RUDIMENTS, pt. 228
Making Cars
I've seen so many people come
and go it's sometimes painful.
Once or twice I've been told,
'They either love you or hate
you, oddest thing.' Another
time, this lawyer guy I knew,
he used some Godfather line
on me, about, 'every time I
think I'm out, they drag me
back in.' Or maybe it was 'pull
me back in.' I forget. He was
meaning me, always trying to
extricate myself from all these
situations I was involved with.
A local law guy, his name was
Andrew Prince, and he was
a local personal injury lawyer
who'd found a way to mine
Bikers as a crop. It was a
goldmine for him. He'd come
to as many meetings of Bikers
he could find, and give his spiel,
hand out keychains and pens
and stuff. It was funny, his
perspective; he'd preach to
penny-pinching Bikers to be
sure they 'took the highest
insurance thresholds.' Most
expensive is what he meant.
So that, when it came to trial
time, they could sue for the
highest possible rewards. By
limiting the threshold, one also
limited the amount you could
recoup. Meaning Prince would
get less of a percentage too.
One time, Bob Schultz (ornery,
now-dead, in your face Biker
guy) called him out, standing
up to say 'Ah, ah, ah, I should
listen to some Jewboy lawyer
telling me to pay the most money
so he can get the highest return
off of me? Is that what you're
saying?' The room gasped, well,
a little. And Andy Prince deftly
answered like, 'Well, I may be
a Jewboy lawyer as you put it,
and I am, that's what I am, but
I'm here to help you too. Sooner
or later you guys are going to
go down; and I don't wish to
see any of you not getting the
most that can come back to you.'
It was a fine, funny, esoteric
debate. There was the very same
kind of guy down in South Jersey.
I'd go down there too for meetings
and such, Camden, Millville,
Vineland, and a guy named Jerry
Friedman, with the same kind of
feed-off-Bikers practice, would
pretty much preach the same spiel.
Jerry at least rode. Andy Prince
tried learning to ride a motorcycle
and fell over about 3 times before
just giving it up. Whereas Prince
would bring keychains and pens
to hand out, Friedman would
cater a room with refreshments,
donuts, coffee, sandwiches. All
expense account stuff, I guessed,
for those big Biker-crash cases.
-
For some time Andy Prince was
pretty friendly to me, and then
slowly it all started changing. I
paid him less and less attention,
and he thought, in turn, less and
less of me and my efforts. One
time, when he had a small office
on Rt. One in Edison, I went there
for a 5pm drop-off of something.
No one was there, so I climbed
the stairs, grabbed open a door,
dropped off my stuff, and managed
to set off an entire building-wide
array of alarms and flashing lights.
I just closed everything back up,
walked down the stairs, and
drove off. The last time we spoke,
I was at Barnes & Noble, in Clark,
where he then had his re-located
office. Next to us was a place
called Marty's Shoes. There was
a pesky lady around the area,
for years, who was always managing
to fall down or somehow claim an
injury at any of the local businesses.
In this case, she finally managed a
fall-down at Marty's, who rented
in our building. Three little stairs,
she said she fell, bruised and broken,
all sorts of stupid stuff. The police
report or whatever it was sought
information from me, as building
ownership or representative, or
whatever, as to what occurred. I
knew it had to be bogus, and the
Marty's people attested that it was.
They'd seen the whole thing, she'd
faked a fall, rolled around, toyed
with the EMT's, and went for
treatment. Marty's was pissed, and
so was Barnes & Noble. I saw on
the report that Ms. Bogus Lawsuit
was being represented by one
Andrew S. Prince, personal injury
attorney. His office was within
walking distance. I contacted him
and ripped him a new one for
representing such a serial slimer.
He took offense, and that was that.
End of that relationship. Our
mutual anger with each other
had gone over that 'threshold,'
I suppose.
-
The entire thing was absurd. Having
lawyers come to meetings so as to
let Bikers know that they were each,
most probably, eventually goring to
get either killed or maimed in a
motorcycle crash and to be prepared
and to be able to take care of their
loved ones they should insure
themselves sky-high so the award
would be 3 million instead of
30 thousand, based on their intent
when buying cheap or expensive
insurance. It was like those old
industrial-insurance policies, in a
way, that I remembered. They'd list
the sums to be awarded, ahead of
time, for injuries - like so you
knew : Loss of one arm, $60,000;
loss of two arms, $200,000; loss
of fingers, $10,000 per, etc. It was
crazy, and covered all sorts of
things, blindness, loss of hearing,
etc. All with a price. I guess the
entire culture of motorcycling,
known to be dense with fatalities
and injuries, was seen as a
goldmine to be manipulated. They
were often called 'donorcycles,' and
for a reason. (That was a physician-
joke-reference to the fresh limbs and
organs readily available from
newly-dead Bikers). Sure made
one think.
-
One time recently someone asked
me how I first got involved with
motorcycles. He was visiting with
me and expressed a sort of bafflement
as to why I'd ever gone in that direction.
Good question, I guess, because in
most other respects it didn't really
fit me. There were a number of
reasons, I guess; none of them
really ever thought out. In my
family, as a youth, I had a wild-man
uncle who lived up in Fort Lee.
As an 8-year old or whatever, I
can remember being fascinated. He
had a brand new Harley dresser -
huge bike, 1958. It probably had
cost a substantial percentage of
that family's liquidity. He didn't
seem to care, nor did they, I suppose.
The wife was meek about it (my
father's youngest sister). The house
was bare inside, very little furniture;
things echoed, there were no chairs,
maybe just a couch, and whatever
was needed in the bedrooms to
sleep upon. But in the kitchen,
he kept the motorcycle. Beats
me, the rest of that story, but the
times I saw it it was in the kitchen,
a place of honor, parked. Oil-leak
stain? that I can't remember. And
then later, he bought a new Italian
Moto Guzzi motorcycle, even fiercer
and more ponderous. I can also
recall my father, when he was active
in the local First-Aid squad, coming
home from a call, and relating the
story of the accident - a decapitated
motorcyclist somewhere along Rahway
Ave and Route One, who had hit a
telephone pole and the rest was easy.
And, of course, most tellingly, Inman
Ave. itself was an offshoot of Route
One, upon which there was a nearby
Harley dealership. I can perfectly
recall the 1950's Biker guys, club
emblems, rare-spirited, with girls, on
the back of the bikes, noisily ripping
down Inman Avenue, wearing club
colors and jackets and all that. I'd
hear those motorcycles coming and
I'd dart out to the driveway whenever
I could, just to watch that passing
parade of fire, brimstone, and beauty.
-
Maybe these were markers for my
own life, maybe not. I was more
into books and thought, from the
very get-go. C. Wright Mills, an
author, rode a BMW from wherever
he lived a little upstate into NYC'for
his daily teaching at Columbia or
NYU. That was exciting. The writer,
John Gardner, whose work I adored,
rode a motorcycle from Binghamton
to wherever. I loved the romance of
all that. Sometime around 1972,
John Gardner was killed, in fact, on
some twisty road-mishap up that way.
I lived in Elmira then, and he wasn't
that far off. I hope he had good
insurance; even if just to vindicate
Andrew S. Prince, 'Jewboy Lawyer.'
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