I could never speak about it before because nothing had ever been said to make me think anything positive could come of it. So I would try to make it funny and people actually laughed. But Moe was really hitting me. He was poking me in the eyes. He was twisting my ear right ‘round in circles and everybody just watched and laughed. Is the horrifying hollow clunk of one head colliding with another funny, even if you go “wooo”? I should have let my needs be known. I should have said, “This isn’t funny, I’m hurting!” But I couldn’t speak. And Moe was kicking me hard a lot of the time — kicking me in the coccyx or tugging on my tongue. And when I wasn’t tensing up against the next onslaught, I was watching poor, sweet Larry getting his hair torn out in fistfulls that sounded like sheets of cotton ripping. The poor bastard — poked, seared, scalded, torn. Sure, I hated Moe — more than anything. And yes, it’s true, whether deliberately or not I still don’t know, ‘cause I may have just convinced myself it was an accident, but one day Moe got his head completely stuck in a stovepipe and me and Larry decided we were gonna “help” him. So, well, we put our feet on his shoulders and pulled at the stovepipe as hard as we both could. After a while, when he stopped screaming in there, all you heard were these “pingy” sounds of his neck bones popping and we knew we could just tug his head right off if we wanted. But we stopped and tried to twist the stovepipe off instead. Once again he gasped and cried out, but we just went right on with both hands, turning that stovepipe ‘round and ‘round till his nose bone crunched and steam shot out. But those day are gone now. People thought it was funny, so we went along with it. Now we pay. And that’s just the way it is.