The Holy Association of Hit Men

Tales from Leprechaunia 65

The Holy Association of Hit Men

Giovanni MacO'roni was born a good boy who, being spoiled rotten by his widowed mother, graduated from adolescence to become the number one hit man of the Leprechaun Mafia. But Giovanni's dearly departed mother - the funeral costs would have sent a lesser hit man broke - was never satisfied with his success. She would have been twisting and turning in her air-conditioned coffin, with hot and cold running tears on tap, had she known that her beloved failure of a son hadn't been able to buy that extra one vote needed for him to be elected as the Godfather of the Holy Association of Hit Men.

Had she known the full story of the horror of that defeat it would have gotten her sitting bolt upright in the coffin, trying to unscrew the lid from the inside! Giovanni had been defeated for the godfathership by a damned Protestant! And she'd have remembered to hit the coffin's emergency exit button if she'd heard the news that her loser of a son had been pipped at the post by the newly elected Godfather, one Eggnog McLash, being a hard boiled English Garden Gnome ... a rotten EGG who needed a damned good whacking by a loving Catholic boy, if anyone did. But that Giovanni was elected as Vice Godfather of the Holy Association of Hit Men was a sop that kept the lid on the coffin. At least for the time being - and only just, given that the first of the lid's screws was ever so slowly turning undone.

Now Giovanni MacO'roni sat on the driver's seat of the two-wheeled hansom cab on the long journey transporting Isabella O'Mafiosa from Bottled, the capital of Screwcap County, to distant Bogmania. He could only reflect on how he'd lost the election and on the irony of life in general. Doing so even while Isabella O'Mafiosa, the Protestant but ravishing wife of the Catholic Godfather of the Leprechaun Mafia, sat with her Catholic but sullen teenage son, Little Tony, inside the cabriolet of the hansom cab. But Giovanni didn't see the irony of Little Tony being baptised a good Catholic gangster-to-be, even as he had been. However, he'd been made of sterner stuff than Little Tony, who shouted for the cab to stop, then stumbled from the cab with motion sickness to spray paint the roadside with vomit.  Thereafter the green-faced teenager refused to get back into the cabriolet, declaring that he was hitching home - to which Isabella agreed.

Giovanni could only shake his head at the sick weakness of the younger generation. In his day as a loving Catholic teenage lout, adolescent delinquency was a hard-nosed affair to be proud of.  Daubing fences and walls of elderly lady English Garden Gnomes with patriotic slogans such as Leprechauns Rule! was a duty not to be shirked. And using bottles of rotten potato gas to blow up letterboxes of English Garden Gnome school masters were risky commando attacks to be bravely undertaken regardless of possible six-of-the-best consequences if caught in the act. Yet six-of -the-best weal marks of the cane on bared buttocks were badges of honour that would have been proudly displayed except for their unsightly location. Thus they unfortunately remained badges of honour unseen, even if somewhat sheepishly boasted about. But not to his mother, who saw his being caught by damned Protestant Gnomes as yet another sign of failure.

Of course, during those heady days of pimpled surliness, Giovanni's mother - long suffering while still impatiently waiting to be dearly departed - would nag her son.  Her son who one day would say ten rosaries on bended knees for the Big Leprechaun in the Sky to saint his finally departed mother, even though the first screw of the coffin lid was beginning to undo. Even then he could almost hear her incessant nagging to study hard at higher crime and get a job as a crooked bean counter with the local Baked Beans Blessed by God cannery. And for him to find a nice Catholic girl - but not that flirting tart, Maria Hotpants O'Pasta! - and marry her.

Being a rebellious lout of the first order, Giovanni had disappointed his loving mother on both counts. He'd taken a job as an apprentice bean stalker climber with Beelzebub's Barbecued Baked Beans company, only quitting when he discovered that the Protestant giant living on top of the magic fluffy clouds had a bigger attitude than he did. Thereafter, Giovanni was well and truly tramping along the road to perdition, with various career moves as a hit man seeing him graduate from carrying a .001 noodle to packing a .45 calibre spaghetti in his shoulder holster. And he forgot what might have been if Maria hadn't swapped her hot pants for a nun's habit upon joining the Holy Order of Perpetual Hope and Amnesia.

Sometimes he idly mused on how he'd like to salvage her from that! For he'd only once dated a good girl. Her name was Rosa O'Roma - a virgin his mother had approved of but who was a colleen who refused to pole dance naked among the tombstones in the local graveyard - a perfectly reasonable request for such as Giovanni. The pre-loved virgin who was eager to do so - bodacious, bonking Beatrice McDuff - he'd been eager to come to lascivious grips with in a try-before-you-buy sort of prelude to the suicide of marriage.

But upon hearing that Beatrice was a no-good Protestant English Garden Gnome, Giovanni's still to be sainted mother hit the roof, suffering concussion. And when she lay dying in her hospital bed from this mortal blow, she could only shriek an unspeakable curse when pregnant Beatrice came to visit her. The prospect of being the mother-in-law of a pregnant slut of a Garden Gnome was too much, and she immediately departed, riding the elevator to heaven - shouting over her departing shoulder for Giovanni to drop to his damned knees and pray for her sainthood. Which he did, also ditching Beatrice as a virgin too far away.

Now driving the hansom cab, Giovanni shook his head in memory of the good old days. He even wiped a tear from his eye.

See also:

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 1

01 The Shamus Affliction

02 Leprechaunia O'Guinness

03 Leprechaunia the Brave

04 Guilty Secret

05 Widow Weeds

06 Figs Leprechaunia

07 Billabong Vegemite

08 Didgeridoo Solo

09 On the Wagon

10 The Meaning of Life

Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics

Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics (re-posted for St Patrick's Day 2009.)

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 2

11 Honoured Days

12 Corking the Corkless

13 Youthful Years

14 Sergeant O'Leprechaun

15 Between Two Stools

16 Travellers on the Road

17 A Werewolf-Vampire by Any Other Name

18 The Broken Harp

19 Necessary Evil

20 Serendipity

The Leprechaun Stood on the Burning Deck - Lyrics

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 3

21 The Three Wise Leprechauns

22 The Three Wise Homeless Leprechauns

23 The Three Wise Mummy Leprechauns

24 The Three Wise Nun Leprechauns

25 The Three Wise Hari Krishna Leprechauns

26 The Three Wise Buddhist Leprechauns

27 The Three Wise Pilgrim Leprechauns

28 The Three Wise Unemployed Leprechauns

29 The Three Wise Academic Leprechauns

30 The Three Wise Associate Professor Leprechauns

Leprechaunia the Olde - lyrics

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 4

31 The First Vegemite War

32 First Casualties of the Second Vegemite War

33 The Battle at The Slumped Leprechaun

34 The Ruined Blarney Stone

35 The Victorious Vegemite War

36 The First Goodwill Expedition

37 Gentlemen Husbands

38 A Question of Law

39 The Last Post for the Fallen

40 Blessings

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 5

41 The Reverend of Bogmania

42 Good Eggs On a Mission

43 Sister Minty

44 The Only Deadly Sin

45 Fellow Travelers on the Road

46 Uniforms Hung Out by God

47 Mrs Blunderbuss' Waterloo

48 Plotters and the Sergeant of Police

49 Monseigneur & Monsignor

50 Church and Crown

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 6

51 The Royal World Mud Wrestling Championship

52 Professor Egghead McBoffin

53 Night Visitors

54 Captain Pegleg Sook & Spotted Dick

55 The Wreck of the Juneweed

56 The O'Mohican-Leprechaunia Nation

57 The United States of Leprechauna: a Potted History

58 The Fried O'Chicken Clan

59 Strange Travelers

60 In Pursuit of Disgrace

Tales from Leprechaunia - series 7

61 The Leprechaun Mafia

62 The Ravaging Godmother

63 Brewer's Droop Anonymous

64 Blunderbuss Wedding