How'd I wind up in the desert- surrounded by tattoos?

Medical Economics, 6/92

By Fred R. Kogen, M.D.
GENERAL PRACTITIONER/SANTA MONICA CALIF

I'm a doctor and a mohel, which means I make a living doing the two things I enjoy most: practicing medicine and celebating the Jewish faith. For me, the Brit Milah, or ritual circumcision, is the medicine of pure joy, preserving a centuries-old tradition and sending a baby into the world with the joyous blessing of family and friends. Jewish law doesn't mandate that the mohel be a physician. In fact few mohels are. But I've found that many families prefer the added safety of having a doctor make that delicate cut.

As a mohel, I keep a black bag packed with sterilized instruments, a book from which I read the ancient Hebrew scriptures, and my yarmulke. The image of the elderly rabbi with gray beard, black hat and long coat, shuffling off to perform the ceremony is valid, but not for me: I'm 33 years old and arrive at the brit in a Nissan. I've performed the Brit Milah in poor homes and rich homes, in Beverly Hills mansions and in spare apartments. I circumcised the child of a lesbian couple, one of whom was artificially inseminated. But nothing in my training prepared me for the call I made one day in the southern California desert.

"Fred, this one is a little different," said the rabbi on the telephone. "Different, how?" I asked.

"You'll see," he replied and gave me the father's telephone number.

Joseph was a first-time dad. Raised in a Reform household, he had done little to keep up with the tenets of the faith, but he wanted his son raised as a Jew. His wife was considering converting to Judaism and agreed that a ritual circumcision was the right thing to do.

"I don't know much about the ceremony, Doc," Joseph told me on the phone, "But it's something that should be done. See you Sunday."

What was odd was that he couldn't give me his address. He said he lived "in the middle of nowhere," outside Los Angeles. After driving about 100 miles, I was to stop at a certain liquor store at the side of the road, call from the phone booth, and wait.

By the time I had reached the Mojave Desert, my car was covered with dust. The relentless wind blew desiccated tumbleweeds across the empty highway and stirred up little cyclones of stinging sand. I cursed the sweltering temperatures, then paused to remind myself that Jews had a history of crossing deserts. I pressed forward under a blazing orange sky, past cacti, barren boulders, and rusty road signs, including one pockmarked with shotgun bullets that read "No Shooting." A mile outside a town marked Ridgecrest, I spotted the liquor store-and my pay phone.

As I fumbled for the number, two field hands with squinty, leathery faces, their heads wrapped in bandannas and carrying six-packs of beer, shuffled past me and toward their flatbed truck. They shot me a curious glance but said nothing. Joseph answered his phone. "That you, Doc? Don't go nowhere. Someone'll be right on down."

"Hurry!" I thought to myself. Standing there in my dark suit and yarmulke, I imagined myself in a Billy Jack film.
"Well, well, what've we got here," sneered a redneck in my daydream. "What's that pretty boy wearin' on his head? Looks like some kinda beanie to me. You know what we do to guys wearin' beanies, don't ya?"

The sound of a honking horn snapped me back to reality. From a cloud of dust emerged a red Ford pickup sagging from the weight of a washing machine and four huge tires in the back. It skidded to a stop a few yards in front of me, spraying more dust on my freshly shined shoes. The door swung open and out stepped an enormous man with shoulder-length hair and sideburns. He was wearing blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt that stopped about 6 inches above a huge hairy belly.
"You the Doc?" he grinned. "Howdy," I swallowed. "Well, follow me."
His truck sped off down the highway and then onto an unmarked dirt road. My car sputtered behind, encompassed in a cloud of engine-fouling dust.
As the arid desert scene swept past me, I remembered something my rabbi once told me. "Fred, the Jewish faith has something for everyone. And wherever you go, no matter how remote, you'll find some Jews."

We screeched to a halt in front of a ramshackle mobile home. Several scraggly chickens scratched the hard dirt outside. And in front of a rickety wooden porch stood a line of gleaming Harley-Davidson motorcycles. My escort pried open the door and we stepped inside.

"Here we are," he said. I looked around the room. The tiny home was filled with bikers, a sea of black leather and shiny chrome. There were 10 men, all size extra-large, wearing black engineer boots, Levi's frayed and ripped, and belts with large silver buckles. One belt buckle was big enough to read 10 feet away. "The Grim Reaper," it proclaimed.

The six women were wearing torn jeans with T-shirts. One had a tattoo of a hissing snake running the length of her arm. She and nearly everyone in the room were puffing Marlboros and guzzling Budweisers out of tall-neck bottles.

As my eyes darted about, I spotted knives attached to belts, wallets locked to bodies with chains. Another tattoo on the arm of a particularly hairy man read, "Mama Loves You." It covered his entire bicep.

In my mind I envisioned the headline: "Missing doctor found mauled in desert, caught in biker brawl."
A hand reached out and touched me on the shoulder.
"Hey, Doc, I'm Joe ... Joseph. Thanks for coming out."
Joseph had a beard and long dark hair tied in a ponytail. He was shirtless and had a huge hairy chest. On both arms were tattoos. He wore a red bandanna, a gold earring, and a chain around his neck. Hanging from the chain was a small Hebrew symbol, a "chai" (life).
"Well," I gulped, "shall we get started?"
In the small kitchen sat his wife, Susan, holding Andrew, an adorable, round-faced, 10-pound child wearing a tiny shirt marked "Honda."
"It's a joke," said Susan. "Funny," I said.
"Thanks for coming," she continued. "Joe really wanted to do this. We don't go to temple or anything. That's kinda hard way out here. But we know this is important. I was just wondering, well, will it hurt?"
"Only a little," I promised. "Try not to be nervous."
"Okay."
"And, Joe," I added, "can you find a shirt?"

"Brukheem Ha-ba-eem b'sheym adonai. Blessed are you who come in the name of God. " On a small wooden table in the living room, I had placed my instruments, two candies, and four glasses of wine.
"The rite of circumcision has been enjoined upon us as a sign of our covenant with God, " I read.
I introduced the godmother, godfather, and the sandek, who is usually the baby's grandfather, but who, in this case, was an older friend of the family. He was a strapping man with a dark bearded face, which began to grow gentler, I thought, as my words filtered through the room.
'Blessed is the Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, by whose Mitzvot we are hallowed. "
The child was passed from godmother to sandek to me, and the room fell silent as I prepared for the critical moment. I gently placed the child in a restraint and asked his father to stroke his head. I looked up. Two enormous men, who probably see more blood in the local bar every Friday night, were breathing heavily and seemed absolutely white with anxiety. It's a common reaction, but the queasiness would soon disappear. Working quickly, I placed the small stainless steel clamp on the baby's penis between the foreskin and the glans and shut it tight. Then with one precise surgical stroke, I removed the foreskin. From the room, I detected an audible gasp. I removed the clamp. A tiny drop of blood, which is normal for the procedure, appeared. I dressed the cut with sterile gauze.
Young Andrew didn't even cry.
"Mazel Tov!" I cried.
"Mazel Tov!" yelled the group.

"O God, we give thanks to You for the gift of our child, who has entered into the covenant of Abraham. Keep him from all harm, and grant that he may be a source of joy to us and all his dear ones, " I continued. "Be with us, and give us health and length of days. Teach us to rear our child with care and affection, with wisdom and under- standing, that he may be a faithful child of our people and a blessing to the world. We give thanks to You, 0 Lord, the Source of Life. Amen. "
When the ceremony had concluded, it was time, as usual, for the seudat mitzvah, the religious feast. The Talmud says it is a commandment to celebate with a meal. What, I wondered, would be served?
Within seconds, caps were being popped off more tall bottles of Bud, and someone passed around a tray of sandwiches. I took one, peeled back the white bread and found inside a slice of ham.
"Just a little joke, Doc!" someone shouted. Then the room erupted into laughter.

On the long ride back to Los Angeles, I thought to myself how the Brit Milah which I'd just performed is God's promise that the Jewish people will continue to exist. Even out in the Mojave Desert, it was important to keep the lineage intact. With so many mixed marriages, a dwindling Jewish population, families feeling isolated from their community, it is imperative that the message not be lost. I imagined little Andrew all grown up. If he's lucky, I thought, he'll appreciate his faith. I had a funny notion of a young biker, screaming across the desert on his Harley chopper, dressed in black leather. And a beanie.

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