The Many Lives and Deaths of Michael O'Rooke

Chapter 1Halloween 1979. The first time Michael O’Rooke dressed in drag, and the first time he came back to life. The club was filled to the brim. Sweaty patrons mixed with feather boas, sequins, and wax paint; faces marked with blood and gore and glam. Costumes piled on costumes, each person a holographic version of someone else, the air practically electric with the tingling feeling of wearing another’s skin, or holding someone’s skin, so close. Mike had wanted to dress as a woman that night. He’d known it deep in his bones, ever since touching the gowns in the back room of the theatre in his high school in the Midwest. He’d come to the big city, NYC, for college and quickly dropped out of his business program to become an actor. His family had stopped talking to him for that. So he di