Last Seen Blogs
trashedboi
danny devito is my dad
joanredsun
Untitled
julesrobson
Adventures in Babysitting
dawntainbobbynash
he's an ace demiman (it says so on his hat)
keystondavis-blog
Keyston Davis
Text
Merle DeVault - Part 2
At the marina we had a number of different departments. There was a restaurant, convenience store, slip rentals, camping rentals, boat sales, boat service, gas station, and so on. Merle was the keeper of the books for most of these departments. More specifically to this story, the gas dock.
I’m sure everyone thought it was a dream job but once there, being a “dock boy” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. This was in large part because John Burch couldn’t stand anyone working for him not working on something at any time. If you took too long of a shit he’d threaten to dock your pay. The other part was dealing with Merle DeVault. Merle balanced the cash drawer to the sales receipts and also to the gross gas usage measured by “sticking the tanks” that were on shore.
The dock boys pumped gas, set up fishing boat rentals, pumped boats off (removing the shit from their holding tanks), giving boaters rides to their boats that were on buoys, and also stuck the tanks.
Back in these days the marina was incredibly busy and there were often two or three of us working. It was typically hot and fairly fast pased. We’d accumulate a drawer full of cash fairly quickly and Merle made one or two trips down on busy days to “take a draw” from the drawer which really just meant she took the excess cash out of it.
This was in the early days of credit cards. Cash and checks were still king. To use a credit card you had to look in a paper booklet to see if the card was bad and then place it in a machine with a multipage carbonpaper slip and then run a roler over the top to imprint it with the amount you’d put in mannually and the information in raised print on the card.
Back in these days, you could start working when you were 14 if your parents allowed it. Most the dock boys were between 14 and 17. Mix that with the fact that along with boats came women, girls really, in bikinis. And they were expected to be perfect at making change and filling out credit card slips.
What does this have to do with Merle DeVault you ask? As I mentioned, Merle balanced the drawer and she hated being off a penny. By taking draws and truing up the amount in the drawer a few times a day should could tell during which time period a mistake was made and everyone working during that time would know there was a problem. And if the draw was off litteral pennies? She came unglued.
In today’s world, Merle would have been terminated quickly for her bahavior but back in the 70′s she was nothing less than a legendary witch as far as many were concerned. You might think that’s a little extreme I’m sure. But you’d have to experiene it to really catch the flavor.
Imagine walking into work and the woman I’ve described scowers as she see’s you and waves you into her office. She spins in her chair to face you as you walk in the door smelling the smoke stuck to everythign in the office. She take a Carella De’Ville draw from her cigerette and is blowing it your way. “Did you work on the gas dock last night?” she barks. “Yeah.” you reply. What the hell were you guys doing down there? The cash drawer was off 72 cents? How hard is it to count change? What the fuck were you thinking about? “ she barks again. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know how that happend. I’ll try harder.” you apologize sincerely. “You know what I’d like to do to you smartass little boys? If I had my way, I’d cut your prick off.”
Yup. That was her favorite phrase. I think she thought it was cute. But the guys that worked there could imagine it. She was that rough and that abusive. You would actually picture it when she threatened you like that.
Of course it was all bluster and often times should could be sweet and interested and one of the nicest women you’d know, although a bit essentric.
This was the Merle DeVault most everyone knew. I was unique in that I had an uncanny ability to draw the hate from her. I’ll save that for Part 3.
0 notes
Text
Merle Devault - Part 1
When I met Merle, I was about 14. I was a young late blooming teenager. Merle was a book keeper at my dad’s business which was a marina on an inland lake named Rathbun Lake for the tiny town the damn was closest to.
I didn’t live with my father until late in my childhood but it was here that I would spend a week when I was 12, a month when I was 13, then all summer when I was 14, 15, and 16.
Merle intered the picture during this time. I think it was when I was 14. She was my father’s first wife’s sister. She came from California.
While I seriously love my half sisters and half brother from my father’s first marriage, and they loved their aunt Merle to the ends of the earth. My experience with Merle was much different. It was nightmarish. And it would remain much that way for a long time. My apologies to Jane, Susan, Nancy and Bob. It’s not my fault Merle gave me so much content to write about. And you can blame John Burch for the story about the bar. I believe it to be fairly accurate to what he shared with me.
I have yet to fully understand Merle’s background but I know she lived in California for a long time and more specifically at Bank of America. She partied and according to my older family, she was glamorous in her day. No kids.
For some time her drinking had been pushing her close to edge and one night, for all practical purposes, she fell off the earth. As I understand it, she’d had plenty to drink, was upset and ultimately chose to drive her car straight into the front of the bar she’d been drinking in.
Once her car was firmly ensconced in the front of the bar, she walked across the street, sat on the front stoop of a building, lit a cigarette and took a deep drag from it as she watched the commotion.
Merle came to terms with the idea that she needed to break free and after a conversation with John Burch, she moved to Iowa to become the bookkeeper at the marina. It was there that she terrorized young boys.
Her office was dead center front to back in the main marina building. Windows looking out into the store and restaurant but not out onto the water. Oddly the one wall that wasn’t largely window was the one facing the water.
I’m guessing the office was about 8′ by 10′ flanked with file cabinets and a built in desktop that ran wall to wall where the windows surrounded it on three sides. This was Merles domain.
Merle smoked, seriously smoked. Her grey hair stained from tar as if she’d deliberately tried to highlight it with yellowish brown hair color. A cigerette was always buring in her office and much of the time she was taking draws from them like they gave her life itself.
Almost anywhere in the store or restaurant you could look in and see her working, once or twice a minute pulling a draw from her cigerette. If she something was consuming her mind, like maybe hate or murder or, more likely, something didn’t balance as it should, she’d tuck her cigerette tight in the crotch of her fingers, putting it in her mouth then tucking her fingers together and pressing her hand tight to her face to avoid any air getting into her lungs that hadn’t come through her little stick fo fire.
You could see her cheeks receed into her face as her lungs pulled hard to get the dense smoke into them. Once she had inhaled all she could her hand moved away and off to the side, her head tipped back and lips tightened she squirted the smoke toward the lights above her. A deep breath followed and she was back to whatever was in front of her.
You could litterally lick you finger and wipe it against any surface in that office and have the brownish yellow tar and nicotine stick to it discoloring your finger.
If there was a picture of a “tough old broad” it would likely be her picture.
0 notes