Page 44 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

About fifty seconds later, the Graveyard Girl held up a huge tumbler glass of punch. “It might sting a little at first,” he said. “Best to take a big gulp to numb the throat.”

Joe did as he was told. The Knockout—which Joe could now recognize as an extra-strong variation of a planter’s punch—carpet-bombed everything in its path—tongue, gums, and back teeth. Joe’s face scrunched in agony. “Holy shit, that’s strong. How much do I owe you?”

“Always on the house for a fellow bartender. When you need a refill, just say the word!”

“Thanks,” Joe said as he pounded down another gulp of the Knockout and made his way to the jam-packed dance floor. He could feel the alcohol pinballing around his synapses. He took another gulp, which no longer burned, but felt warm against his numb cheeks and throat. As Jody Watley’s “Real Love” blasted over the sound system, his body begin to sway, and all the dark and anxious thoughts that constantly swirled around his brain began to slip away. He took another gulp, then another.

After fifteen minutes he was feeling pretty good. He took in the whole dance floor. It was exactly as Ronnie had promised back inPhilly—shirtless young muscle studs everywhere, the potential for copious amounts of sex, a feeling of freedom. He returned to the bar, and before he could even ask, the Graveyard Girl pushed another Knockout into his hand. Locked and loaded, Joe was finally ready to shoehorn his hot Armenian American body into that sweating fortress of heaving flesh.

Drinking is miraculous! The Graveyard Girls are miraculous! Fire island is miraculous!For the first time in forever, he wasn’t thinking about Elliot or HIV or lying to everybody. He felt okay. Better than okay. Everyone around him was staring and smiling at him. Several men tousled his chest hair. A few grabbed his butt, and one unseen hand fondled his crotch. After politely moving the hand away, he crossed back to the dance floor’s edge and set down the remainder of his second Knockout on a cleanup tray. He’d rarely been that drunk and knew he needed to pace himself.

“Bad drink?” a man to his right asked loudly.

Joe felt the air and spit of the words more than he could hear them. He couldn’t make out the man’s face since he was backlit by lasers and strobe lights. His most defining attributes were his height and that, unlike almost every other man in the club, he wore a shirt.

“Do I know you?” Joe asked.

The towering man adjusted his position so that his face was given a demonic glow by a red work light. It was Scotty Black. His perfectly coifed white hair, glowing pink, was frozen in a 1970sGQmiddle part. “Don’t my bartenders know how to make a good cocktail?”

“It’s probably the best cocktail I’ve ever had!” As proof, Joe took another huge sip of the Knockout. His throat squeezed shut in protest, causing him to spit some out. Feeling guilty, he took another gulp, even bigger than the last. One of his eyelids closed more than the other. Scotty Black, like the first time he had seen him, raked his satanic eyes up and down Joe’s shirtless body.

“You’ve been working out.” Scotty let his lips touch Joe’s ear. “You almost look Promethean-good. You sure I can’t steal you away from Asylum Harbor? My guys make at least five hundred dollars on a night like this.”

Joe had never made five hundred dollars in one night anywhere. His mind flashed to all the things he might do with that sort ofmoney. But then he thought about Vince and Dory and the little merman clock over the bar. Fuck Scotty Black and his money. Fuck him for trying to shut down Asylum Harbor. Fuck him for not giving Ronnie the bartending job like he’d promised. “You know what? You’re a full-on dickwad,” he drunkenly mumbled.

“Pardon?” Scotty Black leaned his ear down to Joe’s mouth. “I didn’t hear that. Have you been overserved?”

“Are you kidding?” Joe shouted louder that time. “I’m ab-solutely sober! I just said, thanks for the offer, but I like working at Asylum Harbor. We’re doing great.”

“You think?” Scotty snorted. “Dory needs to face facts. I’m not in the charity business. That shitty little bar won’t make it through August. If you reconsider my offer, call me.”

Scotty slipped his card into Joe’s front pocket, letting his hand linger before he slowly removed it. It took Joe’s last sober brain cells to stop himself from tossing the remains of his Knockout into Scotty’s face. “Sorry, Mr. Black!” he shouted over the music, “I’m feeling a little fucked up! I also have to go meet a friend … upstairs. Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it!”

Joe shook his head and stumbled up to the balcony. He wanted to find a spot where he could be alone. His happy buzz that had been climbing higher and higher on the roller coaster of inebriation abruptly tipped over and began its morose descent. Glassy-eyed, he gazed over the roiling dance floor, desperately searching for anything that might lead him back to the previous happy feeling. Those last few gulps and running into Scotty Black had ruined everything. The recurring darkness that had slipped away earlier came roaring back along with its rum-soaked forbidden memories.

Two years before in Philadelphia.

The middle of a Sunday night.

The last conversation he would ever have with Elliot.

Joe had been drunk that night too. He was blabbering into a pay phone in front of the twenty-four-hour Wawa market on WalnutStreet, chomping on pork rinds—his go-to food when he was sad and drunk. He was just around the corner from Woody’s Bar, the place where he had first fallen in love with Elliot.

“Hello?” Elliot’s low and sleepy voice answered the phone. “Who’s this?”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

“Joe?” Elliot said. “Joe, is that you? Are you crying?”

“No,” Joe said, sniffling.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

“Are you eating something?” Elliot asked.

“No,” Joe lied. He simply wanted to tell Elliot that he missed him. It had been only three days since they had taken a relationship break—their third such break in a month to be exact. Between his mouthful of fried pig skin, drunkenness, and weeping, it came out, “I (snuffle) m- m- miss (snuffle) y- y- you.” Crunch, crunch, crunch.

“Joe, you’re not supposed to be calling me, remember?” Elliot said matter-of-factly, as his therapist had probably instructed him. “We agreed we shouldn’t talk for a while.”

---