Tales from Leprechaunia 68
Born-again Hit Man
The lovely and recently divorced Jezebel O'Legless-O'Corkless cheerfully accommodated the ravishing Isabella O'Mafiosa - the lady wife suffering from ravishment deprivation syndrome because she was married to Big Luigi, the Godfather of the Leprechaun Mafia. But Isabella's driver, Giovanni MacO'roni had to find other quarters. No problems for one such as he! Being a discerning hit man of the Leprechaun Mafia, he naturally chose to stay in Bogmania's very own half-star Ruined Blarney Stone pub. Not that he got paid for endorsing it with his glowering presence. As well as quite distinct and separate accommodation, there was another major difference, too, in the circumstances experienced by Isabella and Giovanni when in Bogmania.
Jezebel, as a lapsed daughter of the Holy Leprechaunia Church who was recently divorced from a limp-wristed Protestant absconding with a sailor for gay times all at sea, could and did compare notes about disappointing husbands with Isabella. For her part, Isabella was a lukewarm daughter of the Leprechaun Protestant Church - the transplanted English Garden Gnome Protestant Church by another name. And she was locked in marriage with a Mafia godfather who, when not too busy on blue-moon Sundays, was a devout son of the Holy Leprechaunia Church. A jovial, beer-swilling son but big in name only, despite being a lapsed proxy member of Brewer's Droop Anonymous. Given these unfortunate matrimonial circumstances, both virtuous ladies liberally imbibed from a bottle of cheeky tread-your-own red wine. The more they drank, the more earnestly they talked about swimming out to any troopship that happened to be passing to find the action necessary to ring their bells.
But Giovanni only had the companionship of a cracked shaving mirror in the pub's communal bathroom. And what a sober reflection it was staring back at him. His silent confidante was an abject failure! He suspected as much the very first night in the pub when the other patrons in the bar recoiled at the sight of him and hastily vacated the premises, having unbeknown to Giovanni caught a glimpse of the .45 calibre spaghetti coiled in his shoulder holster. Furthermore, the next morning when he accompanied Isabella to the grave of her father - Hamish McBog, who'd been killed by his own blunderbuss - the very weeds by the grave seemed to shrink back in fear from the hit man.
At that sombre spot it was as if an invisible hand had suddenly emerged from behind an invisible bush burning among the tombstones ... a hand that had abruptly whacked the hit man upon the head with a tablet of stone. A tablet inscribed with the words: Thou shalt become a funeral director! There and then Giovanni MacO'roni undertook to be an undertaker. And he was determined to be the very best funeral celebrant in the whole of Leprechaunia ... and he hoped that for once his sainted mother would be so proud that she'd boast about it to everyone in Heaven.
It was Giovanni's invisible epiphany - his magnificent instant of enlightenment as a born-again hit man, running around in circles on his corkscrewed road to Damascus. Instead of just whacking contracts and leaving them them beside the road, he'd bury them! And when natural causes no longer needed .45 calibre assistance to help expand the business of his new vocation, he'd smooth out the corkscrew road and go straight. To this end, he burned the midnight oil with a flowing business plan for his Born-again Hit Man Funeral Services Blessed by God - a one-man corporation.
At the very beginning of the corporation, the plan called for the core business to have a largely public service component. Such a service would be achieved by whacking the low life so hard that they stayed whacked, thus raising the standard of Leprechaunia's gene pool by weeding out the low life. And this had a divine seal of approval. After all, the Big Leprechaun in the Sky had originally given him the vocation as a hit man - why else would the Divine Personage have invented a .45 calibre spaghetti and shoulder holster? And hadn't He commanded him to be a funeral director ... a grave undertaking for one who didn't previously really believe in God but who was now hedging his bets.
Giovanni would initially begin by sticking advertisements in the windows of Bogmania's very own Protestant pub, the Ruined Blarney Stone, and also in those of The Slumped Leprechaun pub in the nearby Catholic township of Thirsty Shamrock. After all, his would be a denominational business ... even catering for druids lying legless within stone circles. Giovanni was broad minded that way. An immediate business outlay would be to purchase a hearse and two horses. A dwarf-Clydesdale would cater for hauling snooty English Garden Gnomes who typically loathed everything about Leprechauns and wanted to be sent off in a big way. The mini-Shetland pony, in a kilt, would cater for Leprechauns and others of the bagpipes persuasion.
Although the business plan had elements of forward planning such as stamping bar codes on the foreheads of legless patrons in pubs and stone circles to reveal use-by-dates, most of the plan was concerned with the here and now preparation for the afterlife. He would sign up couples with special introductory offers of two funerals for the price of one ... with a .45 calibre guarantee that they dearly departed together. There would also be group discounts on simultaneous funerals, with multiple double-decker coffins sharing the hearse. He might also promote a rent-a-coffin hiring and recycling service, complete with pre-loved shrouds from his shrouds cleaning business arm. This thoughtful and prudent service would be augmented by a rent-a-plot option, with a rent-an-eternal flame lit from the crematorium for discerning druids. Black tulips, blood-red roses and horses heads could also be provided if patrons were members of the envisaged Hit Man Retirement Village - with its own shooting range - and also belonged to the Hit Man Superannuation Fund.
Once firmly established, the Born-again Hit Man Funeral Services Blessed by God corporation would offer lady patrons a range of beauty products such as crematorium blusher, grave plot eye shadow and tombstone eye liner, along with crypt lip gloss and sarcophagus lipstick. Gentlemen customers could opt for crypt aftershave and crematorium hair oil. Finally, when the business was thriving, the President of the corporation would commission the Royal University of Leprechaunia in Corkscrew to research and produce the Giovanni MacO'roni Hit Man Book of the Dead, listing potential future customers as well as those who gave their lives so that Giovanni could carry out his God-given vocation. The Book might also give the theology intrinsic in the hit man vocation ... not that such really mattered.
See also:
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 1
05 Widow Weeds
09 On the Wagon
Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics
Leprechaunia the Brave - Lyrics (re-posted for St Patrick's Day 2009.)
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 2
17 A Werewolf-Vampire by Any Other Name
20 Serendipity
The Leprechaun Stood on the Burning Deck - Lyrics
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 3
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
32 First Casualties of the Second Vegemite War
33 The Battle at The Slumped Leprechaun
35 The Victorious Vegemite War
36 The First Goodwill Expedition
39 The Last Post for the Fallen
40 Blessings
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 5
43 Sister Minty
45 Fellow Travelers on the Road
48 Plotters and the Sergeant of Police
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 6
51 The Royal World Mud Wrestling Championship
54 Captain Pegleg Sook & Spotted Dick
56 The O'Mohican-Leprechaunia Nation
57 The United States of Leprechauna: a Potted History
Tales from Leprechaunia - series 7
65 The Holy Association of Hit Men
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Comments: 58
'45 calibre guarantee that they dearly departed together.' OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to enjoy seeing how this is played out.
Bar coding foreheads is a good idea. Perhaps we could bar code Gatherers and include a bar code reader in the next Gather upgrade.
Thanks for my Magi Magic weekly dose! :)
And thank you for coming along and sharing in the smiles.
Featured today at The Surreal Circus
(Fun stuff Magi! You're both on a roll!)
And thank you very much for the honour of featuring this tale.
Very witty, Magi.
Gotta get me some of these cosmetics Magi, I wonder if Avon would sell them?
As usual a wonderful tale and true delight. Thanks for making my day Magi!
Thank you very much, Debra, for the kind comment, as always.
No, stick with the medication you've got - you're doing fine.
Tomorrow is but a sleep away.
I'm pleased that you enjoyed it.