𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚔

A pathetic sad sack intersects with provincial Hollywood history.

Paul Ruben learned early that if he were to suffer, it should most certainly not be in silence. He took his maternal smacks, on the bum, with an agonizing wail that shook the cradle. When picked last, for kickball or four-square or other playground games, he threw unholy tantrums, the tossing of rocks and the smashing of sticks, until completely alienated from his peers. And after he was passed over for admittance into a smattering of higher-education institutions and trade schools, from alphabet law to zalambdodont microbiological hoopla, Paul penned so many ballistic letters, to senators, congressmen and various justices of the peace, that he was forbidden from purchasing stamps for an entire calendar year.

Paul refused to remain small, and decided to hand-deliver his furiously written screeds the old fashioned way: by hitchhiking to the plentiful P.O. boxes designated for feedback from the region´s constituency. With a stroke of good fortune, his upturned thumb expressing both a congratulatory sign and a signal for a pickup, one of the first ten vehicles that cruised by his highway outpost decided to stop and offer a ride. The driver was tall, so tall that he barely fit within the confines of the oversized truck cab. From his position in the backseat, Paul couldn´t even see the man’s face. The passenger chair was occupied by the teeniest, tiniest of adult women, seated on a stack of dictionaries, and also thesauruses, yet still unable to see over the dashboard.

Were they married? Mere bedfellows? Was she a fellow vagabond, a librarian lucky enough to be lugging several lengthy tomes that doubled as both knowledge repositories and seat boosters? Other than a cursory nod from the man, in response to Paul’s question making sure they were all headed in the same direction, the drive was a silent one. The man and woman did not speak to each other. Paul’s feeble attempts to organize small talk were met with a cold, but not unfriendly, silence, an apparent contradiction unless experienced firsthand: the lit-up eyes, wide smile and total lack of verbal response when faced with a direct question, such as “how are you?” or “how is your day?”

Were they a pair of mutes? The ironic juxtaposition of size caused Paul to think about circus performers. He loathed the act of conclusion-jumping, or stranger-phenotyping, but on occasion that was the only way to figure out what in the grand green world was going on. In lieu of stimulating conversation on the weather or baseball scores, Paul let his imagination soar, far past the point of reason, in parsing the backstory of these two individuals. The Man was an undercover federal agent, likely CIA, or worse, on his way from the Florida Keys, back to Washington, after a prolonged investigation into the circumstances surrounding a mysterious set of deaths by crocodile, or alligator, that were somehow connected to Castro’s release of Cuban prisoners into the canals of Miami. The Woman was the prime suspect, a zookeeper with an almost inhuman ability to control the behavior of wild animals. Some of the missing kneecaps and pinky fingers had, naturally, resurfaced near her place of business.

The roaming wander of Paul’s mind unlocked a new level in his career ladder: specifically, he now craved work as a professional driver. He understood that not all rides needed to be so quiet and morose, and that in the right field, opportunities to meet and greet with individuals notable enough to merit a personal chauffeur were abundant. Upon entering the labor market, Paul quickly found a gig in the realm of the motion picture industry: his job was to ferry Madame Jessica Tandy, Miss Daisy herself, back and forth to the set of Driving Miss Daisy.

Paul, a black man, drove Jessica, a white Jewish woman, twice daily during the production; as such, he joked to her that their dynamic was the perfect mirror for the plot of the film. He insisted that he was the one who was actually driving Miss Daisy.

¨I should really pursue the onscreen role as well,¨ he told her.

Jessica explained that Morgan Freeman already possessed the part, and that the filming had already begun; however, she was fond of Paul and his amusingly overconfident roadside manner, and offered to speak with the director as a favor. Paul was hired to be a back-up stand-in: whenever the rear of the driver’s head was seen from a camera angle in the backseat, that would in fact be a professional driver; whenever that professional driver was sick, Paul would step into his shoes and place them upon the pedals of the picture car.

Jessica and Paul relished their time together and spent those oh so brief minutes, morning and evening, playing verbal games of rhyme, reason, and association.

“Eels of paradise,” Paul began.

“Sea garden,” Jessica replied.

“Floating lily,” he continued.

“Glistening frond,” she answered.

“Soaking plant.”

“Photosynthesis.”

“Photoshoot.”

“On location.”

“Location scout.”

“Scout´s honor.”

“Honor roll.”

“Dinner roll.”

“Whack-a-mole.”

“Roly poly.”

“Guacamole.”

Paul and Jessica laughed with the easy glee of fast friendship. Paul even used his obvious skills as a wordsmith in more dire situations. A drunk fifth-rate actor threatened to jump from the roof of a skyscraper if she didn’t book a leading role within the next month. He talked her down after pointing out that the ledge she stood upon was, indeed, part of a fabricated set. She relented and rejoined the ground crew; by a twist of fate, later that week, she landed a part elsewhere, one that crested the top of the production callsheet, before unfortunately fading into the obscurity that awaits all dayplayers. Can a role be considered breakout if you go broke shortly afterwards?

Once half the shoot had progressed without incident, Paul pushed the envelope with the film’s executive producers, cornering one in the bathroom and requesting a percentage of the box office sales in return for his crucial role. Paul´s airtight logic: since the film would be titled Driving Miss Daisy, and he was responsible for the majority of the driving as a second stand-in, the economic success depended on his hard work. If the largest profit share belonged to Morgan Freeman, the producers should think about renaming the film Talking to Miss Daisy, and leave all of the driving scenes on the cutting room floor. After organizing a protest, a stand-in sit-in, supported by his fellow drivers on payroll, Paul was reprimanded and told that he was barely a back-up to the back-up: third string, lower tier, overkill. During his struggle session with the executives, one producer in particular continued to refer to Paul by the most insulting nickname, “Pee Wee.” Under the heavy burden of immense pride, Paul quit without providing two weeks’ notice.

After the messy departure, Paul and Jessica exchanged friendly, long-distance correspondence until she returned to Georgia, to star in another movie with southern flair. Paul noted the title of the upcoming film: Fried Green Tomatoes, not to be confused with Soylent Green, which already existed, and which Paul adored. He stressed to Jessica his impressive cooking skills and begged to be made a member of the production’s culinary department. He kissed her ass repeatedly over the recent Academy Award win, and she could of course smell his desperation. Despite her disappointment at the results from Paul’s work on Driving Miss Daisy (none of his scenes were used), Jessica agreed to speak with the producers, yet another favor for her funny friend Paul, who in turn agreed to slightly alter his given name, a gesture of goodwill so as not to flag the negative attention of any of the higher-ups who had employed him prior.

Saul Ruben toiled away in the catering trailers behind the set of Fried Green Tomatoes. After reading a book about the relative ease of vegetable preparation, especially in comparison to the manipulation of meat products, he claimed the position of veggies-only prep cook. When questioned by the head chef, Saul cited a religious aversion to dead animals. He spent dozens of days crammed in the cramped kitchen, unable to communicate or commiserate with dear Jessica, except for the one hour a week she took lunch with the crew. Saul peeled potatoes, cut carrots, sautéed sauerkraut, boiled broccoli, and finished each dish with a garnish of garlic. The tasks were mighty monotonous, and Saul thought hard on ways to leverage his position into a more lucrative opportunity.

A half decade on, Saul, in another instance where his account differed from the official record of events, would swear that the filmmakers dreamed up a stomach-churning scene in which several of the good characters decided to deep-fry one of the bad characters, then served the minced human meat barbecue to law enforcement and other members of the town where the movie takes place. Although this was typically a responsibility for the props department, an exception was made, and the complex orders were assigned to catering: “please craft a plate of grub ambiguous enough to serve the unreliable narrative of the film, with the additional caveat that the faux food in question must be made strictly of vegetable trimmings, in order to fit with the actor’s dietary restrictions,” to paraphrase.

Saul constructed a brilliant ensemble of jackfruit and fermented turnip slaw, which received rave reviews from other crew members and a select portion of the cast. Unfortunately, this scene was later excised, and Saul was again removed from his job when he tried to claim that the climax of the film depended upon his culinary contributions. Because of his belligerent attitude and inability to collaborate cleanly, he earned a new insulting nickname: “Sour” Ruben.

Jessica was an outspoken believer in classic mantras and turns-of-phrase, namely “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” She cut off all contact with Saul after this second debacle, and he quickly hightailed it out of town before the scorned producers took a cue from the script and processed his ass into fleshy pickles. He never saw Fried Green Tomatoes.

If you like my jive and would like me to survive, perhaps even thrive, then consider purchasing a copy of my debut novel, The Charlatan. Available here.