Page 88 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

As Ronnie ran off, Howie requested Elena to search along Fire Island Boulevard to see if Joe had fallen off or passed out somewhere. “Come back here when you finish,” he told her. “We’ll need your help.” He instructed Vince to go see how Ronnie was doing and come back for directions on where to search in the Meat Rack and on the beaches.

“Got it,” Vince said, running off to retrieve Ronnie.

Howie turned back to Dory, Saint D’Norman, and Lenny but found them in the midst of some intense, animated colloquy.

“What are you three jabbering about?” Howie demanded, annoyed. “You should be looking around for the fifth!”

“Didn’t you feel it just a few seconds ago?” Lenny grabbed Howie’s arm. “It felt like being hit with a Mack truck of energy. Gave me a boner even!”

“You mean—” Howie’s eyebrows furrowed.

“The electro-cranial-magnetic waves!” Dory offered. “They’re off the charts!”

“The fifth must be inside the club!” Howie said. “But who is it?” He gestured at the two thousand club goers surrounding them.

Saint D’Norman smiled and whispered into the ears of each of his three friends separately. As soon as he finished, each pair of eyes widened with utter shock.

“Him?”Lenny shouted. “You can’t mean that two-bit Fabio stripper?”

Saint D’Norman nodded his head.

Dory looked to Howie, whose eyes lit up with the fire of the entire club. “Of course it’s Ronnie!” Howie howled up at the disco lights. “How did I not see it? That’s why he’s been so angry with me all summer! When our true nature stares us in the face, it’s terrifying!”

“He’ll never believe it.” Dory sighed through her teeth. “How will we convince him?”

At that very moment, Vince came running back, pulling Ronnie by the arm.

“Thursty threw a fit.” Ronnie caught his breath. “But he’s letting me start my shift late. I just have to be back by midnight.” He looked at the four faces staring at him as if he were standing in a glass specimen box. “Um … did something happen?”

Howie grabbed both Ronnie’s and Vince’s arms. “Change of plans, gentlemen. Vince, you’ll need to search the Meat Rack alone. We need Ronnie here to help with something else.”

“He’smyfriend!” Ronnie spat angrily. “I want to go look for him!”

Howie nodded toward Dory. She was the high priestess of empathy and benevolent manipulations, with an unbelievable power to get the uninitiated to understand.

“Listen, my dear,” Dory said, switching places with Howie to be closer to Ronnie. “Take a deep breath, please.” Her old hand caressed his cheek as he did. “You’ve been caught in a muddle for too long. It’s time to locate your true self—the one you’ve always known was there. Trust us. We don’t have much time, and what we’re about to tell you will not make sense, but if you do exactly what we tell you to do, we can help Joe. Do you understand?”

Ronnie’s anxious eyes glistened in the glow of the four witches’ sparkling hats. “Is it going to hurt?”

45.The Meat Rack

“The Darkness doesn’t care.”

—Disco Witch Manifesto #66

It was hard for Joe to breathe the Meat Rack’s balmy air through his powder-caked nostrils. Scotty Black’s trail mix had also made Joe so horny and jumpy he felt like leaping out of his skin. Still he wanted to snort more—anything to stay high until he was off the island. The problem was there wasn’t a lot left in the bumper. He’d need to ration it.

Not watching where he was going, Joe stumbled down an embankment, scraping his already twice-wounded leg. He touched the reopened scabs and wiped the blood onto his white shorts. He’d need to be more careful.

Without a flashlight the Rack was far more precarious than he’d imagined, like a giant skateboard park with fifteen-foot drops in places, all covered with dirt, vines, trees, and roots. The only light was from the moon peeking through the twisted trees like some lunar pervert. Soon even that would darken with the eclipse. Wanting to get his bearings, he scrambled up the side of a steep dune. From the top he could see the shimmering sea with its glowing white waves, heaving and crashing on the beach.

If only Fergal could see this.Stop! Don’t think about him!But Joe couldn’t help but think about him. He pictured his face that night he told him he couldn’t see him—those blue-blue eyes hurt, enraged, and betrayed. Joe never deserved Fergal’s love anyway. Fergal was better off without him. Why wasn’t the drug working anymore?

Joe fell to the sand, curled into a ball, his body convulsing as he sobbed. Each tear contained the certainty that he’d never be happy again. He filled the chamber of Scotty Black’s bumper and snorted the last of the yellow-gray powder. He felt the burn, the whoosh, but this time there was no release from the despair. It was still there, along with his cowardice and the crushing pain of all he had lost. He tossed the empty bumper into the shrub pine. Again, his body shook with his tears. He felt so exhausted yet horribly awake. Without more of the drug, how would he make it through the night? How would he brave enough to make his escape?

“What’s going on?” a man’s deep voice asked from the shadows.

Joe looked, but only saw a tall shadowy form. Unable to speak without crying, he waved the man away.Can’t he see what a mess I am?But the man stepped forward from the shadows and angled his body so what was left of the eclipsing moonlight revealed his identity. He wasn’t wearing a Titans sweatshirt, but he had that same expression of desire and disdain on his strikingly handsome face.Gladiator Man.

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