Some grey and putrid mass had washed onto the shores of Fire Island’s historically gay and affluently-populated Pines, perfuming the summer air with the jolting aroma of rotting animal fat and offal. A group of young, slender white men jogged past, in inexplicably close proximity to the unidentified corpse. “What is that?” one of the men inquired. “It’s a dead seal,” offered Lee Pivnik.