All Three Stooges

by Erica S. Perl

  “Me too,” I told her. And I was surprised to realize that I actually meant it. Not just the having-my-bar-mitzvah part. Everything, even with Noa. Especially with Noa. I thought about what she said about Dash and almost asked why he wasn’t there. Quick, change the subject, I told myself. “Uh, maybe I can hire you to do the speech at mine,” I joked. “You killed.”

  Noa looked really pleased by my compliment. And even though I said “killed,” which was kind of an unfortunate choice of words, she didn’t wince or yell at me or anything. Instead, she said, “Are you coming down to the social hall for the party?”

  “Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  I had seen Rabbi Fred head for his office and decided to go thank him for the pep talk he’d given me. I was about to knock on his door when I noticed something new. A little doorbell had been installed right next to the door. A handwritten sign read GIVE ME A RING, so I did.

  “Come in,” said Rabbi Fred. Kind of classic that he stopped saying “You rang?” as soon as he got a doorbell.

  “I just stopped by to tell you— Hey,” I interrupted myself. “Where’s your water feature?”

  “You know, Noah, I recently decided to switch up my decor. And I have you to thank.”

  “You do?”

  Rabbi Fred nodded. “Yes. For helping me become aware that what I always saw as a positive symbol might be sending the opposite message to some of my students.”

  “I mean, maybe just one of them,” I said apologetically. “Everybody else seemed to like it.”

  “It’s okay,” said Rabbi Fred. “Change is good.” I must have looked unconvinced, because he quickly added, “Look at the evidence. You’ve got to admit that my decor change is good.”

  I couldn’t argue with him there. He had several new items on display, including a big green-and-yellow lava lamp and a smaller round item that looked really familiar.

  “You got a Magic 8 Ball?” I asked.

  Rabbi Fred grinned and tossed it to me. “Nope!” he said proudly. “It’s a Jewish Wisdom Ball.”

  I turned the ball over in my hands. It felt just like a Magic 8 Ball, but instead of the number eight, it had two Hebrew letters on it: chet and yod. Together, they spelled the word chai. Even with my limited Hebrew skills, I knew that means “life,” like what people say when they clink their glasses at weddings: “L’chaim! To life!”

  “But it’s like a Magic 18 Ball,” he added, “since chai represents the number eighteen.” I already knew that because of friends getting bar and bat mitzvah gift checks in multiples of eighteen dollars. “Go ahead. Ask it something,” he encouraged.

  I hesitated. The last thing I needed was another REPLY HAZY, TRY AGAIN. But then a question came to me. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and shook.

  I peeked as the response swam into view: YOU CALL THAT A QUESTION?

  Rabbi Fred read it over my shoulder and laughed, long and loud. “So much for wisdom, eh?” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “But I’m glad you stopped by, Noah. I actually have some news to share with you.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “I think you’re going to like this news,” said Rabbi Fred.

  Noa’s party was completely stupid. There were glow sticks, goofy novelty sunglasses, neon fedora hats, a cheesy DJ spinning Top 40 tunes, and a gazillion girls in super-short dresses and mismatched socks dancing to “Cotton Eye Joe.”

  It was awesome.

  Especially when Maya Edelstein asked me to dance and it was a slow song and they turned the lights low and everyone went “Woooo!” But she didn’t let go, and we kept on dancing, and I think if I had tried to kiss her, she actually might have let me. Plus, almost as good as the possible-kissing part was the fact that it seemed like no one hated me anymore. It was as if by some kind of magic they had all gotten really mature all of a sudden. Or, more likely, they just had other stuff going on, so they had forgotten. Either way, I’d take it.

  But even better than that was what happened next.

  I was getting a rainbow cup of punch and another rainbow lollipop (for the record, I still hate rainbows in general, but the rainbow lollipops were actually delicious) when I noticed that Dash was at the party. He was across the room, standing by himself, but then Noa ran up to him and put a neon pink fedora on his head. Dash knocked it off, and Noa picked it up and then chased him around the room until a bunch of girls held him down and made him wear it. Every time he took it off, the girls would run up and put it back on him. But he didn’t look mad. Clearly, he was enjoying it.

  I wasn’t going to go talk to him—I’d learned my lesson about that—so I was surprised when he came over to me. And spoke.

  “S’up?” he said.

  “S’up,” I said back. Which was more of a real non-angry conversation than we’d had in months.

  “Nice hat,” I tried.

  “You want it?” he asked, obviously implying that if I took it, the magic would go with it and all the girls would chase me instead of him.

  “No, thanks,” I said, trying to suggest that I had so much attention from the ladies I couldn’t possibly handle any more. Dash set the hat down on a table. I was afraid he was just going to walk away, and I wanted him to stay and hang out so bad I could taste it. I was tempted to grab the hat, put it on, and say something idiotic like “Hey, you know where I got this hat? Mr. Maxx!” Just to make it like old times. Except I had definitely learned my lesson at this point. Those days were gone. And sometimes gone is gone.

  But Dash didn’t walk off. He stood there, not saying anything, but not leaving, either. Almost like he wanted to be standing next to me. Now, of course I knew better than to say something and ruin the moment. But for me, knowing not to do something and actually resisting the temptation are two completely different things. So I turned to Dash and said, “Hey, is it true what Rabbi Fred told me? That you agreed to share your bar mitzvah date with me?”

  Dash shrugged. “It’s not until fall. I figured maybe Noa could help us.”

  My heart was pounding with excitement. I couldn’t believe it. Our friendship might not be completely gone after all! It might be mostly dead, but not all dead. And, like Billy Crystal says in The Princess Bride, unlike all dead, mostly dead is slightly alive.

  “Yeah, Noa did great today,” I replied. “It’s too bad you missed her speech.”

  “She already read it to me,” said Dash.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, she killed up there.” I winced at my word choice. “Sorry! I can’t help it. I say dumb stuff sometimes.”

  “Oh, believe me, I know,” said Dash.

  “Hey,” I said indignantly. “You’re not exactly Mr. Perfect yourself!”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah! You started hating me for, like, no reason. And you started hanging with Noa instead of me. You did, right? I mean, she’s CS, isn’t she?”

  Dash turned bright red, so I knew I had him.

  “What does CS stand for, anyway?”

  “Curly Stooge,” admitted Dash. “But I never hated you.”

  “You said you did. In your texts to your girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” said Dash, though I could tell he was pleased. “Honest, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did! You said you ‘kind of’ hated me.”

  “Not you, my dad,” said Dash.

  “You hated your dad?”

  “Sometimes,” said Dash. “I mean, even though I know his depression was a disease and everything, I still can’t help feeling mad and even hating him sometimes. Dr. G, my therapist, says that’s okay.”

  Good, I thought, remembering how I took my own anger and frustration out by kicking Gil’s gravestone, and by throwing rocks in the creek, and even by telling off Noa.

  Noa.

  I suddenly realized something. The look on Noa’s face when I said she couldn’t really relate to Dash unless her dad had killed himself. I thought I had shocked her by saying that Gil’s death had been a suicide. Bu
t Dash had already told CS about his father. And CS wasn’t Chris. CS was Noa.

  So when I said what I said, it wasn’t news to Noa. She already knew about Gil. She reacted the way she did not because she was surprised or freaked out by what I said but because she was worried about Dash. She knew he didn’t want people to know. And she knew he had only told her.

  “You told Noa about your dad?” I finally said. I didn’t mean to sound jealous, but I think I might have anyway.

  “I mean, yeah. Just her. I didn’t want the world to know.”

  I must have looked pretty upset, because Dash quickly jumped in, saying, “Look, the thing is, Noa never really knew my dad. Not like you did. I know that might not make sense, but it makes it harder for me. Being around you reminds me of being around him. It makes me miss him more.”

  “Oh,” I said. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “There’s other stuff, too,” added Dash. “I know everyone thinks he was such a great guy, all happy and joking around, but it wasn’t always like that. Sometimes he wasn’t even up to letting me have friends over.”

  “Even me?” I asked.

  Dash nodded. “There were times he wouldn’t get out of bed. And he and my mom fought a lot. She thought he needed more treatment. I guess she was right, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My mom says he tried once before,” added Dash. “Unsuccessfully, obviously.”

  I considered telling him that Jenny had already told me that. Given what he’d said about not wanting the whole world to know, playing dumb felt like a better idea. “He did?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh. It was before I was born. But when she told me, I felt like I kind of knew already. Weird, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Did you know he had a gun?”

  Dash shook his head. “He didn’t,” he said. “He must have gotten it for this. Apparently, he planned out the whole thing and made sure me and Pete were at my mom’s so we wouldn’t be the ones who found him. He even left a note saying he was sorry. Which is another reason I’ve started to hate apologies.”

  If he hadn’t said that, I probably would have said “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. I could hear the “Cha Cha Slide” song starting up, and I prayed that no one would come over and drag us out on the dance floor now that we were finally talking.

  Dash kicked a balloon that had rolled over to us. “Yeah, I’m really the life of the party these days, huh?” he said.

  I was trying to just listen and nod, like Enid, but when he said that, I couldn’t help responding. “It’s not your fault,” I told him. “Don’t blame yourself.” I could hear that I sounded a little like Noa, but hopefully not in a bad way.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I mean, okay, sometimes I do. I’m just all messed up inside. I never used to cry, and now it’s like every day. But I don’t want people to talk about me. Or feel sorry for me.”

  I nodded again. I probably looked like the Sandy Koufax bobblehead Rabbi Fred installed in a place of honor next to his lava lamp and Magic 8…er, Jewish Wisdom Ball. I was glad to see the water feature go, but still. Some of his new decor was pretty out there. Though I had to admit that the ball might have had a little magic or wisdom or whatever in it after all.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you,” said Dash. “See, there I go. I hate apologies and here I am doing it myself.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, appreciating the opportunity to tell him “I’m sorry, too” one more time. I was even more grateful when he changed the subject and said, “Hey, that video montage you did for the cabaret was pretty awesome.”

  “Thanks!” I said. “Actually, I found this other video you might want to see. It’s just an old home movie, but it’s got your dad in it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Cool, I’d like that,” said Dash.

  Just then, Noa ran up to us with another neon fedora and slammed it onto Dash’s head. “Gotcha!” she yelled. “Now both of you have to report to the dance floor. They’re going to do the chair thing.”

  “Whatever you say, Curly,” said Dash, smirking.

  “Wait a second, if she’s Curly, who does that make me?” I asked.

  “You’re obviously Larry,” said Dash. “I’m Moe.”

  “How come you get to be Moe?”

  “Oh, like you’re Moe?”

  “Wise guy, eh?”

  “Soitainly!”

  Our Stooge’ing was quickly drowned out. The music swelled and everyone started clapping when Noa, shrieking and clasping her hands tightly around the edge of the chair’s seat, was hoisted into the air. Her red hair bounced all over the place as she was lifted and lowered repeatedly along with the music. I fell in between Maya and Dash and was, for once, grateful for all that grapevine practice.

  We wove through the room in intersecting circles while strobe lights flashed and Noa went up and down on her throne. Then they lowered her and lifted her mom up in the chair next, and Noa thrust herself between me and Dash, with Maya still on my other side. I could feel their hands and my hands and our hearts and our feet like one big clumsy caterpillar stepping side, forward, side, back, again and again. All of us laughing, twisting, and, as we danced faster and faster, tripping and inevitably falling like so many drops of rain.

  And it was just like Woody Allen says (forgive me, Woody, because I’m paraphrasing here). Even if dancing makes you cringe and you’re the king of the remedial grapevine, the song is going to be over much too quickly. So the only thing to do is get up off the floor, grab your fellow Stooges by the hand, and keep on going.

  Which is exactly what we did.

  When my younger daughter was six, her best friend’s father took his own life. In the sad days that followed the initial shock, I watched the two girls play and felt relieved that they were too young to do anything but resume their games, as if nothing had happened. A close friend of mine had lost, at twelve, her mother to suicide, and I knew that for older kids, the immediate impact on their interpersonal relationships could be more complicated. I also knew that for every Dash—and my heart goes out to them—there are a lot of Noahs. That’s why I wanted to tell this particular story, and to tell it from Noah’s perspective.

  In researching this book, I did a lot of reading—about depression, about parental suicide, and about grief and healing. I was fortunate to find some excellent resources, many of which are listed after this note. I was particularly lucky to discover the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing and to have the opportunity to volunteer at Camp Forget-Me-Not/Camp Erin DC. This grief camp is provided free of charge to children and teens who have lost a parent or close family member. All activities are focused on helping the campers grieve and process their loss—through art, sports, talking, theater…even banging on drums in the woods. It was at camp that I truly learned just how diverse kids’ range of emotions and expressions of grief could be.

  I also researched comedy, with a particular focus on Jewish comedy. I can’t say I watched every Three Stooges film (far from it—there are over two hundred!), but I tried to reference and include as many Jewish comedy stars and classic comedy bits as I could. If they’re not familiar to you, what are you waiting for? Look them up and enjoy!

  In closing, I have one thing to say on the subject of writing a book that’s simultaneously about something as silly as the Three Stooges and as serious as suicide. Kevin Breel, a comedian and the author of Boy Meets Depression: Or Life Sucks and Then You Die Live, provided what I feel is the best explanation for why this juxtaposition is not coincidental. He observed that the definition of laughter is “the tangible evidence of hope.” Laughter, even—and perhaps especially—in times of pain and loss, is a force that has the power to connect us, restore us, and urge us forward.

  To the teenage and adult survivors of parental (and spousal) loss through suicide who generously agreed to talk with me about their experiences, you have my profound thanks. I hope I was able to
honor your words and feelings in the pages of this book. I am also grateful to Stephanie Handel, Pamela Lieber, and everyone at both the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing and Camp Forget-Me-Not/Camp Erin DC. Thank you to my fellow blue (volunteer) and red (licensed therapist) shirts, and, most importantly, the amazing campers for all you shared with me and taught me. Group Nine, I will carry your beads with me, always. Thanks also to Ashley Forman and the dedicated Arena Stage Voices of Now team.

  I have great appreciation for the rabbis and staff of Temple Micah, in Washington, D.C., who allowed me to be a fly on the wall so that I might capture the people, the place, the humor, and the ruach! To all the kids who are wondering if they are in this book: even if you don’t see your name in it, you are. Thanks also to Jenny Allen and Karen Kalat, whose first names are in the book, though let me assure them and you that this is a work of fiction.

  Thanks to Erin Clarke, for being demanding and fearless, as all great editors are. Thanks to Carrie Hannigan, for understanding the story I was trying to write even before I did. Thanks to the wonderful team at Knopf/RHCB, as well as the fabulous librarians and teachers and booksellers and other passionate book people who will get it into the hands of readers. Thanks to my beloved Nerdy Book Club, SCBWI, Children’s Book Guild, #WeNeedDiverseBooks, VCCA, DCCAH, First Book, and DMV Women Writers communities—I am honored to know so many awesome and talented folks and to have your friendship and support. And speaking of friends, special thanks to my extreme runner pals—including Clover and Penny—for refusing to let me take myself too seriously or sit too long in one place.

  Last but certainly not least, thank you to my family, especially Mike, Franny, and Bougie. Without your love and encouragement (and more-than-occasional noogies), there would be no Stooges, or any other book. Everything I do, everything I am, is thanks to you.

  SUICIDE PREVENTION

  American Association of Suicidology: suicidology.org