Straight {Chapter 1}

I work for my papa at his Italian restaurant in Times Square called Pizzasta. We sell pizza and pasta as our main courses, and we have all the original Italian recipes from Papa’s side of the family going way back. Desserts are my specialty in this place, and people love them all the same. I didn’t get my cooking from my papa or my dad. I’m adopted.

Papa got the ReproDuct, but his new organs failed on him, which occurs rarely in operation. Once they fail, you can’t go back to your original sex organs, which I find sad because people still do it despite the risk. My dad and Papa resorted to adoption. According to Papa, I’m a treasure to him. If I were to be compared to gold or platinum, I’d be worth more than piles combined of the two elements. Papa’s world is also revolved around me, and I don’t even do anything to deserve it. I have a bigger connection with Papa, whose name is Tony, than I do with my other dad, Blaze. Blaze has a hard hand while Papa gives the sweet kiss as I call it.

“Justin, two tomatoes,” calls Papa.

I toss two of the red, plump fruits from across the kitchen in the back of our little place.

“Thank you!”

“We need those pizzas for table three, Tony!” shouts Blaze from the front counter.

“I’m getting them out right now, Blaze!”

Oh, there’s another thing. My “dad” is Blaze Paul. I don’t even call Blaze “Dad.” I just call him Blaze. He doesn’t deserve the Dad title if you want me to be frank. First off, I can’t believe Papa would marry somebody with a name like Blaze. Secondly, Blaze is the biggest son of a bitch you would ever meet just anywhere. He never does anything around the house. He controls the restaurant as if it is his own baby, not Papa’s even though Papa started the business way, way, way, way, way—how many more times do I have to say that word—way before Blaze appeared in his life.

Blaze never does the housework in our small apartment in New York City. When I was a kid, he isolated me from every single girl that walked past me in school and on the street. Columbia University became an all-boys school after the war, so I was sent there instead of NYU, which had been my dream school ever since I was a freshman in high school. Blaze wants me to be the most “perfect son” in the world…or at least in America. The world is the least of my worries. Anyway, it’s the whole perfect son is a boy that does his schoolwork, follows orders when given, and they do not lay eyes on girls act. Blaze knows how to show it off for sure.

Tony, short for Anthony, has pride in our Italian culture, which is the opposite of Blaze. I love Tony, my papa, my role model, my mother figure that I’m never going to have anywhere or anytime else. He always says that Blaze treats me too harshly (it’s true, he says it always). Blaze is always busy when he isn’t being a bastard (that’s also true). Papa is not at all mean, strict, or a bastard. Naïve perhaps, but not a dumbass.

Papa and I talk to each other all the time about everything…well, almost everything. We talk about everything from clothes to food to movies to anything that is interesting in the day. I sound like a complete girl when I say that, but I am not like one of those boys who are about to get the ReproDuct if he is married and wants to have kids like everyone else. Papa kind of knows this about me. Then again, he is oblivious to my sexual status.

“Papa, here are the cannolis.” I pass the tray to him by sliding it on the marble countertop.

“Oh, thank god,” Papa sighs, “Mr. Boran was waiting for these for fifteen minutes.” Papa takes the tray out of my hands.

“Papa, are we going to see How To Succeed tonight as promised?” I ask.

Papa’s distracted, but if I know him well, eight percent of the time, he multitasks on listening and working. “Yes, Justin. You, your father, and I are going together to meet up with the Ornellas.”

“The Ornellas?” I groan. “Are you setting me up with Lawrence Ornella?” The last time I heard Papa talk about the Ornellas was when they moved into our apartment complex. That was two months ago. I only know of their son, Lawrence, because Papa saw him while they were moving into the apartment. I have no idea if Lawrence has moms or dads or somebody, but what I know for sure: I don’t want to find out. Let gossip do all the work for me. Gossip has worked for twenty-two years, and it’ll still work for me even until I die.

“What makes you think that, Justin Michael?” laughs Papa. Papa only says my middle name when he’s thinks I dislike something.

“The last time we hung around the Melodies before they moved, you tried to hook me up with Spence.”

Papa put his hand on his hip. “How so?”

I roll my eyes to the side. “Oh, let me think. Somebody slid my hand over his, and I didn’t do it nor did he. Who else could’ve made the first frickin’ move than the person who planned the outing?”

“Justin, I’m only doing this to help you. You don’t get out much, and I blame that on your father for making you go on the bus with your jacket hood over your head and forcing you in the house when you got home from school when you were younger.”

“Blaze keeps me busy here. I don’t blame him for that.”

“You’ll be twenty-three in a month. You’re a man now, Justin Paul.” When Papa gets serious, that’s where my last name comes in.

“Unless I’m the one getting ReproDucted, and you know that much, Papa.”

“Justin!”

“Papa, the oven’s overheating,” I tell him to distract him from yelling at me.

“Aw shit, not again!” Papa turns the oven off and opens the door. Smoke flows out like a river rushing down a waterfall. We both cough, trying to catch ourselves some clean oxygen. “Well, at least the pizza didn’t burn this time,” Papa says, observing the pizzas from the inside of the oven.

“I’ll take them. " The pizzas slide onto the trays, and I pick them up with my semi-muscular fingers.

“Ten and two on the second floor,” informs Papa, closing the oven again.

“Thanks.”

“And Justin?”

I stop at the kitchen door. My foot is pressing against it to keep it slightly open. “What?”

“I’ll cancel the Ornellas then. It’ll just be you and me, kiddo. I know how much you wanted to see this play.” Papa’s eyes gleam like how the surface of water shimmers in the sun. Every time they do that, I know Papa’s sincere and serious. That’s when I love him the most.

I smile as I push my long brown bangs to the side of my face. I can feel sweat on my hair strands. Two words, split ends. “Thanks, Papa. I really mean it. Thanks.”