Chapter 3
3.
Hung Out to Dry
“Friends will let you down, even Disco Witch friends, but if you stick around for the next great song, you’ll be glad you did.”
—Disco Witch Manifesto #37
Thanks to Howie and Lenny’s directions, it only took Joe two minutes to find Ronnie at the back of the Flotel Motel. When he saw his best friend’s face, Joe knew something was up. But then Ronnie confessed why he had avoided meeting Joe at the ferry, and it was way worse than Joe could have imagined.
“No job or housing?” Joe repeated in shock, shivering in the cold of Ronnie’s beer-cooler-sized room. “I don’t understand. Didn’t your friend Scotty Black say the bartending jobs and housing were definite?”
“Not exactly.” Ronnie was wearing an Eagles tank top, greasy cutoff shorts, and a pair of yellow rubber cleaning gloves. “And he’s not exactly my friend. I guess he meant the jobs were like a definite—”
“Jesus, Ronnie!” Joe’s stomach clenched anxiously. “What am I going to do?”
“I swear I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Ronnie snapped off his rubber gloves and then made a cross with his finger atop his right pectoral muscle. “Scotty told me he was pretty sure there would definitely be jobs for us.”
“ ‘Pretty sure’ or ‘definitely’?”
“This is just how these gay vacation places work,” Ronnie said. “Workers out here are like gay geese. They spend their summers here and then migrate to Miami or Key West for the winter. Scotty told me that every summer two or three regulars will head to P-town instead or fall in love with someone down at their winter gig; or, sad to say, some have been getting sick and … you know, whatever, they don’t come back. So, Scotty invited a few more workers than he needs. He said he thought it was a near-sure thing.”
“Are you serious?” Joe was livid. “This douche lied to us just in case his bartenders died of AIDS?”
“I guess you could say that’s good news, right? Nobody died. We should be happy.” Ronnie cast his eyes to the floor like a dog that had been caught chewing up a roll of toilet paper. “Okay, I feel like a twenty-four-karat dickbag,” he said. “I shoulda told you it wasn’t definite, but then you might not have come—”
“Exactly,” Joe spat.
Ronnie looked down at the floor. “Okay, I’ll admit it: I just didn’t want to do this alone,” he said in a way that made Joe know it was finally the truth. “I also worried that if we got separated, I’d lose your friendship, and you’re the only best friend and mentee I’ve ever had. I’m really sorry.”
It was pointless for Joe to try and make Ronnie feel any worse—despite it being a clear case of a half-truth. He knew his friend’s intentions had been good. But still …
“Look, Ronnie, I get it. You were doing your wishful thinking thing again.”
“It’s called creative visualization ! I read it in a book by Shakti Gawain. And it works … most of the time.”
“Right. Cool. Whatever. So what am I going to do? I spent nearly every cent I had to move out here.” Joe squeezed his eyes closed. Was this how a life of gay homelessness started?
“We’ll figure something out,” Ronnie vowed. “Let’s keep our positive energies focused!”
“Do you think I could work here at the hotel too?” Joe asked. “I’m not proud. I’ve been cleaning bedpans for the last two years at Friends Hospital—”
Ronnie shook his head. “I already checked. Scotty said the Flotel only needs one porter. Otherwise, he’s only looking for a bouncer at the moment—meaning someone who’s huge and looks like a bull mastiff. You’re way more beagle than mastiff, unfortunately.”
Joe’s fingers massaged the burgeoning migraine above his right eye. “I don’t think I could even make it to my mom’s house tonight. What time is the next ferry back?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Ronnie said quickly. “Look, I’m not supposed to have guests, but maybe you can crash here for the time being. The cot’s too small for two, but we can take turns sleeping on the floor. It’ll be a little hard, but I could steal some extra pillows from the supply closet. We just have to make sure you don’t get caught. It’s not exactly the Ritz, but it’ll be fine.”
Joe looked around the dank room. Its concrete walls were painted zinc white with cheap royal-blue accents. The tiny cot was shoved up against the wall with a threadbare blanket thrown across the top. A leak stain on the ceiling was ringed with black mold.
“On the floor, huh?” Joey slid down the wall onto the cold cement. A chill shot into his butt cheeks. “At least we’ll be ready for them to transfer our bodies to a slab in the morgue.”
That ever-present light in Ronnie’s eyes dimmed as he flopped onto the cot in defeat. “I fucked up, okay? I wanted this to be our momentous transformational summer. Maybe my positive thinking was a little too positive, huh?”
Just as Joe was picturing himself sleeping on the beach, hair a tangled mess, begging muscle-bound men for sips off their protein shakes, he felt a sudden stab from the triangular folded club card stashed in his back pocket. “Oh, hey, I forgot.” He pulled the flier out and unfolded it. “I met these two old guys when I got off the ferry. They said if I got stuck, I could crash with them. They wrote their address on this.”
Ronnie’s brow arched. “They literally just offered you a place out of nowhere?”
“Yeah. I know. Do ya think they were serious?”
Looking closer at the wrinkled mimeograph, Ronnie’s eyes grew wide. “Holy crap, this club card has to be from the seventies. Crisco Disco? Why the heck would he have something like this with him? And what the hell kind of address is that?”
“I have no idea.” Joe took the flier back. “It could mean not sleeping on the floor, right?”
“I sure hope they aren’t a couple of gay cannibals is all I can say.”
Joe laughed. “Not these guys. They’re really nice. A little like a Tom and Jerry cartoon—only older and gay. They clean houses and stuff.”
“Crashing with two old house cleaners?” Ronnie said. “You gotta be careful who you associate with out here. You don’t wanna be pegged as the help .”
Joey picked up the toilet brush from Ronnie’s cleaning supply caddy and waved it with his best Bea Arthur deadpan. “Seriously, Hazel?”
“As I said, it’s temporary.”
“Exactly. Same as me spending a couple of nights at Howie and Lenny’s. Maybe they’ll even know about other places I could stay or work. Where is Picketty Ruff anyway?”
Ronnie opened a map of Fire Island Pines that showed the grid of little walks and boulevards on the nearly vehicle-free island. “Hey, whad’ya know!” He pointed out his window to a tall wooden fence. “It’s just on the other side of that. Like fifty feet away.”
“That’s bitchin’.” Joe picked up his duffel bag, a fresh wind filling his lungs. “I mean I should at least go check it out, right?”
“I get off at four. I can go with you then—”
“Naw,” Joe said. “I wanna go while they still remember they made the offer. Don’t you always say I should never miss a good opportunity?”
“Yes, I do, l’il buddy.” Ronnie placed his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Just be careful, okay? If stuff gets weird, just scream in this direction.”