PROLOGUE
“Nothing deadens magic like the day-to-day onslaught of unrelenting grief.” Disco Witch Manifesto #134 Fire Island Pines May 3rd, 1989 . . . early morning As Howie Fishbein searched the drizzly Great South Bay, his headphones blasted Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Flames of long silver hair whipped his weathered face, while his velvet bathrobe, the color of thick raspberry jam, billowed in the wind behind him. From a distance it appeared as if the island was bleeding.
There had been several omens indicating “a being of significance” would be arriving by water. What exactly the
significance was, he did not know.
“We’ll just have to wait,” Howie said to a passing double-crested cormorant he thought might very well be the reincarnation of one of his many dead friends. “It’s all we can do.”
***ONE
“When stuck in her blues, a Disco Witch can always boo gie to another part of the dance floor.”
Disco Witch Manifesto #23 The Ferry
May 3rd, 1989 . . . later Where the hell is it? Excited by the prospect of crossing the Great South Bay for the very first time, Joe Agabian was struggling to see Fire Island through the ferry’s rain-splattered window. It seemed as if the universe had purposely employed the fog and drizzle (and the scratched plexiglass window) to hide his past and future under a thick veil of secrecy.
He pulled the first mixtape Elliot had ever made for him from his backpack and inserted the well-worn cassette into his Sony Walkman. It was nearly four years ago when Joe first noticed his future lover sitting in those red banquettes upstairs at Woody’s Bar in Philly. When Elliot looked over at Joe, it was as if a thousand blue-green dragonflies had swarmed his young heart. Elliot had sandy brown hair, shining hazel eyes, and a strong (but not showy) body— a result of playing baseball as a teenager. And then there was his strong, resonant voice which had launched a thousand hours of smart, funny banter. Elliot cared about the poor, hated Reagan, and worshiped Fleetwood Mac. He was the one Joe had been waiting for his whole life.
Then the bad news . . .
“It’ll be a challenge,” Elliot warned after explaining that he had recently tested positive for the HIV virus. “You sure you’re up for it?”
“I’m in love with you,” Joe said, “and that’s all that matters.”
The cassette sleeve bore the handwritten title
Mixtape 1: Love Songs. Joe could still feel Elliot’s touch in the scrawl of the fine-tip blue marker. He had made a total of seven mixtapes for Joe during their relationship. Six had been lost to moves, mechanical accidents, or the flood in Joe’s mother’s basement the previous winter—which had also destroyed most of his and Elliot’s photos together.
Mixtape 1 was the only cassette left and Joe cherished it more than any other object in his life. It would be the perfect soundtrack for laying eyes on Fire Island for the first time.
He pressed play. Suddenly, the percussive jolt of Peter Gabriel’s “Kiss of Life” jackhammered against the fog.
Copyright © 2025 by Blair Fell. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
