I think we should have a board dedicated to Stooge fan fiction. I have written a couple of Stooge fan fics myself. I shall post them.
The Shoes
Narrated by Moe Howard of The Three Stooges
I hated those shoes. They felt like the atmosphere in the sitting room after we said Kaddish for Gram. They sounded like the Yiddish records we would listen to after dinner. Songs like sighing.
We lived in the poorest section of Boston, so I guess I was lucky that our family was one of the richer Jewish families which allowed me to own shoes in the first place.
One day in 3rd grade at Hebrew school I noticed that my old black cleats were worn. Riding the city bus home, I knew exactly what kind of shoes I wanted. The bus dropped me and my two younger brothers, Larry, who was in 2nd grade, and Jerome, nicknamed Curly, who was in kindergarten, off at the bus stop at the entrance to the Jewish Sector. I ran home faster than any of my brothers. I burst through the front door, threw my bag on the ground, and ran to meet my father, who was in his big black chair in the sitting room, smoking his pipe and studying the Talmud. I told him exactly what kind of shoes I wanted: black loafers with so many silver studs around the sides it would look like I was a real cowboy. He was listening so intently as he studied the Talmud scroll I thought he would know exactly what shoes to get me on his way home from Temple the next day.
The next day I was delayed from seeing my shoes immediately after I got home because Curly had started to cry when he tripped in a puddle outside the front door and my mother had assigned Larry and I the task of calming him down. When he finally stopped crying, I dashed upstairs to my room and looked around. There was a green box on my bed. I opened it and tore the paper out like a madman. I lifted up one of the shoes and my smile instantly faded; the shoe was the color of day-old noodle kugel. I picked the other one up, under some strange notion that it would be a different color, but it was the same drab brown. I heard my father calling that my shoes were in Larry’s room, so I brought the shoes over, hoping that they were for Larry’s enormous feet and not mine. Larry had no idea what I was talking about. I gave up. I went back to my room and put the shoes on. They were big, so big that when I walked my foot almost came out of the shoe and probably would have if the laces weren’t tied. I trudged downstairs, muttered a terse “thank you” to my dad, and went out into the backyard. It was still raining, but I liked the rain. I picked up a piece of lox from last night’s dinner from the scrap pile, tore it up, and threw the pieces back into the scrap pile. When the pieces were gone, I wiped my hands on my jeans and threw a basketball towards the sky. It landed in our neighbor’s yard. I went back to my room and watched my nautilus, Henry, crawl in and out of his shell. I went back outside and lured our neighbor’s dog, Jack, over the fence. I took one of the shoes off and teased him with it. He jumped for it once and missed. He jumped for it a second time and connected. I swore quietly, directed Jack over the fence and looked at the shoe. It had a deep gash along the side. I swore again and put the shoe down. I got into my meditation position and recited the Tahunun, the Jewish prayer of sorrow. I began to cry. Why I cried, I do not know and still do not know to this day.
At dinner that night, I plopped down on my chair and stared at the lump of gefilte fish on my dull blue plate. When I was selected by my dad to say the blessing over the bread, I recited it in a low monotone. I was so embarrassed to wear those giant shoes I did not even wear my yarmulke.
At Hebrew school the next day, the kids made fun of me and my giant shoes. They called me names like Clown Shoes and Lumpy. The rabbis didn’t help either. In Torah, the head rabbi quietly snickered as he moved his yad along the book of Malakhi. At recess, Isaiah Goldman, the playground anarchist, refused to let me play on the swings after I counted to fifty. My best friend, Ted Healy, ate an entire peanut butter and jelly sandwich without letting me have a taste, and my crush, Mary Feinberg, walked away from me at recess to go play with the boys wearing “cool” shoes. Even my brothers shunned me. It seemed like everyone was against me all because of some stupid shoes. The bell rang. I went into the synagogue and knelt on a mat. As is the Jewish custom, I took off my shoes before doing so. Immediately, the entire synagogue burst into laughter that I knew was directed at me. When prayer was over, we went outside for meditation. All the other grades had to see me in my geeky shoes. Even though they weren’t saying anything, I could see them whispering to their friends about my shoes and even covering their mouths with laughter.
I had those shoes for three long and miserable years. I blame them for those bad years. I blame my father for those bad years. But somehow, sometime between the time I got those shoes and the time those three years had passed, they became a part of me. And I became a part of them. I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know why, but it just did.
And here's one about Curly:
Adam
As is the Jewish custom, Jerome, known as Curly, started kindergarten at age 4. He was indeed nervous, and to show it, he wet his bed five times the night before he was to start school.
Curly’s first day of kindergarten did not get off to a good start. He was made fun of by his older brothers Moe and Larry on the city bus to Hebrew school. He slipped in a puddle outside the schoolhouse. Not until he got home did it get better.
Curly burst through the front door before any of his brothers, threw his bag on the ground and yelled, “Where’s my sandwich?” His mother and father ran to him and gave him a big hug. While his mother was fixing him his sandwich, she asked, “What happened on your first day at Hebrew school?” She brought him his grilled cheese and through a mouthful of bread, Curly replied, “Well, there’s this boy in our class named Adam, and he’s really fresh.”
“Fresh how, son?” his father asked.
Curly swallowed and replied, “Well, today, during coloring time, the teacher wanted us to draw a red flower, and I learned during Get-to-Know-You time that Adam doesn’t like flowers, so he asked the teacher nicely if he could draw a blue race car, and the teacher said nicely that he couldn’t draw a blue race car because that wasn’t what she asked us to do. So then Adam took a blue crayon and colored all over the teacher’s dress.”
“Wow,” said Larry.
“And then, during story time, the teacher was reading us a book about turtles, but Adam said during Get-to-Know-You time that he didn’t like turtles, so he talked the whole time.”
“Wow,” said Larry, again.
“Son, how do the other children react to Adam?” asked Curly’s father.
“The other kids laugh at him. They think he’s funny. Bye, Daddy!”
Ignoring his father’s scoldings of “see here, young man,” Curly went upstairs to his room.
“Can we expect any more from this Adam child?” asked Curly’s mother.
“Well, honey, I wouldn’t get too nervous. It’s their first time in an educational setting, so they’re a little scared. Let’s see how he does tomorrow,” said his father.
The next day was worse: Adam took pencils out to the playground at recess and threw them at the children on the swings. He punched a boy in the stomach and made him cry. He twisted a little girl’s pigtails so tight that she started to cry.
“What shall we do now?” asked Curly’s mother that night at dinner after Curly had left the kitchen.
“Wait it out. It’s only their second day,” his father replied.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday went over the same way as Monday and Tuesday: on Wednesday, Adam threw rocks at a little girl’s pet frog during show-and-tell and killed it. On Thursday he swore at the teacher, and on Friday at lunchtime, he opened his mouth, which was full of food, and all the children screamed and ran to go hide from him with the teacher.
“You know, Solomon, that PTA meeting is on Tuesday. I need to talk to Curly’s teacher and ask about this Adam fellow,” said Curly’s mother Friday at dinner.
“Don’t talk to the teacher. Talk to Adam’s mother,” his father suggested.
Only the fact that Larry and Moe had to stay home from school on Tuesday with head colds kept Curly’s mother from going to the PTA meeting.
However, by the third week of kindergarten, there seemed to be a complete transformation in Adam. Curly came home one day unhappy. When his mother asked him what was wrong, he replied, “Adam was good today.”
“Why? What did he do?” asked his mother.
“The teacher asked him to pass out crayons during coloring time, and he did, without whining. And then at recess, he let other kids play on the swings. At the end of the day, he got a train sticker because he was so good today.”
Moe, who came in the door after Curly, complained, “Aww, that’s boring.”
His mother turned to his father. “Well?” she asked.
“It might be a phase. Just you wait. Tomorrow, Adam will be Adam again.”
But Curly’s father was wrong. On Tuesday, Adam once again helped pass out crayons and glue sticks. On Wednesday, Adam played tag at recess without punching or hurting the other children. On Thursday, he sat and listened intently to the teacher read a story about frogs during story time. And on Friday, he painted a picture of a house without painting on the other children’s or the teacher’s clothing. By the end of the week, according to Curly, Adam had seven train stickers for good behavior.
But by the fifth week of kindergarten, Adam was back to his old self. He drew on the walls of the classroom on Monday, stole the other children’s lunches on Tuesday, scared the other children by jumping out of the bushes at recess on Wednesday, sat in time-out almost the whole day on Thursday, and threw clay at the other children on Friday.
Curly’s mother knew she had to go to the PTA meeting on Wednesday of the next week.
At the meeting, Curly’s mother looked and looked, but she could not find anyone who looked like she might be Adam’s mother anywhere. Finally, she spotted Curly’s teacher. “Hi, I’m Jenny Howard. Curly’s—er—Jerome’s mother,” she said.
“Hi! I’m Mrs. Feinnmann, Jerome’s teacher,” the teacher replied happily.
“So you must really have your hands full with this Adam character,” Jenny remarked.
The teacher chuckled. “I’m sorry, but, uh, did you say Adam?”
Jenny looked perplexed. “Well, yes. Jerome has so much to say about him.”
The teacher stared at Jenny.
“We don’t have an Adam in the kindergarten.”
I'm in the process of writing a Stooge fan fic now, but I won't post it because of inappropriate material.
