Stanley N. Alpert > Quotes

“They have an oil facility in Staten Island. They handled contaminated wastes with benzene in it—benzene causes cancer—illegally, for a couple of years.” “So what you gonna do, put Mobil Oil company in jail?” Sen asked with sarcasm. “No, it’s a civil case. If we win, they have to pay a large amount of money.” When we first brought the case, we didn’t know just how outrageous the behavior really was. “How much?” “In this case, it could be millions of dollars.” “Who gets the money?” “The federal government.” Sen lashed out. “That shit is stupid, man. The poor man is down here in the ghetto, suffering, and your ass is gonna take millions of dollars and just take it for the government? That money belongs here, in this neighborhood, helping us, not in some big-ass government.” Boy, was I stupid to have brought it up. My sensibility was pro-environment. Take it away from the polluter and give it back to the people, to punish Mobil and put a little extra cash in the U.S. Treasury. Sen was not my ally on this one. He had far more immediate problems. The long-term risk of cancer from so many parts per million of benzene meant nothing to a man with no foreseeable long-term. Bullets or blades were far more toxic. In a perverse way he was making perfect sense. Rather than belabor my weak point and seek to convince him of the wisdom of my far more esoteric goals, I wisely shut up.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“As I lay awake, I decided that if I made it out of there alive, I was getting the hell out of New York. This had gone too far. How could a normal person live here? In New York City, when two cars collided in even a minor accident, both drivers would jump out and start cursing, fuck this, fuck that, fuck you, fuck your mother, no matter whose fault it was. Either driver might throw the first punch or pull a baseball bat out of his trunk and start swinging.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“I tried to convince him. “My life has not been so easy. My parents were divorced and things got pretty rough. I’ve had lots of problems.” Sen wasn’t buying it. “You’ll make it back. You got your fancy education. I ain’t got nuthin’. No opportunities. I got to do this to survive. My share of the fifty thousand is gonna go a long way.” How they decided to take fifty thousand dollars and not the whole lot was never clear to me. But I could see from Sen’s response that there was no advantage in arguing the point. My problems were nothing compared to this guy’s, and he would not be listening to my honky blathering. To Sen, I was not a person of complexity; I was a person of complexion.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“Oh shit,” Lucky exclaimed. The entire room burst into uproarious laughter. Ren had a distinctive snicker that sounded like he kept his jaw shut while he laughed. Lucky, chortling: “My sneakers cost twice as much as those.” With everyone laughing at me, I didn’t feel bad. Some things in life bother you and some things don’t. My interest in material goods had always been limited. I didn’t have too much growing up; my father had lived through the Depression, so whatever money he did have did not get spent easily. I certainly never had access to much money. After about age sixteen, I worked three days a week and Saturday nights in my friend Jeffrey’s family candy and stationery store. I also came from a slightly left-leaning Eastern European Jewish philosophy that cared more about the environment and the fate of the poor than accumulating expensive objects. Insulting my cheap shoes was just not a way to bother me. But these kids who grew up even poorer than me had different needs. Their self-worth was defined by a pair of $130 Air Jordans. It would bother them if you made fun of their shoes. You’d probably get popped for doing it. Young Lucky was leading a 1998 Lexus, $130 sneaker lifestyle that could be maintained only by stealing. I couldn’t care less about $70 Florsheims.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“Yo, Stanley, you should join our gang,” Sen gushed. “You could recommend friends that we could kidnap.” Then he realized that I probably wouldn’t want to recommend friends for kidnapping. “Naw, I mean you could recommend your enemies for us to kidnap. If you join with us, we could make you a lot more money than you makin’ as a lawyer.” Sen laughed at his own suggestion. Ren gave his characteristic reptilian snicker beside me. How was I to respond? I was glad that they liked me enough to want to see me again, but it wouldn’t be credible for me to agree to join a criminal gang. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t want to defy Sen by saying no. Just the off chance that he was serious gave him incentive not to kill me. I smiled at the suggestion and said nothing. Sen added, “You would have to recommend men. We wouldn’t be doin’ this shit to no woman.” Good to hear that Sen abided by standards of ethics. I just kept smiling, my eyes and my real reaction hidden under the blindfold. Now I knew why they had focused on my father and not asked about my mother. Luckily, Mom was out of harm’s way in the hot sun. I wondered if Dad was all right and whether he knew I was missing, as he, too, would have called today to wish me a happy birthday.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“Now I order exactly whatever I want. Spicy tuna. Salmon and avocado inside out. No longer does fish that looks scary to me sit on my plate. Even though it costs more. I will be long since dead before I spend all the money I worked so hard to save. That much was made clear to me when I sat captive on the corner of Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue. For years, I kept saying how much I wanted to have a dog. Now I have a dog. Before, I had no car. As I mentioned to Lucky, Ren, and Sen while in their Lexus, I live in Manhattan. Who needs a car in Manhattan? The price is prohibitive. By the time you add up the insurance and the monthly payments and the parking, it costs you almost as much as renting every time you get into the car. But for too long, the thirty-eight-year-old lawyer had less than the Boyz N the Hood. I now own a Volkswagen Cabrio convertible that sits downstairs in my building for whenever I feel like driving to the beach at Amagansett or to Brooklyn to visit a sick relative. On a nice day I put the top down, toss the dog in the backseat, and drive an hour to hike in nature. (Naturally the Cabrio is fuel-efficient and small. I wouldn’t take an SUV if I won it in a raffle.)”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

“To my horror, my ears picked up another language besides Lucky’s corporate speak. Ren and Sen had their own way of talking. It came out low, at the bass end of the vocal cords, in machine-gun spurts of some secret guttural singsong. Lucky didn’t seem to speak it. I guessed that Ren and Sen were brothers and that they spoke some African language dialect. Maybe they were from Ghana or someplace like that. It sounded something like this: Sen: “Duggamenabugga. Ikeaathugga disre inabuuga eyepagugga dugga uggaout bugga wentou agugga.” Ren: “Uggaeye wentou disopea einwugga boreanow worsaw agugga pornowen a blau bugga rentoray agugga.” It looks bizarre on the page, and you can only imagine what it was like hearing it.”
― Stanley N. Alpert, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival