Billy hunkered for stray marbles on the hard-packed, wild blackberry-vined vacant lot beside his house. He scoured the ground intently, hoping to duplicate a find from the week before – a ruby-red, creamy-swirled Aggie. At six, Billy was too young to shoot marbles with the older kids, who sometimes left one hiding beneath the blackberry leaves.
Two teenage boys, whom he’d never seen, strolled by and stopped. Billy looked up, noticing one was chubby with a crewcut, like Curly of the Three Stooges. The other looked like Shemp, with longish, greasy dark hair.
No Stranger Danger PSA in 1962, but Billy stood up, casting a wary look toward home, where his parents were going about their Saturday morning routines. The Stooges seemed friendly, and Curly said: “Whatcha doin’”?
Billy said he was hunting marbles in the brambles.
“Find any?” said Shemp. Billy said no and turned for home when Curly said: “You want to earn some money?”
Shemp held a Mercury dime that glittered in the sunlight, holding Billy captive. Curly said: “Make a fist with your hand and point your fingers back.”
Billy tried, and Shemp took his hand, turning it around. “Now put this finger straight up,” said Curly, meaning the middle one. Billy popped up the finger, and the pair laughed uproariously. When they finally giggled themselves out, Shemp handed Billy the coin. Curly said: “Go home and do that to your mom and dad, and I guarantee they’ll laugh and give you a dime.” Billy said he would and turned for home – leaving the two in another fit of laughter.
When Billy arrived, his parents were in the kitchen having coffee. He showed them the finger, per Curly and Shemp’s instruction.
“Where did you learn to do that?!!” his father shouted. Dumbstruck by her son’s gesture, Billy’s mother found her voice and said with conviction: “I’ll bet it was that awful Grimshaw boy from down the block.”
Surprised at their reactions, Billy said: “No, two big boys showed me and said you’d laugh and give me a dime if I did it for you.”
“I’ll give them something to laugh about,” said his father, hurrying outside.
Curly and Shemp were long gone.
Billy, confused and with a shiny Mercury dime in his pocket, decided to wait and try the finger on his Nana, who was very jolly and always carried a coin purse full of jingling silver.
William P Adams lives in the Pacific Northwest, writing short fiction inspired by his childhood in the 1960s. His stories have appeared in Macrame Lit and Rockvale Review.
