Page 50 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

“I do. We need to stay angry but also remain hopeful. It’s difficult.” Howie lowered his voice. “Don’t tell Lenny, but Dory and I have been to a few ACT UP actions.”

Joe smiled. “You carried picket signs and everything?”

“Yes,” Howie whispered. “We even got arrested at City Hall.”

Joe scrunched his thick eyebrows. “No way. You and Dory went to jail?”

“Only for about eight hours. It was fabulous! Screaming my lungs out for Mayor Koch to come out of the closet and do something about AIDS. It was the most therapeutic thing I’ve done in ages. If I weren’t stuck out here, I’d do more, but I do what I can. Don’t mention anything about me going to jail. It wouldn’t be good for Lenny’s heart.”

“No worries.” Joe looked again at the blue flier. “Why’s he so against it?”

“His Roman Catholic internalized homophobia mostly. He thinks we need to be martyrs to get anywhere. Funny thing is, he used to be a total radical back in the day.”

“Lenny? You’re kidding.”

Howie shook his head. “Both of us were at the second night of the Stonewall riots. He threw beer cans at the cops. Ever since he passed fifty, he’s become his mother.” Howie sighed. “The thing is you have to make a ruckus if you want change. No, there isn’t a cure yet, but there never will be if we don’t demand they look for one. As that Irish poet who drank himself to death at the White Horse Tavern said, ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ ” Joe’s eyes remained fixed on the flier. “Haven’t you ever wanted to just go into a rage about AIDS?”

Joe pulled a birch leaf from a low-hanging branch. “Sometimes … no—always. But it doesn’t do any good in the end.”

Howie squinted. The brownish green in Joe’s aura was a signifier that he was unable to release something acutely painful—a psychic bramble stuck to his soul.

“Joe,” he said softly. “What is it?”

“I just don’t like to think about that stuff. It makes me sad.”

Of course.Howie saw it so clearly now. “AIDS has taken someone from you, hasn’t it? Someone very important?”

Joe looked down at the tray of impatiens and flicked at the soft, tooth-edged leaves. His murky aura became streaked with shimmers of blackness. Inside those shimmers Howie saw windowless walls, devastation, lies, yearning, loss, loss, loss.

How awful that someone so young should have lost such a love.No wonder his aura had looked the way it had. But then another realization—with the loss of his love, that meant it wasn’t actually three strikes against the rubric. It was only two. Thankfully, two was plenty to disqualify Joe from being the chosen one.

“I’m so sorry,” Howie said. “I foolishly assumed since you were so young, you might have been spared. I didn’t know.”

“His name was Elliot.” Joe’s voice cracked. He turned his eyes from Howie’s as if he were embarrassed by his grief. “It’s been close to two years. I should be over it by now, but …”

A breeze tousled the trees. Two mulberries dropped to the deck. A mourning dove chirped. Howie had to be careful to avoid any sort of interrogation that might slam the door to Joe’s heart. “Healing isn’t on a fixed schedule,” he said. “It comes when it comes.”

“I know,” Joe said, turning back. “But at some point you have to get the fuck over it, right?”

“Sometimes that’s true. But is forcing yourself to forget working? For me, mending a broken heart requires going on all sorts of emotional detours—ruminating on what might have been, hoping for the impossible, and lots of raging and crying, crying and raging. Stopping the process too early can, well, prolong the suffering or even leave thick scars on our souls that affect all our future relationships. Or that’s the way I look at it, anyway.”

Joe appeared even more lost than before. Howie worried that he had said too much. But then Joe looked straight into Howie’s eyes in a way he had never done before.

“I’m just so lonely,” he said. “Elliot was the only guy I ever dated. I mean … other than one-night stands and all. I never was able to love anyone else, before or since. Ronnie says I’m emotionally stuck. He says I need to get out there and date other guys—just let myself have some fun.”

“That’s definitely part of the process,” Howie agreed. “I’m a great believer in taking action at the source of one’s despair. But only when you’re ready. If you stay open, the Great Goddess Mother will reveal pathways to healing. But in the meantime, go easy on yourself.”

“Yeah, Ronnie says the same thing—but without the Goddess Mother stuff.” A brief smile before the muddled expression returned. “I’ve been trying tostay openand hook up, but something always gets in the way. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“I wasn’t talking about hooking up,” Howie said, smiling. “I’m talking about sharing about it with people who understand. Like a support group or … maybe, if you’d like, you could check out an ACT UP meeting with Dory and me sometime. There’s not a person in that room who hasn’t had their hearts ripped open by this disease one way or another.”

“Maybe. I dunno,” Joe said. “It sucked not being able to talk about it when Elliot got sick. I guess we were both afraid how people would react.”

“But you have to talk about it—scream about it. ‘Silence equals death,’ as they say.” Howie’s heart thrummed excitedly. “I have a brilliant idea. Why don’t you volunteer to bartend at the ACT UP benefit? We’re having a meeting later this afternoon at Dory’s house. Join us?”

Joe shrugged and put the blue flier down on the picnic table. His aura began to flicker like a broken neon sign proclaiming blockage and heartbreak. He was hiding so much more inside about Elliot’s death. It didn’t take any superpower of prescience to see that. But what?

“I can’t,” Joe said. “Ronnie and I are going to a housewarming party on Ocean Walk. He’s been dating this rich guy who built some fancy new beach house. Folks are calling it the Taj Ma Homo.”

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