All Three Stooges

by Erica S. Perl

  Finally, after making several difficult cuts (sorry, Tracee!), I ran the compilation of clips in sequence. It was really funny and really good. We even found a way to put Monty Python in it—their lack of Jewishness notwithstanding—by using a “Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition” clip, which felt like a nice homage to Dash’s dad. I felt really good and proud and was sort of sad to be seeing the project come to an end. Or almost an end, because I still needed to figure out which comedian to be if I ended up going to the cabaret after all.

  —

  That night, Enid knocked on my door, carrying Raspberry. “Hey,” she said, “I found something you need to see.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she just said, “Come with me.”

  When we got to the computer, she pulled up the clip. It was on YouTube, but it was on a page I hadn’t seen before. It had a whole bunch of videos, all of which appeared to have been privately posted.

  “What are these?” I asked.

  “They’re Jenny’s home movies from when we were little,” Enid told me, scrolling down through them until she found the one she was looking for. She clicked on it and I saw Enid, only much younger, standing in our living room holding a big flowered bag. She was checking the pretend watch on her wrist and looking to one side like she was waiting for a bus.

  “Wait a second, is this—” But before I could ask, a younger version of myself walks across the screen wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and a huge sombrero hat. And little Enid stops checking her wrist, stares at the hat, and says her line: “Nice hat! Where’d you get it?”

  “Mistuh Maxx,” little-kid me tells her.

  “ ‘Mr. Maxx’?” I said. “This is us doing the skit?”

  “Yup,” said Enid. “But it gets better. Wait for it.”

  Next Dash walks across the living room. He is wearing a pair of shoes that probably belonged to his dad, so he walks with exaggerated clomp-clomp-clomps. Enid tells him that she loves his shoes, and Dash delivers his line—“Mr. Maxx!”—and exits. Then I come through again, wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Then Dash again, wearing a scuba mask and snorkel. “Mr. Maxx.”

  I was expecting to see Pete make his diapered entrance, as this was our usual finale. So I was surprised by what came next.

  Dash’s dad, in his running clothes and with a bath towel tied around his midsection, appears on the screen. It was bizarre to see him, not just because he looked so much younger but also because he was playing a part that I didn’t recall him ever playing. Was he some sort of understudy for Pete? He looked sweaty, so maybe we’d recruited him at the last minute that day because Pete had a meltdown or was taking a nap or something. Gil is wearing glasses I didn’t remember and has a lot more hair on his head, but his gorilla arms are unmistakable. I realized I was already forgetting so much about his face and the way he moved. It made me sad to see him, but in another way it also made me really happy, like if he had gone away on a long trip but had finally returned.

  “Who are you?” asks little Enid on the screen. I guess because Pete was not playing his usual role, the situation had thrown her timing off a bit.

  “That’s what I keep asking myself,” says Gil, a strange, uncomfortable laugh catching in his throat. And I had never noticed the wistful note to his voice before.

  The other thing I noticed was Dash standing at the side of our “stage,” almost out of the frame, watching his dad. He seems really nervous, shifting his weight from side to side like maybe he has to pee. But also it seems a little like he is the dad who is watching his kid onstage instead of vice versa. He looks like he is standing ready because at any moment he might need to run on and rescue Gil. Like Chopper 4 or something.

  It made me think of the thing Dash said when he bailed on having a sleepover that weekend before Gil died: My dad needs me here. Did Dash know his dad was in pain, even when we were little, even though no one else could see? Did Dash feel responsible for taking care of Gil? Except for once when Karen and Jenny both had the stomach flu at the same time, I couldn’t think of any times I’d ever felt like my moms needed me to take care of them instead of the other way around. And even then, there was Enid, plus Grandma Beth came and helped out.

  “Look. I’m totally freaking out,” said Enid, pointing to herself in the center of the frame. “I knew I blew my big line.”

  “Oh?” says little Enid, looking desperate to save the day. “Where are all your clothes?”

  “My clothes?” Gil looks down and reacts like he is just noticing for the first time that he is only wearing a towel. We must have hoped our audience wouldn’t notice that he actually had clothes on underneath it. “Oh. Sorry! I’m Mr. Maxx!”

  At which point Dash and I run out giggling to take our bows, then practically attack Jenny, howling that we need to see the movie right now! But she shoos us away and keeps filming, so we got to see Gil trying to keep his towel from falling off while he takes a bow with Enid. The whole time, Gil has this big goofy grin on his face, which is how I remembered him. But watching it now, I was struck by how hard it looked like he was working to keep that smile on. Almost as hard as he was working to keep that towel from falling off—which it did when Dash and I started pulling on it.

  “Was Gil always like that?” I asked Enid.

  “What, depressed?” she asked.

  I nodded, relieved to have her say what I was thinking.

  “Kinda,” she admitted. “I mean, I didn’t know him like you did. But I definitely remember him being like that a lot.” She gestured toward the screen for emphasis.

  “Can we watch it again?”

  And we did. Three more times, actually. And the last time we even stopped it at the moment when Gil says, “That’s what I keep asking myself.”

  “Why didn’t anyone do anything?” I asked her.

  “What, to help him? I’m sure they did. I mean, it was a long time ago, but I know Stacey definitely talked to the moms about getting him some help.”

  “But it wasn’t enough,” I said. “I mean, obviously. They should have tried something else.”

  “Like what?” asked Enid.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Something so he’d still be here.”

  “I wish it worked that way, kiddo,” said Enid. “But it doesn’t.”

  “How do you know?” I asked her.

  “We bats are very observant,” said Enid quietly. She kept on petting Raspberry, who narrowed her green eyes down to slits as if to say to me, Don’t push it.

  So I didn’t. Instead, I reached out and petted Raspberry, too. For once, to her credit, the World’s Most Aloof Cat generously accepted my affection.

  I got Enid to send me the link to the “Mr. Maxx” video and I watched it a bunch more times on my phone. I liked it for lots of reasons. It was like having a little memento, a reminder of Gil I could carry in my pocket. I marveled at how an old movie could show me something I couldn’t see with my own eyes. Plus, it was funny. Maybe not funny in the way we meant it to be. But funny in a different way: sweet and sort of lumpy, like those Bartons Almond Kisses that Grandma Beth keeps in a tin in her kitchen. It wasn’t Kings and Queens of Comedy Cabaret material, but it was definitely something special. More than anything, I wanted to share it with the one person other than me who would recognize its significance: Dash.

  “So show it to him.” That was Enid’s answer when I asked for her advice. She didn’t even look up from the book she was reading.

  “But he’s still not speaking to me,” I said.

  Enid closed the book around a finger to hold her place and looked up at me. “Maybe he will if you show him the video,” she suggested. “After all, it ended up in your hands for a reason, don’t you think?”

  “It ended up in my hands because you showed it to me,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, but think about it,” said Enid. “Why did I happen to find it when I did? I’d never seen it before. Doesn’t it feel like some sort of unseen forc
es were potentially involved?”

  “Like what? God?” I laughed nervously.

  Enid shrugged. “I don’t really do organized religion,” she said. “But you do, so you tell me.”

  “I mean, maybe,” I said, mulling it over. Maybe Enid was onto something. Maybe God had sent me the video as a way to connect with Dash again. Not exactly a do-over, but sort of the next best thing. I definitely liked the sound of that. But based on my recent experiences with Dash, I was wary, too.

  “What if it’s not, though?” I asked. “What if instead it makes him even madder at me than he already is? Maybe he doesn’t want to see some dumb old video that reminds him of his dad.”

  “You got me,” said Enid, reopening her book to signal that, as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

  But before I left, I asked her one more thing. “What would you do if it were you?”

  “If what were me?”

  “I mean, let’s say you found something you wanted to show your mom, but you weren’t sure if she’d like it or if it would upset her. Like maybe something having to do with Howard. What would you do?”

  Enid didn’t close the book again, but she did stop reading long enough to consider this. Finally, she said, “I guess I might ask Karen. You know, because she could probably guess how my mom might react. Since she knows her best. I mean, next to me.”

  “Thanks!” I told her. And I meant it. Because I suddenly had my answer, and it made perfect sense. According to Enid, I needed to show the video to the person Dash felt closest to right now. The one he trusted with his deepest, darkest secrets. That person could help me decide if, when, and how I should show the video to Dash.

  In other words, I needed to show it to Chris.

  —

  The next Tuesday afternoon, there was no Hebrew school because later that evening we were holding our big community event, the Kings and Queens of Comedy Cabaret.

  After much agonizing, I had put together a costume. And my moms had agreed to contribute food, so we arrived early to set up, and I changed in the boys’ room.

  Walking upstairs, I practically collided with Groucho Marx.

  “Sorry!”

  In the main lobby, I saw Groucho Marx again, only this one was much taller. Then I saw Groucho Marx in braids, and Groucho Marx with braces, and Groucho Marx in wheelies. At first it seemed like the setup for a joke (“Five Grouchos walk into a bar…”). But then I noticed that next to the usual bowl of spare yarmulkes, there was an even bigger bowl of Groucho Marx nose-and-mustache glasses and a sign that said GROUCHO YOURSELF! Apparently, anyone in our class who didn’t wear a costume, as well as anyone attending the community event, could be an honorary Groucho for the night.

  I was briefly tempted to ditch my costume and go the Groucho route myself. But before I could do so, Dash and Noa walked in together wearing their Jerry and Elaine costumes. Dash was wearing a white shirt with rows of ruffles, just like in the “Puffy Shirt” episode of Seinfeld, and he was carrying a take-out coffee cup in one hand and a box of Junior Mints in the other. Noa was wearing a dark brown wig with glasses perched on the top of it, plus a suit jacket, a long flowered skirt, and lace-up boots with white socks.

  I was staring at them, trying to think of something clever to say, when Noa marched over to me and asked, “What are you supposed to be?”

  The sting of seeing Noa and Dash doing their team costume together without me was more than I had planned on, but there was no turning back now. “Guess,” I said to Noa, pretending to play it cool as Dash went to talk to a bunch of Grouchos in the corner.

  Noa looked me up and down. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “You look like an explosion in a costume shop.”

  She wasn’t too far off, since I was wearing a bald cap and a curly wig and a black bowl-cut wig all at once.

  “I’m the Three Stooges,” I told her.

  “Oh!” she said, surprised. “I thought you were—”

  “All three Stooges,” I announced. Then I stormed off, removed the two wigs, and found a place to sulk behind a potted plant. I found a broken, mustacheless pair of Groucho Marx glasses back there, so I put them on and hid behind them for the rest of the evening. I really wanted to go home, but I hung in there and reminded myself that, like Enid said, the whole thing had been my idea in the first place and I loved this stuff. Plus, I still wanted to talk to Chris like I’d planned.

  Unsurprisingly, Chris was one of the Grouchos. I mean, sure, I was a Groucho now, too, but at least I came to the event in costume. Heck, I came in three costumes! It killed me that Dash had replaced me with a best friend so lacking in creativity that he didn’t even try to make a costume of his own. But that wasn’t the point, I reminded myself. Dash trusted Chris, so surely there was a reason they were close. Whether I could see it or not, there had to be something special about Chris.

  The first half of the program went pretty well. Rabbi Jake took the stage as the Kings and Queens of Comedy Cabaret master of ceremonies, and he actually gave me a shout-out for being the one who came up with the idea. Noa and Dash did their Jerry and Elaine presentation and skit, and Noa was surprisingly funny. She even did the Elaine dance, which took guts. She looked a little bit like Jenny does when Karen pulls her out on the dance floor. Maya did a tribute to Sarah Silverman, and Rabbi Jake only had to interrupt twice to remind her that there were small children in the audience. And Adam, Jared, Sarah, and Sadie closed out the first half with the stateroom scene from the Marx Brothers’ Night at the Opera. I found it confusing that all four of them were wearing Groucho glasses, but the resounding applause suggested I was alone in that view.

  During the intermission, I asked Chris if I could talk to him. I actually asked one of the other Grouchos first, but once I realized I had the wrong one, he pointed out the right Groucho to me (Groucho in a Nats jersey, not a Wizards jersey).

  Chris followed me into the library, where I gave him a bit of background information before pulling out my phone, finding the “Mr. Maxx” video, and hitting play. We probably looked a little silly: two Grouchos, one bald and mustacheless, the other in a baseball jersey, hunched over a phone screen.

  “What is this?” said Chris.

  I took a deep breath, pressed pause, and explained again. “Like I said before, it’s a video Dash and I made when we were little. It’s a comedy routine, okay? That’s my sister.” I pointed to Enid, who was on the screen checking her fake watch and waiting for her fake bus. “And later you’ll see Dash’s dad.”

  “Why are you showing me this?” said Chris. Honestly, I was more confused than ever about why he was now Dash’s best friend. Not only was he failing to see the humor in the obviously funny setup, he seemed even more insensitive than, well, me.

  I tried again. “I’m thinking that maybe it’s going to be hard for Dash to see a video that has his dad in it. Especially when his dad seems so, I dunno, depressed in it. Wait, you’ll understand in a minute.” I waited for the part where Dash’s dad says, “That’s what I keep asking myself.”

  When it came, I paused the video again. “See what I mean?” I asked. “Do you think it’ll upset him to see this? Or do you think he’d want to see it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Chris. “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because you’re his best friend,” I said.

  “No, I’m not,” said Chris.

  I stared at him. I wasn’t sure why both of them were trying to keep their friendship such a big secret. Maybe because Chris didn’t know I’d read his texts and I knew about Dash’s dad. I decided it was time to come clean. “Look, Chris, I know,” I said.

  “Know what?”

  “About you and Dash.”

  “What about me and Dash?” said Chris. He sounded irritated, like I was suggesting they were dating or something.

  “I read your texts on Dash’s phone,” I admitted. “I know Dash told you about his dad committing suicide.”

  “His dad doing what?” yel
led Chris, looking horrified.

  “You already know that,” I said patiently.

  “Dude, you’re crazy,” said Chris. At this point, Rabbi Jake was standing at the library door. He was dressed in a leather jacket with his hair slicked back like the Fonz, I guess because Henry Winkler is Jewish. It seemed like a reach to me because it’s not like he’s a comedian per se, unless you count his role on Arrested Development, but I wasn’t about to point this out to him at that particular moment.

  “Um, Groucho? George? What’s going on?” asked Rabbi Jake.

  “Nothing,” I said, shoving my phone in my pocket and trying not to be irritated that he mistook me for George Costanza. Chris ran out, pushing past Rabbi Fonzie.

  Chris’s reaction made no sense. It was one thing for him to deny knowing things he didn’t know I knew he knew. But to call me crazy and act like he was going to catch my crazy if he stood too close to me? That was just plain weird. It made me think of the scene from Young Frankenstein I had put in my video montage. It was the one where the mad scientist, played by Gene Wilder, asks his assistant, Igor, whose brain they put in the monster. “Abby…someone,” says Igor. “Abby…Normal.” Maybe there was something seriously abby-normal, I mean abnormal, about Chris. Like received-the-wrong-brain weird.

  If Dash ever started talking to me again, I’d need to mention this to him. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Dash found out. Not about Chris’s brain transplant. About what I said to Chris.

  It happened during the second half of the program. I was scheduled to go first. Rabbi Jake introduced me and I did a little stand-up, then showed my comedy clip montage. I sat on a wooden stool at the side of the stage, watching the audience watch the videos, which was the part I was really looking forward to. I figured it would be a little like SND, watching everyone laugh at the clips I chose. Instead, I watched in horror as Groucho whispered to Groucho, who whispered to Groucho, who then whispered to all the other Grouchos. The fact that all the parents, standing at the back, were guffawing appreciatively at my clips could not distract me from noticing that my conversation with Chris was going viral. It reminded me of the time Rabbi Jake gave a sermon about social media and told a story about a man trying to put feathers back into a pillow with a rip in it. Trapped onstage, I watched in horror as feathers fluttered in all directions. Sooner or later one of them was likely to land on Dash. Probably sooner.