Photography by Helen of Dream Pixel Photography. Model and fellow pizza addict : Kaylee Hoffman Story by Nick Flash Pizzeria: Hoboken Pizza & Beer Joint SD, California
It’s about 3 a.m and I can’t sleep. I’m starving. I’ve been doing good this new year eating healthy and working out. I got a fridge full of kale and fruit for smoothies. But my freezer, well that’s a different story, my freezer’s stocked full of pizza. Supreme pizza, pepperoni & sausage pizza, margherita pizza, Hawaiian pizza, small pizza’s, large pizza’s, microwavable pizza’s, you name it, I got it. I splurged today. I know I shouldn’t have, but that isle in the grocery store just would not let me pass it by unnoticed, it was too tempting. It’s not for lack of trying. I tried to control myself, I really did, but I just couldn’t. I could hear the pizza screaming my name. I couldn’t shut it out no matter how hard I tried. I’m weak. Pathetic even. I can admit it. They say acceptance is the first step to recovery, but I’m at my breaking point.
I can smell the intoxicating fragrance of melted mozzarella drifting through my bedroom, yet nothing is cooking. I’ve been counting imaginary slices all night trying to make myself go to sleep, but it’s driving me mad. It’s been nearly three weeks since I’ve had any. This is the longest I’ve ever gone in my thirty five years of life. My father Giuseppe owned a Italian restaurant in Hoboken New Jersey after immigrating from Italy in the late 40’s, and since I was born, I’ve been tossing dough and making pies before I could even walk or talk. After my father passed away, my mother sold the place to some real-estate developers who demolished it to make room for some modern strip-mall that pedals big corporate greed. I’d never been so devastated in my entire life. My older sister Beth could have stopped them of course, her being a fancy pants lawyer and all, but she chose to look the other way as our fathers dreams were smashed to smithereens.
Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep, because I keep thinking of my Dad. I was still pretty young when he passed away, he had me when he was in his late 40’s. I was the youngest of four kids from two marriages. But that’s besides the point. I’ve never known anyone my whole life as passionate about anything as my Dad was about that restaurant. I feel as if I’m letting him down. I hate my job. No, I absolutely despise it. I thought it’s what I wanted, a 401k, a six figure salary, a beautiful wife and a fast car, but no. I’m miserable. The happiest I ever was in life was in Dad’s old pizzeria. The maps of Italy on the walls, the black and white photographs of him as a kid picking grapes in a vineyard, sepia worn photos of him with movie stars and gangsters on his trips to New York City. He was my idol.
My wife thinks I need to get in shape. She stopped sleeping with me months ago but that’s fine with me, she’s doing me a favor. I’m not attracted to her anymore anyway. All she does it nitpick, complain, and spend my money on frivolous crap that that makes my house look like some kind of set from the home shopping network. To make up for the lack of intimacy I was indulging in copious amounts of pizza from every shop within a hundred mile radius. I live in Chicago and the thin crust pies and deep dishes here are incredible but nothing can compare to Dad’s. I could get up and pop a frozen pizza in the oven but that won’t satisfy my craving one bit, I just know it won’t. I need to feel that dough in my hands again, I need to toss it high up in the air and watch it spin, spread some homemade marinara sauce on it and sprinkle cheese over it with more finesse than that viral chef salt-bae or whatever his name is.
But there’s only one place I know of that’s open now, and she works there. She is even more tempting than the pizza. It’s her that has me thinking all these things, questioning my life and all. Bringing my dissatisfaction to the surface after I’ve suppressed it all these years. There’s never anyone in there at this time on a Monday, it’d just be her and I. Last month she gave me a tour of the kitchen where I could marvel at the brick oven that reminded me so much of Dad’s. We made love that night, in that kitchen, and I’ve been feeling so guilty that I had given up pizza all together but it’s no use. It’s a lost cause. My life has no meaning without pizza, or without her. It’s time I put some meaning back in my life and some pizza back in my belly. Time to quit my job, to leave my wife, to kick the status-quo to the curb once and for all. Time to follow my heart and ignite my passion again, to follow in my dads footsteps and leave a family legacy of pizza for generations to come.
