Until Proven Innocent (12 page)

We hear how wonderful the car is, how great the mileage is, and a lot of other propaganda about safety, handling, reliability, yada yada. A worker gets in the car and drives from the last production point towards a large open door.

The next thing we see is a view from outside as he drives through the car factory’s parking lot. We see the rear of the car as it starts to drive away. Strangely, the car seems to be tilting over on the driver’s side. We are told that the car has been turned over to its spokesperson and she will be driving all the way to Beverly Hills. We see the female spokesperson’s long hair waving in the wind as she rides away, and while some romantic music is being softly played in the background, we hear her sexy voice telling us how wonderful it is to be in this car.

Next shot is under some classical romance musical theme and we see the car off in the distance, heading toward us. It must be several miles away, but as it starts to get closer, we can see more clearly that it still does lean over, as if the tires on the driver’s side of the car have been partially deflated, and the passenger side of the car is up higher off the ground.

As the car gets closer and we hear more sensual dialogue presumably from the driver, we see that behind the wheel is a person that from far away closely resembles a huge Miss Piggy, of Muppet fame.

The next shot is from a camera car that is driving in front of the sports car, allowing the car to slowly approach and close the distance from about a quarter mile to only five or ten feet, and we see that stuffed into the driver’s seat is none other than April May, our five-hundred pound client. I hear a yelp of laughter and a bark coming from the forward stateroom. Good. They’re watching it too.

When the little car gets close behind the camera car, you can actually see the beads of perspiration streaming down April’s face.

I hear roars of laughter coming out of my cell phone, as it sits on the coffee table next to me. It must be the crew at the production company, also watching this commercial.

The next scene is of April driving the car onto Hal’s lot. Seeing her in that car looks a lot like ten pounds of something stuffed into a five-pound bag. The car is noticeably tilting over under her massive weight as it pulls into the showroom.

Another condition about Olive supposedly agreeing to be in the commercial is that on the afternoon when they shot this scene, that Hal wouldn’t be there. He agreed, so this is the first time he’s seeing his star.

She drives onto the showroom, and the drape is lifted up revealing the mock-up, which is quickly pulled out of the way to make way for the real thing. Once the car comes to a stop on the showroom floor, April does her best imitation of Meg Ryan’s famous ‘orgasm’ scene from the movie
When Harry Met Sally
. After her last moan, she releases the door latch, and the little door flies open with such force that it actually pops off one of its hinges and then limply swings back and forth a few times until coming to rest.

The next few seconds are a side-splitting attempt she makes to get out of the car. When April finally succeeds in getting her frame most of the way out from behind the wheel, she uses the steering wheel as support to lift herself the rest of the way out. At this point, we can clearly see that the steering wheel frame is being pushed down with such force that it actually bends, and we can hear the metal straining as the column is now in a permanently downward position, having been forced that way by April’s weight.

Now almost out from behind the driver’s seat, April loses her balance and reaches over toward the car, resting her hand on the outside rearview mirror, which promptly falls right off of the car, as if it was being held on by bubble gum. It makes a wonderful crash sound as it lands on the showroom floor and shatters. As April tries to steady herself, she reaches over and grabs onto the radio antenna, which gets pulled out of its socket by the force of her leaning on it. When it comes out of its molding, it takes a portion of the fender with it.

I’m having difficulty in controlling myself. The commercial ends and the station’s news cameras then cut to show the expression on Hershel’s face. Priceless. Now for the full-screen shot of the car, as April waddles out of the way.

And there it is, steering column bent out of shape, broken mirror on the floor, driver’s door hanging crooked, hole in the outside of the door where the mirror had been bolted on, and partially damaged fender from which the radio antenna had been torn. The left rear tire also looks like it’s slowly going flat. This poor little sub-compact sports vehicle looks like it just came through a war zone.

I haven’t seen an expression like the one on Hershel’s face since visiting a friend in Bucks County and encountering a deer caught in our headlights. The news cameras pick up the sound of an entire crowd outside the dealership roaring in laughter. There’s also quite a bit of giggling coming from the forward stateroom. I pick up the phone to continue my conversation with Nick.

“
Nick, you’ve outdone yourself. This has been the greatest commercial I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Would you please send me a DVD of it? I want to play it once in a while whenever I need a little cheering up.”

“
We already sent you one, Mister Sharp. You should be getting it tomorrow. Sorry about the changes we had to make at the beginning of the spot, but there was just no way that April could climb into that little car. After several tries we finally gave up and rolled the car back into the assembly area of the plant, where we used an engine-hoist to lift her up and then gently lower her into the driver’s seat.

“
Several mechanics at the factory said that the car would never make it to Los Angeles with that unbalanced load, so all we shot on the highway was the first few seconds. We trucked the car the rest of the way.”

“
How did you get her in and out of the car while you were trucking it?”

“
Yeah, that was a problem… so we didn’t. We left her sitting in it on back of the stake bed truck we hired. She rode in the little car, on the truck, all the way to Beverly Hills. But that wasn’t the end. When you saw her bending the steering column to get out of the car, she really didn’t make it all the way out. She fell back in, behind the wheel.”

“
A few seconds later she was almost standing outside the car.”

“
Yeah, but we had to bring in a forklift to get her out of it before we cut to the scene where it looked like she just got out of the car.

“
I gotta tell you, Mister Sharp. I know it looked funny, but that girl April is one hell of a person. She knew how it looked and went along with it one hundred percent. She’s a very nice person and by the end of the shoot, no one was laughing at her. In fact the whole crew gave her a round of applause when the last day wrapped and couldn’t stop hugging her when we wrapped the shoot. She’s a real trooper and we all shared the same feeling that it was a pleasure working with her.”

As our conversation ends, I see the early news shows starting. There are several newscasters with camera trucks at the dealership and you can still hear laughter from the crowd. Hershel, being the showman that he is, regains his composure and saves the day with his clever remark.

“
My wife always suspected me of having affairs with our spokes-models. I hope she trusts me from now on.”

*****

The only downside to this whole affair was the demeaning of April, because of her immense size. We talked about it quite a bit when first discussing her doing the commercial, and she told me that people are going to laugh at her anyway, so she might as well make seventy-five hundred for accepting the laughter this time. I call to let her know that the entire production crew thinks the world of her… and so do I.

At one time she told me that she considered going on some special diet and even thought about having one of those surgeries, where they staple part of your stomach shut, but her boyfriend Joe talked her out of it. I guess as long as she’s happy that’s all that counts, but I keep remembering what a doctor friend of mine told me: you see a lot of old people, and you see a lot of fat people, but you rarely see any old fat people. I’d like to see her lose some weight, because it will mean a longer, healthier life for her.

Now all I have to do is finish with that apartment manager problem before the jerk tries to evict her.

*****

Hershel Belsky wins again. The newspapers and television shows can’t stop talking about Hershel’s ad and even the network late night talk show hosts have made fun of it. Several organizations that represent fat people staged protests that didn’t last too long, because after a while it became clear to most reasonable people that making fun of people who are morbidly obese just isn’t satisfactory behavior. Some people have even suggested that Hershel should be rewarded for hiring a person with a weight problem like that.

I don’t care what people say about Hershel or the commercial, as long as he doesn’t call Olive any more. And it looks like the whole project worked. It’s been several weeks since the commercial ran and Olive hasn’t heard word one from him. In fact, the ad may have done him a great service. The last time I drove by his dealership, that exact same battered car was on the showroom floor, and they never even bothered to straighten out the steering wheel column or re-attach the damaged parts. From what I hear, the car has turned into a tourist attraction, with everyone wanting their picture taken with it. Hershel’s salesmen are kept busy writing up orders, and the factory can’t deliver the cars fast enough. Go figure.

*****

They need my advice at the soundstage, so I’m on the way over there. Joe Caulfield is in his office waiting for me.

“
Hi Peter, thanks for coming by so quickly. We’re going to need your services again for a scene shooting tomorrow that takes place in a judge’s chambers. By the way, how did your voice-over session go?”

“
It went fine, thanks. Renaldo was nice enough to stay in the building to help me out. I paid him for his time, but I sure appreciate his hanging around the extra hour or so.”

This gets a smile out of Joe.

“
Well, it really wasn’t too much of an inconvenience for him.”

“
Why not? It meant another two hours before he could get home and relax.”

“
Peter, Ren has an apartment upstairs of the soundstage. He’s the resident manager of this place and runs it for the owners, who are also the investors in this picture we’re shooting, the next two we have planned, and the new film courier service we’re starting up. Thanks to Ren, we have exclusive use of this soundstage building, even when we’re not shooting. He made that deal for us with the owners. And it was partly Ren’s idea for the courier service too. He’s a valuable employee around here, and a good worker too.”

I’m glad to hear that Joe’s business plans for the next couple of years are all in place and also happy to see that Ren is part of it all.

We go over some of the legal issues of tomorrow’s scene until Joe is satisfied that the shot will work and also be fairly accurate with respect to actual legal procedures.

*****

Back at the boat while doing the only kind of surfing I enjoy, which is completely out of the water and on the internet, I come across a website that is offering a DVD of a big budget movie that was recently released. This seems odd because I was under the impression that there was some ‘window’ of time that theater exhibitors demanded before a film was released on DVD. I don’t blame them for that, because who wants to drive to an overpriced crowded theater with popcorn and spilled beverages on the floor, when you can sit at home and watch the same thing in the comfort of your own home?

I guess the window of time has expired because this particular movie is now available, and it’s only twenty-five dollars, which includes shipping to me. I get my credit card out and click on the website’s ‘order’ button. To my surprise, they don’t accept credit cards. Instead they ask for the numbers off of my checking account, so that they can have a direct bank transfer of the funds from my bank to theirs.

This is okay with me, so I send a message to our office manager that I’m authorizing the charge, and provide the DVD sellers with the information they require to process the order. I’ve been an internet shopper for many years now, buying just about everything but shoes online, but this is the first time I’ve come across an e-merchant that doesn’t accept credit cards. There must be a good reason for it, but as long as I get the merchandise that was ordered, whatever their reason is, it’s okay with me.

*****

The next day, I’m handed a U.S. Priority Mail package containing the DVD that I ordered. Suzi and Bernie made their morning run to our private mailbox place, and the movie was there, waiting to be picked up. Now that’s what I call good service. There’s no return address on the box, but it has a postmark indicating that it was mailed last night from a post office in San Pedro, California, which is about thirty miles down the coast, near the Port of Los Angeles.

There’s no time like the present to see a good movie, so I put the DVD into my player and sit back to watch it on our fifty-two-inch flat-panel screen. The quality is excellent and I’m totally satisfied with the product, but I’m not one to fool around much with the ‘menu’ button or watch those other options that they put on DVD’s. Just out of curiosity, I press the ‘menu’ button to see what I’m missing. Quite often when they release a movie on DVD they add comments from the director and stars, some out-takes, maybe an optional ending they shot, and some other bells and whistles. Not this time. This DVD was the movie, period. No extra bells and whistles. That works for me. I now have the movie in my collection, and that’s all I was really expecting.