Justin Key

26 June 2017

Six months ago, during a particularly tense encounter with his father, Johnny “The Hornet” Teragio came out of the closet to his father, Jimmy “The Bull” Teragio, the head of the Teragio crime family. Unsure of what kind of reaction the Mob community would have to the news, Johnny kept his secret for nearly two decades, from the early age of twelve years old. Then, last year, he met the love of his life and wanted to share his joy with his close, but often dysfunctional family. To his surprise, everyone was overjoyed. Uncle Toni, who always seemed a little feminine to Johnny, embraced him like he never had before when Toni heard the news. Aunt Kyle “The Neck” threw Johnny a party better than any birthday celebration he had ever experienced—even better than his 21^st, a pseudo coming of age event in the Mob community where new men are shown the arts of whiskey drinking, cleaning, and fixing. Off the record, Johnny told me that a pair of his cousins had revealed to him that they were lovers; I promised on pain of death to keep their identities secure. Johnny had kept his gay secret for the same reasons, thinking that he was too different from his friends and family. (Cut out) He was relieved to find out that he was more at home in his family than he’d ever imagined.

Unfortunately, this newfound belonging only lasted a short time. Three months ago, Johnny was forced to turn to a new, but quickly growing organization for help with a problem that has taken over his life in the weeks after his coming out party. Though in serious settings, such as meetings with other families about territorial disputes and waterboarding sessions, his family still refers to him as “The Hornet”, in the day to day goings on, Jimmy and the other Teragios have regularly referred to Johnny as “The Fairy”. At first, he laughed at his new nickname, and chalked it up to his new acceptance in the family. However, those three syllables soon became unbearable to hear. And he asked his family to refrain from using that extremely hurtful slur. They didn’t, however. Even Aunt Kyle couldn’t control her hysteria when Johnny approached him, I mean her, for advice. “Tough it up, buttercup,” Aunt Kyle told Johnny and slapped him on his shoulder. Depressed and unsure of where to turn, Johnny felt hopeless.

Until he came across Lacy Darling’s YouTube channel. Lacy is a nineteen year old college freshman at the University of Brown, San Francisco, studying South Baghdadi Feminist Literature, with a minor in auto mechanics. According to her introduction video on YouTube, she was inspired by her English 102 teacher Katrina Phil (herself recently graduating with a Bachelor’s in English Literature) to fight against the “countless injustices wrought on the underserved and underrecognized” of this great nation. She says that one day after discussing a couple who made news for refusing to let their ten year old son have a sex change, Lacy was unable to stop crying and later determined to stop this injustice from ever happening again. Soon, she started her channel and expanded her crusade against other injustices—equal pay, bakery discrimination, and giving a voice to helpless dogs and cats forced to wear human clothing. Not long after, countless college kids and Liberal Arts faculty joined her in creating the non-profit group “Girls Against Tears.”

Johnny told me that Lacy’s video “Sticks and Stones May Break Our Bones, But Slurs Are Killing Us” opened his eyes to a community that would truly, and unconditionally, accept him for who he really was. So he emailed her. He told her his story. And she cried. A week later, Lacy and Johnny sat down with Jimmy to have a heart to heart. Lacy assured Johnny that she and her group of young strong women would make sure his family respected his wishes or suffer the consequences. Completely unaware of the danger that a nineteen year old girl with a Twitter account can be, “The Bull” laughed the two out of his home.

Undeterred, Lacy regrouped with her girlfriends and devised a plan to bring down the Mob. Twenty twenty-something’s gathered in a small apartment in downtown San Francisco and began tweeting any known associates of Jimmy “The Bull”. Police Chiefs who frequented Jimmy’s dealers. City councilmen and senators who were regulars at Jimmy’s brothels. Doctors and Lawyers who took kickbacks for unspecified and undocumented services. All of this information was provided by none other than Johnny himself. What were the tweets about? One tweet read “Jimmy ‘The Bull’ hates gays!” Another claimed, “The Teragio Family descended from none other than A. Hitler himself.” Reports say that Jimmy initially found the tweets amusing, even going so far as to retweet some himself, but if he had, those tweets have since been deleted. Soon, the Teragio family’s associates and partners began to distance themselves.

A spokesman for the Teragio family reports that they have taken heavy losses since Girls Against Tears began their crusade. Both Uncle Toni and Aunt Kyle have come out as transgender in hopes of assuring the young women that the Teragio family was one committed to tolerance, but Lacy, committed to the family’s utter destruction, tweeted a response: “Aunt and Uncle Tom can’t have it both ways; leave the house or die with it.” One member of the family wished to remain anonymous when he reported that, “If the family cannot settle this conflict soon, they will be forced to contact ‘The Jackal.'” Witnesses claim that the Jackal looks suspiciously like Bruce Willis, but it is unclear if these reports are trustworthy as a secret source within the family says that the only people who ever see the Jackal never survive the encounter. However, that same source confirms that other aliases that the Jackal has gone by are Goodcat, the Tulip, Corban Dallas, and unbelievably Bruce.

It is unknown if The Jackal truly exists or if this is just a desperate ploy by the Teragio PR team to intimidate the naive girls into ceasing their campaign to discredit the once respectable Teragio name. It is likely that Jimmy “The Bull” Teragio has met his match against the little girl from YouTube. Either way, Johnny “The Hornet” has found a new home and a new purpose in his life.  He tells me that he hopes to join with his sisters at Girls Against Tears and stamp out any and all injustice that may appear throughout this nation.

Update: Johnny has been elected to the board of Girls Against Tears and hopes to be an inspiration to all who wish to fight against the evils of American Patriarchy.

Update: Johnny has reportedly legally changed his name to John Smith and began speaking with a British accent because he no longer wants to perpetuate the Italian “Godfather” gangster stereotype.

Update: Girls Against Tears has reportedly forced John Smith to resign from his chair because it is a conflict of interest to have and Anglo American man in a seat of power of their organization.

Update: Lacy Darling has reportedly gone missing. Initial reports suggest the last known sighting was at the premier of Bruce Willis’ new movie Armageddon 2: Rise of Harry Stamper.

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Justin Key: “I am a Coloradan who loves to travel and experience new cultures. I’ve lived in southern and eastern China and have visited Hong Kong, Macau, and Nanjing. I greatly look forward to exploring the rest of the world. As a child, I struggled with a number of physical disabilities, including a major heart condition and scoliosis that required frequent operations. From three or four years old until the age of twelve, I had a major surgical procedure at least once a year. This made me into the man that I am now, blessed to be here and blessed to live in the great USA.”