All Three Stooges

by Erica S. Perl

  “Natural causes?” said Enid. “Gil was what? Forty-five years old, maybe? Super-fit, out there jogging every day. Mental health–wise, though, different story.”

  “But what about Dash? And Pete! There’s no way he’d do that to them.”

  “Probably he couldn’t see any other option. Maybe he even thought it was best for them. I mean, obviously, if he’d been thinking clearly, he wouldn’t have shot himself.”

  “Shot?! With a gun?”

  “Noah, I’m so sorry,” she said. She put her arm around my shoulders and sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I started to cry, so I bit my lip hard to keep the tears from falling and squeezed my eyes shut to keep everything dark.

  “Jenny promised!” I wailed angrily. “She said if she found out anything, she’d tell me.”

  My heart and my head were pounding. I pictured Gil on the basement floor, crawling toward the stairs, trying to call 911. He was lying in a puddle that definitely wasn’t Dr Pepper.

  But why would he call 911? And what would he tell them?

  I’ve been shot.

  And when the 911 operator asked, Who shot you? what would he say?

  Me?

  Then something else occurred to me. I looked up and asked Enid, “Does Dash know?”

  “Probably,” she said. “I mean, you said this Chris kid was texting with him about what his dad did, right?”

  “Wait a second, Chris knows, too?”

  “Not necessarily,” she said, but I could tell she was just trying to be nice. “I mean, it sounds like it,” she admitted. “But maybe you should talk to Dash.”

  I snorted to show her what I thought of that idea.

  I wasn’t sure who I was madder at: Jenny, for lying to me and treating me like a little kid. Or Dash, for telling his deepest, darkest secrets to Chris instead of me. It felt like the whole world was pushing me away, keeping me in the dark, locking me out. It felt lonely and awful, like no one thought I was important enough to talk to.

  Including Gil. He never said anything about having problems. And he didn’t say goodbye. At least, not to me.

  It wasn’t until the first batch of cookies came out that Enid and I realized something. She bit into one first and made a face.

  “What?”

  “Cookies are a little, uh, salty?” she said.

  I picked up one and took a bite. “Bleahhh! What the—”

  Enid licked a finger, then dipped it into the bowl of sugar we’d rolled the cookies in. She touched her tongue and winced.

  “I guess we weren’t paying attention,” she said. “We must have rolled them in salt, not sugar.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. For years we’ve joked about this, since our moms keep all our kitchen staples in these big identical glass jars. The salt one has a blue lid and the sugar one has a green lid, so on April Fools’ Day my classic move is always to switch the lids. “I guess I can’t do anything right these days.”

  “They’re not so bad. Maybe Spud would like them?” Enid suggested. “He likes salt licks, right?”

  “Yeah, but he can’t eat all of them. They’ll make him sick.” Just then, Jenny came into the kitchen.

  “I smell cookies!” she sang out, reaching for one. Mid-bite, she stopped, her face frozen.

  “What’s wrong?” I dared her.

  “Nothing,” she said with her mouth full, chewing and trying to choke it down. “Interesting. Maybe a little…um, salty?” Jenny put down the half-eaten cookie and began to fill a glass at the sink.

  “I dunno,” said Enid, biting into another one. “I think they’re an acquired taste. I mean, they’re weird, but I can’t stop eating them.” She shot me a look that clearly meant Talk to her, then took a handful, wrapped them in some paper napkins, and slunk back to her room.

  “Yeah, we accidentally rolled them in salt instead of sugar. Sorry. Guess I forgot to tell you,” I said pointedly.

  Jenny looked at me suspiciously. “Is something wrong, Noah?” she asked.

  “Wrong? Why would anything be wrong?”

  “I don’t know. You sound angry.”

  “Why, because I ruined the cookies?” I tried to laugh like a bad guy in the movies. “Who cares? Besides, it’s not like I did it on purpose,” I added.

  “I didn’t say you did,” said Jenny.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t say you did,” I said.

  Jenny tilted her head to the side. “What are you talking about, Noah?”

  “Nothing!” I got up and went to leave the kitchen. Over my shoulder, I said, “It’s just, sometimes people say they’re going to do something, and then they don’t. And they act like it’s no big deal. Even though it is a big deal.”

  “Noah, come back here. Sit down.”

  Reluctantly, I trudged back into the kitchen. I didn’t want to have to look at her, so I grabbed my algebra book off the counter and pretended to study the problems instead. If Marvin had ten apples and Sam had half as many as Kayla and Kayla had five times as many as Marvin, they all still had things pretty good. You didn’t see any of them committing suicide.

  “Is this about Dash?” asked Jenny.

  “No! It’s about you being a liar!” I spit the words at her.

  Jenny stared at me with a strange look on her face. “Noah, in this family we don’t call each other names—” she started to say.

  But I couldn’t listen, I was so mad. I cut her off, saying, “Oh yeah? Well, in this family we don’t lie to each other!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You told me you didn’t know how Gil died. And you said if you found out more, you would tell me. But you didn’t tell me. And you did find out more. You found out he killed himself. Didn’t you?”

  Jenny‘s eyes got wide. “Noah—”

  “What?!”

  “Ohhhhh—” Jenny put her hands over her face and let all her breath out at once. “It’s complicated, okay?” She slid her palms down her face and peered at me over the tips of her fingers. “You have to understand that when I said that, I meant it. I had every intention of telling you the truth, really. But then, when Stacey shared more information with us—well, we were pretty shaken up.”

  “So you just decided to say nothing?”

  “Of course not, Noah. It’s not like we made a plan or tried to deceive you. It’s just, we weren’t sure what to say or how to say it.”

  “You could say he blew his brains out.”

  “Noah!” Jenny sounded shocked. “Where did you hear that?”

  “It doesn’t matter where I heard it. Did he?”

  Jenny was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Yes. Gil shot himself.”

  I heard a small gurgling noise and realized it had come from me.

  “I am so sorry, Noah,” Jenny continued. “I just—The whole thing was so overwhelming. And, honestly, we were pretty horrified, too. We had no idea he had a gun! I mean, all those nights you slept over there, and we didn’t have a clue.”

  She picked up another cookie and started tapping it against the plate to shake the salt off. But the salt, for the most part, wasn’t coming off.

  “Maybe it was an accident,” I suggested. “I mean, don’t people with guns have accidents sometimes?”

  “That’s what I asked Stacey,” said Jenny. “She said it wasn’t.”

  “But she wasn’t there, right? So maybe—”

  “I know it’s hard to fathom, but Gil wanted to end his life. He’d tried before. Not with a gun, but with pills.”

  I stared at her, wondering what could possibly make someone want to “try” something as awful, and as final, as that. “Try” didn’t even seem like the right word for something like that. You could try all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons, like to get into the Guinness World Records book or win a million dollars. Or just to be able to tell your friends you tried a vomit-flavored jelly bean. Because even if it made you sick, you’d be okay.

&nb
sp; Gil was not okay. Gil would never be okay again.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

  “It doesn’t,” she agreed.

  “He wouldn’t leave Dash and Pete. Or me.”

  “I know. He was our friend, too,” said Jenny.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My stomach hurts.”

  “Oof, me too,” said Jenny. “Too many salty cookies,” she added, even though we both knew that wasn’t why.

  —

  That night, Enid was out, so my moms suggested I pick a movie for the three of us to watch. Usually, I jump at the chance to make them watch Woody Allen classics (or the occasional Will Ferrell movie), but for some reason I decided to go for an old favorite from way, way back: Aladdin. I’m not sure why, but getting away to a “whole new world” filled with flying carpets and magic lamps had an irresistible appeal. I got a little sad listening to how Aladdin had the most perfect, awesome friend ever in the genie, but other than that, it did the trick. When the movie ended, I closed my eyes and lay there, motionless, like I used to when I was little.

  “You think we should wake him?” I heard Karen ask.

  “Nah. Poor kid, let’s let him sleep.”

  “Okay,” said Karen. “Shhh. C’mon.”

  I felt my moms slip out from beside me on the couch and pull the crocheted afghan up over my shoulders. A few minutes later, a heavy, warm thing settled into the spot behind my knees. But even with Raspberry purring like a lawn mower, I couldn’t sleep. I thought about how much I loved running around with a bath towel on my head when I got out of the tub, pretending I was Aladdin. That was such a long time ago, before I even met Dash. I suddenly remembered that Robin Williams, who voiced the genie, also committed suicide. Robin Williams seemed a lot like Gil—playful, funny, and game for anything.

  Was it a funny-guy thing? How could that be? Suicide was the most unfunny thing I could think of. Although I had seen lots of comedy bits about suicide over the years. Like in the classic bit where Fanny Brice plays a wife who wins the lottery, then finds out her husband gave away the winning ticket. “You should drop dead,” she says. “I’ll jump out the window,” he offers. “Who stops you?” she yells back at him. And in Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen tries to kill himself with a rifle. The gun goes off, but the shot misses him completely. So Woody goes out to see a Marx Brothers movie that ends up cheering him up and giving him a new appreciation for life.

  Cheering him up. I thought back to that night of SND, which ended up being the last time the three of us would ever play it together. Would Gil still be here if we had gone upstairs and refused to do SND without him? Or if we had shown more appreciation for the old comedy clips he loved instead of always making him watch stuff like Miranda Sings with her smeared lipstick or Keith Apicary beating himself up in his underwear? “Chopper 4,” for crying out loud—why did we make him watch it again and again?

  I’m sorry, Gil, I told him silently. I’m so sorry.

  What I wouldn’t give for one more SND, a do-over round. Only this time we’d do everything right. We wouldn’t tease him about his monkey arms, or spill Dr Pepper on his floor, or make him rewatch the same dumb videos. And when he went upstairs to “take a break,” we’d go get him and bring him back down and let him pick all his favorite videos to watch. And we’d give him a million points so for once he could win instead of us. Who cared about being undefeated? What did it matter, if we could never play with him again?

  When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed that I was flying the Chopper 4 helicopter. Down below, Gil was in a raging river, struggling to keep from drowning. I kept swooping in to lower a rope to save him, and I missed, again and again and again. His head kept slipping below the churning water, so when I woke up, the first thought I had was: I have to go back to sleep because, if I hurry, I can get there in time.

  The next Tuesday afternoon, Noa and I both had to stay after school to make up a French quiz. So when we finally got on the bus, it was obvious that all the other Hebrew school kids had taken the earlier one. With my usual audience not there, I decided to skip the stand-up and actually sit for once. Noa was across the aisle from me, so I leaned over to discuss important matters.

  “Have you watched any more Stooges clips? I’ve narrowed down my top ten. We could maybe highlight—”

  Noa cut me off. “I feel like we should hold off on making any decisions without Dash. I mean, the last thing I’d want is for him to think we’re leaving him out.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I mean, me too,” I said.

  “For all we know, he doesn’t even want to do this anymore.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he’s not in a comedy mood? You know, because of his dad.”

  That honestly hadn’t occurred to me.

  “Did he say that?” I asked.

  “No,” said Noa. “At least, not to me. Has he said anything to you?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I mean, we really haven’t talked much at all since…everything.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll ask him,” said Noa. “But in the meantime, I have something cool to show you.”

  She reached into her backpack and pulled out a thick three-ring binder. Inside was this chart she had made, which she told me was called a spreadsheet. It was printed in about ten colors of ink, one for each category. The binder had rainbow-colored tabs and a big rainbow and unicorn sticker on the cover.

  “Where’s the cool thing?” I asked.

  Noa rolled her eyes. “Duh. My spreadsheet!” she said proudly. “I’m kind of a whiz at Excel.”

  The chart—sorry, spreadsheet—turned out to be a list of all the different parts of our b’nei mitzvah service. She walked me through it and pointed out the parts she had already divided up—the various aliyahs, prayers, and other responsibilities. “These are the ones I’ll do, and here are the ones I thought you’d want to do. Don’t worry,” she added. “I gave you the easier parts.”

  Despite the fact that Noa’s binder and chart had orange and yellow and all the other colors of the rainbow, the only one I saw was red. It felt like she was bragging that she’d do a better job with the harder parts. Which might be true, but I didn’t like her deciding it without even discussing it with me. I just let her rattle on and on, tuning her out. But then I noticed she had put the chart away and was pointing at the unicorn on the front of her binder.

  “Don’t you think that would be perfect?”

  “What would be perfect?” I asked.

  Noa made a really exasperated noise and pointed again to the sticker. “Like I just said, for our b’nei mitzvah, we could use a rainbow as our symbol. We could put a rainbow on the program and talk about it in our speech and everything. I mean, you know, kind of perfect because of our names. Also, as a gesture of support to Dash for what he’s been going through.”

  “I don’t think he’d want that,” I said.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Noa, looking worried.

  “I dunno,” I said. “It just doesn’t sound like something he’d like.”

  The bus jerked to a stop across from temple, so I stood up quickly and got off. I felt weird, even though I hadn’t lied to Noa. It didn’t sound like something Dash would like. I remembered the first Tuesday after Gil’s death, when Rabbi Fred gathered the entire seventh grade together and shared the news of what he called a “tragic and untimely loss.” We all made condolence cards for Dash and put them in a manila envelope, then we all signed the envelope. It was probably still sitting at his house, unopened. Dash hated having people feel sorry for him. Like when he broke his leg in fourth grade, he let everyone play with his crutches, but he wouldn’t let anyone—not even me—carry his backpack.

  But what I didn’t say, at least not then, was that it also didn’t sound like something I’d like. The last thing I wanted was to call attention to the two of us having the same-sounding name, and that name being Noah, like Noah’s Ark. Cue the ark
jokes, people!

  In skills class, I discovered that Dash wasn’t there again. So much for talking to him. I pulled out my phone to send him a text, then remembered that he couldn’t get it because I still had his phone. Thankfully, Noa had to step out for bat mitzvah tutoring with Rabbi Fred, but I could tell she wasn’t going to let the whole rainbow thing drop. I could already picture what she was hoping for: a whole rainbow-themed b’nei mitzvah. Complete with a rainbow dress for her, a rainbow suit for me, matching rainbow tallises, a DJ spinning songs like “The Rainbow Connection,” and giant rainbow lollipops on every table (okay, that part sounded good, but that wasn’t the point!). And to make matters worse, she was trying to guilt me into doing it by saying it was for Dash.

  Sure enough, as soon as we went downstairs for the break, I found out that Noa and I were both assigned to sell snacks, so there was really no escaping her. I was snack stocker, she was on money, and we were stuck sitting together at the snack table while kids streamed past us, shoving singles at us and grabbing at our limited selection of popcorn and fruit rolls.

  “It’s not because of your moms,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “The rainbow thing. I mean, rainbows are a great symbol for equal rights and lots of things, but that’s not why I chose them. Hey! No money, no snack!” she yelled at a sixth grader, who made a face at her, grabbed a bag of popcorn, and ran off.

  “Okay, I get it,” I said. “But I still don’t want to do it.”

  Noa’s eyes followed the sixth grader across the room. She looked tempted to chase him down, but she stayed seated. Unfortunately, she was unwilling to let me off the hook so easily.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” I responded, “it’s my bar mitzvah, too. Or am I not allowed to have any opinions?”

  “Of course you are, Noah. It’s just…” She sighed, straightening the pile of dollars. “Look, this isn’t about us, okay? It’s really for Dash. I feel like with all he’s been through, we should show him that he’s not alone. That’s what Dash needs right now.”

  “Who died and made you the authority on what Dash needs?” I asked.