weird characters from my home town, but no one I knew well enough to write about.

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  2. Very great post again with a very gripping account of Ruth!

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  3. kenju
    Thank you. I'll bet there are some cool stories there in your home town. Each town has its very own characters.

    Reader wil
    Thanks so much. I hope Ruth found some happiness. She was a very lonely person.

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  4. Dear Patti, You have got someting. Come to my blog to pic it up.

    ReplyDelete

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