Page 9 of Disco Witches of Fire Island

“Don’t push it, Lenny,” Howie muttered. “So shall we all agree that Joseph here, who looks practically like your son—brother, I mean,littlebrother—will be our temporary guest in the attic?”

Lenny sighed with resignation. “Okay,” he said, “but he’s got to pay rent and share the chores while he’s here.”

“Of course!” Howie gushed. “I’m sure young Joseph will be happy to help.”

“Definitely,” Joe agreed.

“Good! Then we want at least twenty-five dollars a night!” Lenny said.

Joe’s heart sank. Twenty-five dollars was more than his budget. “I don’t think I can afford that. I only brought seven hundred dollars with me. I need to stretch it until I get a job.”

“Great work, Miss Fishbein.” Lenny folded his arms while adding a harrumph. “Suddenly we’ve turned into a Bowery flophouse for indigent twinks.”

“Oh, just stop,” Howie said, brushing Lenny off. “Joe’ll get a job as quick as you can spit. There’s the Seahorse clothing store or one of the two liquor stores or … wait a minute. I’m an idiot! I’ve got a fabulous idea! Joe, wait up here one minute. Lenny, come with me.”

Howie and Lenny scrambled down the ladder again. Joe heard the phone being dialed and then Howie talking to somebody. A few minutes later, the men scrambled their way back into the attic. At first, Howie looked dire but then quickly broke into a broad smile.

“You have a job interview at fivePMtoday with Dory the Boozehound.”

“A job interview?” Joe’s heart bubbled with the news. “But how … I mean, withwho?”

“Dory the Boozehound. You’ll adore her. She’s eighty years young, rich, and fabulous.”

“Owns a bar called Asylum Harbor,” Lenny added.

Howie pointed out the front window. “Adorable little bucket of blood just across and down the walk. Dory’s part of our inner circle—a bodhisattva if there ever was one. So many people with AIDS have spent their final hours lying on her deck, watching the waves, listening to their favorite disco tracks until it’s time for them to go.”

“You mean”—Joe’s voice cracked with an emotion—“they die in her house?

“They do,” Howie said. “Dory believes it’s her responsibility to try and give those in need a beautiful place to cross over. Right now, one of our dearest friends, Saint D’Norman, is staying with her. He was terribly sick last year, but he’s so much better now. Praise the Great Goddess Mother. I’ll tell you more about Dory and Saint D’Norman later, but you should go get your things, and then get ready. Meanwhile, Lenny and I will get your room in shape. Let’s say seventy-five dollars per week for now? A little more after you get established. Would that work?”

“Yeah … I mean … wow.” Joe couldn’t believe his bad luck was finally turning around. “So I can stay? Seriously?”

“Only until Max moves back,” Lenny corrected.

“Of course,” Howie replied, winking at Joe. “Something like that.”

5.Dory the Boozehound

“The lesbians, fag hags, and transsexuals shall save your wounded ass.”

—Disco Witch Manifesto #12

Dorothy Lieberman-Delagrange, aka “Dory the Boozehound,” had just celebrated her eightieth birthday with a luncheon feast of chicken paillard at the 21 Club. After a slice of candle-torched chocolate mousse, she and her granddaughter, Elena, took a car out to Sayville to catch the ferry to Fire Island Pines. “Saint D’Norman is thrilled you’re spending the whole summer,” she told Elena. “He’s been fixing up your room all week.”

“That’s sweet of him,” Elena said, half listening, as her finger drew a woman’s teary face in the steamed-up ferry window. Huge, liquescent tears ran down its foggy cheek.

Elena was an unparalleled beauty—when she wanted to be. She had perfect caramel-brown skin and haunting green eyes that were preternaturally large. She often complained that she looked like a sloth when she didn’t wear makeup, ignoring the fact of having been a successful model since the age of fourteen—the first Black girl ever to appear three times on the cover ofTwentieth-Century Girlmagazine. With all the trauma of the previous two years, including the two stints in Bellevue—which Dory had only foundout about after the fact—it was no surprise that Elena was considering retiring at the ripe old age of twenty-three. When Dory suggested that she come out to Fire Island for the summer before making any serious life-altering decisions, Elena responded with one of her expressionless shrugs. “Why not?” she mumbled. “An island filled with men ignoring me sounds like the perfect oblivion.”

Dory fingered Elena’s lovely golden-brown curls tied into a bouquet atop her head. She loved her granddaughter more than anyone else in the world and was devastated at the thought that her precious girl had tried to end her own life—more than once.

Whatever caused her to feel this unhappy, I’m sure Fire Island can heal her,Dory thought.If any place can …

Dory’s relationship to Fire Island Pines was far different from most residents’. Her roots in the community dated back to the 1920s, when her white, Jewish father Milty “Gutterjuice” Lieberman, at the behest of his Black, Seventh Day Adventist wife, stopped bootlegging and went into real estate, purchasing dozens of acres of the barrier island. Years after his death, Dory made a small fortune selling the bulk of the property. For sentimental reasons she kept a half-acre plot on Ocean Walk, though for decades she’d never set foot on it, turned off by Fire Island’s notoriously racist, (mostly) white inhabitants.

But then in 1970, recently widowed Dory became involved with a mystical cabal of gay clubbers in Manhattan’s nascent disco scene. During a night of intense dancing at the Loft, she had a vision where her late father, Milty, appeared to her and told her she should build a great house on the vacant Fire Island property and open a “sleazy little gay bar” in the Pines.

So she did. The house she built was a magnificent six-bedroom beachfront paradise, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the great Atlantic. It became the perfect summer retreat for her club friends (of all races) to celebrate their annual three-day-long, highly decadent Summer Solstice Party. Dory,who had always been vociferously straight, became an even greater star of the gay community, and she set her sights on opening the gay bar.

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