Robust, woolly Howie Fine stood naked and peeing in the toilet of the en suite bathroom in his bungalow in the village of Grubsky. Howie didn’t know why he always loved the tinkling sound. There was something comforting, something so right about it. For those few, short, streaming moments, he could forget. Outside the bathroom window, little hailstones bounced off the frozen panes with a pleasing, persistent plink.

Marsha Tattlebaum-Fine, under white sheets, and a thick pink fluffy comforter—her small chin resting in the palm of her right hand, the pretty, petite, immaculately groomed nails painted purple—looked up from the bed at Howie. She saw something she had never seen before. Something, she would say, for many later years, recounting the story to friends or family or fellow synagogue members, surprised the bejesus out of her.

“What is that?” Marsha said.

“What is what?” Howie said. He glanced down to take in all that God had provided. “It’s the same bits as always.”

Howie finished his business, then walked to the bathroom sink to wash his hands thoroughly. He was a man who never hurried a job, no matter how small. Howie, a construction contractor, ran his own company, Five Fine Brothers. Although he was an only child, he had chosen the name to make the business appear substantial.

“When, why—how did you get that?” Marsha said.

Howie shut off the water, wiped his hands on the hanging towel, glanced down again, then turned around to answer Marsha.

“It’s the same one I had yesterday, Marsha. I mean really, what’s the big deal? I didn’t know you cared.”

“Don’t be crass,” Marsha said.

“Alright, but a man can’t pee in front of his own wife?”

“Howie, where did you get that tattoo?”

“What?” Howie said.

“That tattoo, that honking, ugly tattoo.”

Howie again looked down, then up once more at Marsha. He stared at her with the blank look couples often have after years of dwindling romance has converted them from lovers into roommates.

“I’m telling you Marsha, it’s the same penis I’ve always had. The same one you used to—”

“Howie, the other side.”

Howie turned sideways to look at the left-side of his back in the mirror. The mole his friend, Doctor Ruben Bernstein, had excised had grown back. Cancer? He pivoted on the balls of his feet to look at his back’s reflected right-side. He peered, squinted, stared, yet saw no tattoo. Yes, Marsha’s finally done it. Gone off the deep end. Bonkers. It had to happen eventually. Why would I have a tattoo? I’m a Jew, for God’s sake. At least, I used to be.

“What can I say?” Howie said, looking at the mirror.

“Look down,” Marsha said.

Howie lowered his gaze. First to the fuzzy flabby folds, then, further down. There it was. Bottom of his right cheek. A large tattoo, half as big as a roast chicken. A woman’s face, with long, flowing red hair.  This can’t be right. Must be low blood sugar. Ruben warned me. “Be careful!” he said. “Stay away from sugar. No alcohol!” Maybe this is the first stage of a seizure, or worse.

“Marsha,” Howie said, “I need get to the hospital.”

“What’s that word,” Marsha said, squinting, “under the face?”

Howie looked in the mirror.

“I can’t be sure,” Howie said, “I think it says AHCARB.”

“Howie, I think it’s a name. It’s backwards in the mirror, Einstein. I think it says, BRACHA.”

“Bracha, my ex-wife?”

“How could you?”

“Marsha, listen. Let’s just go back to sleep. I’ll come back to bed. We’ll wake up later and things will be just regular crazy again.”

“No, no,” Marsha said, “you’re not getting near me with that thing.”

Marsha said this now and then, but, this time, Howie knew she didn’t mean his penis.

Using just her right thumb to prop up her chin, Marsha slowly and repeatedly tapped the four free fingers of her right hand on her cheek, the purple fingertips keeping slow, metronomic time on her skin.

“Did you get that yesterday, with the gang?” Marsha said.

Howie pulled a terry bath towel from a rod holder, wrapped it around his thick waist. He walked to the edge of the bed, plopped down, sighed heavily.

“A gang it is not,” Howie said.

“Then why is it called Guns and Moses?”

“Ruben’s got a weird sense of humor. His idea. It’s just me and him, the whole gang, Marsha. Two Jews on Hondas. He didn’t want to call it, Two Jews on Hondas. Not exactly The Wild One.”

“Wild enough for you to get hammered, then get a tattoo of your ex?”

“You know I don’t drink, Marsha. Doctor’s orders. We rode to the deli. I got a bagel and lox. Ruben got a black whole pastrami on a bulkie. He hates the half sour pickles, so sue me, I ate the pickle. Then we visited our moms. This you already know.”

“And the tattoo?” Marsha said.

“That isn’t real.”

“It’s not a bagel on your buttock,” Marsha said.

“Marsh, I’ll go see Ruben tomorrow. Maybe it’s a practical joke. He’s a funny guy. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Ha-ha,” Marsha said.

*                                  *                                  *

Although there had been snow and sleet the day before, and hailstones this morning, the roads looked OK to Howie now, so he rode his red Honda Goldwing the few miles to Ruben Bernstein’s farmhouse in Grubsky. The sun was bright and warm, and despite the December chill, there was no wind.

“I need to ask you something,” Howie said as Ruben opened his front door.

“Sure, come on in. Just me. Sadie’s at her biblical Hebrew class. It’s always the converts, you know.”

Howie walked past Ruben into the entrance foyer, then, when Ruben closed the front door and turned around, Ruben, too, saw something he had never seen before. Howie had dropped his blue jeans and his Fruit of The Loom boxers. The baggy jeans and loose boxers billowed around his two ankles like lowered mainsails of a two-masted schooner.

“Um, Howie,” Ruben said. “Are you drunk or doped up or something? God, I hope you didn’t ride your bike over here—.”

“Why does everyone keep asking if I’m drinking again? You know I’m not. I’ve been sober for fifteen years. I only drank that year, you know, when, when—”

“I know,” Ruben said. “People relapse.”

“Look, I’m fine, Ruben.”

“Then why are your jeans on the floor?”

“I need you to look at something.” Howie turned around and put his back to Ruben.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“Well, what do you see?” Howie said.

“A fuzzy butt,” Ruben said.

“And the picture of Bracha?”

“What?”

“The tattoo?”

“Howie, let me drive you to urgent care. It’s too much snow anyway to ride your bike. I’ll drive. Maybe you’re having a stroke or something.”

“Look closer,” Howie said, pointing to his bottom with his right index finger.

“This is a close as I’m getting, Howie, until you pull up your pants. There’s nothing there. At least nothing man-made.”

            *                                  *                                  *

In the morning, when Marsha woke up and began stretching in bed, Howie was peeing.

“See,” Howie called from the bathroom, “I told you it was a dream. No picture of Bracha. I checked already.”

Howie and Marsha first met at their temple twenty-five years ago. By then, Howie and Bracha had been divorced for two years, the divorce having been about the same time that Marsha’s first husband, Hyman T. Tattlebaum, died in a tragic matzo ball accident at the temple’s annual Matzo Ball. It was the first slip and fall matzo ball accident in the temple’s history, and afterward, Rabbi Friedman banned matzo balls from the annual Matzo Ball.

“Blintzes we should have,” the Rabbi told the congregation volunteers who cooked the food for the annual Ball, “a roast chicken, kugel, maybe some nice potato knishes, but no matzo balls.”

Just a few Matzo Balls after Hyman’s fatal matzo ball mishap, Howie and Marsha were dancing together, for the first time, under cardboard stars decorated with sparkly paint. We aren’t kids anymore, you know, Howie had said to Marsha as they twirled like two matzo balls in a soup tureen. Still, he fell like a schoolboy having met the high school sweetheart fate had intended for him.

Marsha always smelled like a fresh loaf of cinnamon babka, Howie told his friends, and the twinkles in her eyes were soft brown raisins in a freshly baked challah. Howie always loved breads and sweets. And now, he loved Marsha even more than babka and challah. When he sniffed Marsha’s hair, with his eyes closed, he was transported through time back to the warmth of his bubbe’s house. When he sat there in her kitchen, with its warm oven and sweet smells, a little boy, so long ago, it was like crawling inside a great big hug.

Marsha relished Howie’s attentiveness, his humor, and his kindness. She told her friends he was a mensch. Howie wanted to elope with Marsha to Las Vegas, just the two of them, to be married by Elvis, in a chapel. But Marsha wanted the rabbi to marry them, and Howie, a softie through and through, would do anything to make Marsha happy. Not long after their honeymoon, in the Catskills, they started to plan for a family. They both loved children, despite childless first marriages, and they weren’t getting any younger. They tried to get pregnant for a few years but with no luck. Then they tried with this and that doctor, this and that procedure, this and that kind of fertilization, all for naught. No matter what they tried and no matter how much they spent and no matter to which doctor they pleaded, nothing worked. Even Rabbi Friedman couldn’t help, although he prayed for them.

Howie and Marsha wanted a family so terribly much. Middle-age, and all that lay in wait beyond that, felt like a great weight pressing down upon them. It just wasn’t meant to be, Howie told Marsha at long last. They agreed to give up trying. Then, the next month, Marsha was pregnant. It was a miracle. Thanks be to God, Rabbi Friedman said. Howie had never been sure of God, the Rabbi, or praying. But maybe I was wrong, he told Marsha. Maybe the praying worked. Maybe this was meant to be, for, as the Rabbi said, in his inscrutable wisdom, “what is meant to be, is meant to be.”

Howie and Marsha were ecstatic. They did everything needed to get ready for the new little one. They bought a crib, painted the baby’s bedroom to look like Fenway Park, delighted in shopping together for baby clothes and rattles and shakers and plushies. Howie bought a book of baby names and read it many times, as did Marsha.

When at an ultrasound exam at the doctor’s office they learned the baby was to be a boy, Howie suggested the name Asher. Howie had the baby name book with him, and he told Marsha the name meant “the happiest one.” Marsha loved the name. At the exam, the technician gave Marsha a thumbnail print of the baby in her womb. She studied the picture as she lay upon the white sheet on the examination table, her head propped up on a pillow.

“Looks like a little butterfly,” Marsha said.

She turned the print around for Howie to see.

“Look,” Howie said, “I think that’s Asher’s penis.”

“No, I don’t think so, he’s still too tiny. But, well, if it makes you happy to think it.”

Howie pulled the wallet from his back pocket, unfolded it, placed the thumbnail picture inside behind his driver’s license. There the picture of the little butterfly, Asher, would remain for eternity. Howie was full of joy. Never in his life had he known such happiness. He felt that now, finally, everything in life made sense. It was all perfectly clear.

At the next ultrasound exam, the technician’s face tightened as she moved the handheld wand around on Marsha’s belly. She stared intently at the black and white images on the screen. Howie looked, too. He could not see Asher in the blurry images. Babies move around, the technician said, and sometimes it can be hard to find them. But Asher was not to be found. Howie’s limbs felt numb, his mind blank. Technicians and nurses and doctors came and went into the exam room, hurrying and scurrying. Try to hold the wand this way, said one. No, no, look over here, said another. Move it to the left, no, move it to the right. They moved the wand this way and that. They re-applied gel to the bottom of the wand, placed the smooth cold metal wand bottom again on Marsha’s belly. They whispered and talked and said things like, hmmm, and huh, and oh. They talked gently to Marsha, whose tears began flowing. They talked to Howie, too, but he could discern no words, perhaps because he was so far away. He watched the scene unfold as he hovered above, at the very top of the high ceiling, looking down at himself and the drama below.

*                                  *                                  *

Howie was peeing. He remembered that if he closed his eyes and focused on the streaming sound, he could forget. It was a moment of peace. Sleet was again plinking on the bathroom windowpanes. Howie liked that sound, too. Marsha stirred, propped up her chin in bed, and looked at Howie. She was relieved to see the tattoo of Bracha was gone.

But who was that now on Howie’s bottom?

“Howie,” Marsha said, “there’s a man.”

“A man?”

“Yes.”

“At the door? I’ll just get my robe.”

“No, no,” Marsha said. “On your left cheek. A tattoo, a man with a long beard.”

“Marsha, not again,” Howie said, as he walked to the sink to wash his hands. Is Marsha losing her grip? I wish we had a family. Maybe she’d be happy. She’s been unhappy for so long. I miss our happy days. When was the last time we fooled around together? There was one time about seven years ago, at New Year’s. Too much to drink. No, no, was it five years ago, after Uncle Bernie’s nephew’s bris? God, is this living? It’s just—waiting. Maybe we should have got that divorce.

“Did you hear me?” Marsha said.

Howie looked in the mirror, at his backside. There it was. A tattoo of a man in a long black coat. A lengthy beard, a black hat, spectacles. Wait, is that—the rabbi, Rabbi Friedman? Yes, it is, the rabbi! Well, that’s just, that’s just not right. What is this? Why now, after all these years, should the rabbi make an appearance in such a way?

Howie had dropped out of the congregation not long after he and Marsha lost the baby. He had gone to speak with the rabbi, but it was no use.

“Why, why would God do this, rabbi?” Howie had said.

“These things happen, Howie. We can’t always know the why. Sometimes things aren’t clear to us, but we can have faith.”

“That’s it? That’s all? What do I tell Marsha? God’s a mystery, so no baby for you?”

“Tell her that you love her,” the rabbi had said.

Howie could not bear such madness. All of it. Losing the baby. The rabbi’s inability to help. Why should people suffer so?

“It’s too much,” Howie had said then to the rabbi. He said it again, now. “It’s too much, Marsha. I won’t have it. I just—can’t.”

“What are you going to do?” Marsha said, as Howie pulled up his jeans, put on his button-down shirt, slipped on his heavy work boots.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” he said.

He tucked his wallet and car keys into his jeans, strode to the front door, and called back to Marsha, who was still in bed, “enough! A man can take only so much, Marsha. Answers. Yes, answers! I will return—this time with answers. There must be answers!”

Howie walked out into the frozen street without even his winter coat. His crazed eyes shone as brightly as silver half-dollars. Sleet clung to his long uncombed hair, which flopped every which way like venomous snakes slithering on the head of Medusa. His heavy boots crunched snow and ice on the sidewalk as he trudged to his car. Although it had been years since he had been to the synagogue, he knew the way.

When he arrived at Temple Emmanuel, Howie parked the car, slammed the door shut, walked to the front of the building. The high front doors were open, flanked on each side by two beefy armed security guards, for such are the times in which we now live. Howie slowed his pace, and with great effort forced a little smile for the benefit of the guards as he walked past them, into the lobby, then into the main sanctuary. The great hall was full of worshippers, as this was Yom Kippur. The men, women, and children looked down upon their prayer books, many chanting as they read. At the end of the hall, Rabbi Friedman stood next to the cantor, both up on the bimah, the wooden alter raised above the seated parishioners.

On this, the holiest day in Judaism, the Day of Atonement, Howie Fine, seething with rage, his wild eyes flashing, called out with a booming voice, “Rabbi, what is the meaning?”

A hush fell upon the hall as the praying lifted their eyes to see the wild man with a tight, angry face staring at the rabbi.

“What is the meaning?” Howie said again.

The rabbi looked at Howie, taking a moment before recognizing him.

“Howie, is that you?”

“Why?” Howie said loudly, “why is God doing this?”

Then Howie opened his belt buckle, dropped his pants and boxers, turned his back to the rabbi. The parishioners gasped. Many turned away, while others covered the eyes of their children with their hands. By now the two security guards were at Howie’s side. They were Goliaths, who together lifted Howie, as big a man as he was, his pants and boxers still around his ankles, and began carrying him toward the front doors. Howie struggled and kicked for all he was worth.

“There has to be an answer, rabbi,” Howie screamed. “There must be. This is not right. It is not right!”

As Howie slashed and wriggled and fought, the two guards carried him with great difficulty. Bits and bobs fell this way and that from Howie’s pockets, so great was his writhing. His plastic comb clattered to the floor. His silver metal pill case opened, pills scattering. As the burly guards wrangled Howie over the front threshold, his wallet, too, tumbled out from his flopping pants, and, upon the wallet opening, the picture of Asher slipped out of the wallet’s folds.

A great wind had swept across the town and bore down now on the temple grounds. Howie fought and the skies howled. The wind lifted the little picture. It floated up like a delicate butterfly. Howie reached out for it as fast as he could, but the picture was beyond his grasp. The more he struggled, the tighter the guards gripped him.

“No!” Howie said, “please get that, the paper, please!”

The guards looked at each other. In their scuffle with Howie, neither had noticed the picture flutter off. Even had they, it was too late, for the picture blew across the street, then up, up toward the heavens. Howie stopped struggling. His limbs fell limp as he watched Asher fly away— a butterfly on the wing. He tried to blink away tears. In another blink, the happiest one was gone.

“You see!” Howie screamed, his voice cracking. “You see, Rabbi, look what He has done!”

 

Jeffrey M. Feingold’s stories, widely published in literary journals, have been nominated for the Pen America Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, the Pushcart Prize, and The Best American Short Stories. His first two story collections, The Black Hole Pastrami (winner of the National Indie Excellence Award), and There Is No Death in Finding Nemo, were published in 2023. His third collection, A Fine Madness, is forthcoming in late 2024. He resides with family in Boston, MA.