Page 79 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

Of course, Howie’s necromancing stomach was more often right than not. Consider the spring of 1981 and his most catastrophically accurate prediction of all: the plague that had decimated legions of holy lovers. But what was the use of speculating whether there was or wasn’t an impending cataclysm? Without a quorum of Disco Witches on the island, they were helpless. He prayed his stomach was on the fritz with the rest of his powers.Let Lenny and me be wrong this time, Great Goddess Mother. Let us be the most wrong we have ever been.

“Time to snap out of it!” Howie commanded himself. He then jumped from his bed, threw on his favorite Hawaiian birds-of-paradise caftan, and stared into his closet. After all the recent terrible news, he decided to break his fashion fast and bring some necessary light to the island.I should make a new hat. Something that reminds people of their holy place in the world.Of course, with things as they were, there would be no inherent magic—it would only be for show.Still, something silly and colorful might at least brighten the mood.As a frontline volunteer at the Morning Party, he would be seen by everyone at least once. (This would also allow him to keep an eye on Joe, just in case the boy found himself overwhelmed.) As he was about to go make sketches of a joy-inducing hat for the party—silver Mardi Gras beads, bows, and tinsel; a disco dinosaur perhaps?—he heard loud banging coming from the attic.

“Joe!” Howie ran to the living room and clambered up the ladder. “Are you all right?”

As soon as his head popped over the lip of the attic hatch, he saw Joe sitting on the floor. His right hand wove dramatically through his wavy dark hair while his left held his stomach as if he had been punched. His drawers had been emptied. Clothing was strewn across the floor as if it had been ransacked.

“Joe, you scared me!” He grasped the neck of his flowered caftan like a six-foot-three femme fatale. “I thought you had injured yourself!”

“I can’t find it.” Joe’s voice cracked with emotion.

“What did you lose?” Howie stepped up into the attic.

“It’s this mixtape I listen to all the time. It’s really important to me.”

“It’s awful to lose things,” Howie said. “Can’t you recreate it? I mean we have thousands of albums and a state-of-the-art (give or take a few states) record-to-tape console downstairs—”

“No!” Joe snapped. “You don’t get it! Someone else made it for me. It can’t be recreated.”

Joe dipped his head between his arms. He wasn’t crying, but Howie knew that was probably because he was there. Looking over to the top of the bureau, Howie noticed the cassette’s empty jewel case with the handwritten title in blue marker ink:Love Songs 1, with a tiny smiley face and a three-word note.Love you forever. E.

“Oh, I see,” Howie whispered. “Your Elliot made you the tape?” Joe nodded, mumbling something into his forearms. “I’m sorry, Joe, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say?”

Joe lifted his head. His aura was illuminated by despondent dark blue, a sickly green, and speckles of somber red and grayish pink. Rippling underneath everything was that unresolved and bitter black that had been present since day one. Only now it appeared twice as pervasive. Howie looked away for a moment, his sensitive retinas unable to behold that hue of wretchedness for long periods.

“When we first met,” Joe said, “Elliot made me a bunch of mixtapes. This was the only one I had left.”

Howie recognized the razor-sharp center of Joe’s pain. He, himself, had had nine romantic heartbreaks in his own life, not to mention the scores of beloved friends and comrades he had lost over the last eight years. He knew so many who were, at that very moment, in the process of losing a lover. Joe’s pain was … not worse, but different. Confused, yearning, incomplete.

“Did you look inside the Walkman?” Howie asked, taking his hand from his own heart, where he had been holding it.

“Of course. I looked everywhere. After Fergal and I broke up, I took it to the beach to listen to it, and walked halfway to Water Island. I dunno—maybe I changed the tape on the way back and left it on the steps at Sail Walk. But when I went back to look …” He shook his head.

“I see.” Howie attempted to make sense of what he didn’t know. The indigo of clarity suddenly illuminated Howie’s own eyes as a jab of insight poked his intestines.Elliot. Fergal. Elliot. Fergal. Lost tape.“Joe, you and Elliot—was there something unfinished between you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Joe gruffly mumbled to the floor. “We loved each other, then he got sick and died.” He lifted his head, but not his eyes. “No. That’s a lie. Did Fergal tell you?”

“No, not at all.” Howie placed his large warm hand on the middle of Joe’s back. “You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I’m tired of lying.” Joe’s whole heartbreaking story suddenly spilled out. All of it, from falling in love with Elliot, to learning of his HIV infection, to Elliot’s refusal to talk about it, through their fights, all the way until Elliot cut Joe off and then disappeared forever.

Howie visualized the entire relationship both mentally and viscerally. He relived Joe’s agony, the regret still lacerating his soul. And just when it became unbearable, Howie saw the light blue of truth breaking through Joe’s aura, fighting to overpower that putrescent green.

“I didn’t even find out he had died until weeks after.” Joe’s reddened eyes looked to Howie. “I don’t blame you for judging me. I get it. You and your friends stood bravely by while all your lovers died in your arms, and mine kicked me out because I couldn’t handle it. And then I go around lying to everyone about it. I just felt so embarrassed and angry at myself. He was all I ever wanted, and I couldn’t even … Anyway, that’s why I broke up with Fergal.”

Howie raised his eyebrows. “So Fergal is …?”

Joe nodded.Thiswas what Howie had been subtly intuiting for months. He just hadn’t wanted to believe it. So many of the most kindhearted of the island’s demigods had fallen victim to the plague. “That poor, sweet boy.”

“What really sucks is”—Joe’s words fought their way out—“I’m completely in love with him. Great, right? I came out here to get over Elliot, and I fell for Fergal—someone else who has the virus. But at least this time I knew the relationship would be doomed. I’d lose my shit again. I won’t do that to him too.”

“I understand,” Howie said gently. “Of course, there is the minuscule possibility it might be different this time. You’ve grown so much.”

“I don’t think I have. And what happens if he dies? Huh? It would just hurt so bad. I’d rather be alone forever …” Joe choked on a small gasp of air and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets to stem any seepage.

Howie sat next to him and pulled Joe’s head to his chest. “It’s all so confusing and awful,” he said. “Holding all that inside, not being able to talk with Elliot … of course that made it impossible. And that wasn’t only your fault. But to lose your first great love like that … so unfinished. It makes absolute sense to be scared to love again. How can we even begin to love without the delusion of forever?” He stroked Joe’s hair. “It was almost two years ago that your Elliot left us?” Joe nodded. “And you’re twenty-four now, which means you were only a child when all this—”

Joe lifted his head abruptly off Howie’s chest. His aura flashed an angry red.

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