Page 1 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

Prologue

“Nothing deadens magic like the day-to-day onslaught of unrelenting grief.”

—Disco Witch Manifesto #134

FIRE ISLAND PINES

May 3, 1989 … early morning

As Howie Fishbein searched the drizzly Great South Bay, his headphones blasted Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Flames of long silver hair whipped his weathered face, while his velvet bathrobe, the color of thick raspberry jam, billowed in the wind behind him. From a distance it appeared as if the island was bleeding.

There had been several omens indicating “a being of significance” would be arriving by water. What exactly thesignificancewas, he did not know.

“We’ll just have to wait,” Howie said to a passing double-crested cormorant he thought might very well be the reincarnation of one of his many dead friends. “It’s all we can do.”

1.Joe and Ronnie

“When stuck in her blues, a Disco Witch can always boogie to another part of the dance floor.”

—Disco Witch Manifesto #23

THE FERRY

May 3, 1989 … 3:30 PM ferry

Where the hell is it?Excited by the prospect of crossing the Great South Bay for the very first time, Joe Agabian was struggling to see Fire Island through the ferry’s rain-splattered window. It seemed as if the universe had purposely employed the fog and drizzle (and the scratched plexiglass window) to hide his past and future under a thick veil of secrecy.

He pulled the first mixtape Elliot had ever made for him from his backpack and inserted the well-worn cassette into his Sony Walkman. It was nearly four years ago when Joe first noticed his future lover sitting in those red banquettes upstairs at Woody’s Bar in Philly. When Elliot looked over at Joe, it was as if a thousand blue-green dragonflies had swarmed his young heart. Elliot had sandy-brown hair, shining hazel eyes, and a strong (but not showy) body—a result of playing baseball as a teenager. And then there was his strong, resonant voice, which had launched a thousand hours of smart, funny banter. Elliot cared about the poor, hated Reagan and worshiped Fleetwood Mac. He was the one Joe had been waiting for his whole life.

Then the bad news …

“It’ll be a challenge,” Elliot warned after explaining that he had recently tested positive for the HIV virus. “You sure you’re up for it?”

“I’m in love with you,” Joe said, “and that’s all that matters.”

The cassette sleeve bore the handwritten titleMixtape: Love Songs 1. Joe could still feel Elliot’s touch in the scrawl of the fine-tip blue marker. He had made a total of seven mixtapes for Joe during their relationship. Six had been lost to moves, mechanical accidents, or the flood in Joe’s mother’s basement the previous winter—which had also destroyed most of his and Elliot’s photos together.Love Songs 1was the only cassette left, and Joe cherished it more than any other object in his life. It would be the perfect soundtrack for laying eyes on Fire Island for the first time.

He pressed “Play.” Suddenly, the percussive jolt of Peter Gabriel’s “Kiss of Life” jackhammered against the fog.

Six months earlier

“Yo, Chachi,” Ronnie Kaminski shouted into the ear of a stunned, damp-eyed Joe on the night they first met. “You got some real nice dark eyes, and a sexy tan complexion. You Italian?”

Ronnie was six foot two, with a Chippendale’s body and Fabio hair. He was strikingly handsome despite encroaching crow’s feet and the errant gray nose hair. Joe knew who Ronnie was, of course—everyone loved to talk about him, Philly’s number one gay-bar star. Some said he was the lover of a Channel 10 weatherman; others, that he was the illegitimate son of Paul Newman; and another that he was the aging “kept boy” of an antigay local politician. True or not, Ronnie clearly relished the gossip.

“Armenian m-mostly,” Joe stammered, his anxiety about talking to hot guys instantly obliterating his already feeble ability at bar banter.

“Ah. Nice. I’m twenty percent Swede and eighty percent Polack, which is probably why I keep looking for meatballs in other guys’ pants.”

Joe realized that when someone is really, really hot, other people will automatically laugh at their terrible jokes—just as he was doing at that very moment. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said, figuring Ronnie would soon disappear to do whatever mysterious, magical things really hot blond guys do on a Saturday night.

“Hold up a minute.” Ronnie eyeballed Joe from head to toe. “You’re a very interesting subject. I’m kind of a gay anthropologist—a ‘gay-thropologist’ I call it. I like to study other gay guys, and when I find one that isn’t reaching his potential, I like to help him out. Like you, for example. Every weekend you come here all alone, looking like the worst sack o’ sadness.”

Joe’s face flushed. That someone like Ronnie would even look at him was surprising, but that he claimed to have noticed him multiple times seemed unreal.

“You’ve been watching me?”

Ronnie winked and made one of those suave lateral clicks of the tongueàla Bogart. “Don’t act so surprised. You got alook. Here’s the thing: I’ve decided it’s time you and me hit the dance floor and get to know each other.”

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