//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: I Quit the Mob Job 
// Story: Mobster Meets Equestria 
// by Caddy Finz 
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Chapter 1: I Quit the Mob Job


"Vinnie, You're one of my most trusted allies." The Don told me as our serious conversation went on.  "I respect your opinion on this, kid really I do but I've gotta ask you to reconsider.  I mean you're even a made man for her holiness' sake!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Zeppargoni." I said to my boss "But I just can't take it anym-"

"Vinnie, you're like a son to me.  You know that.  Call me Tony."

"Y-you really mean that, sir?"

"Have I ever told you any shit that I didn't mean as long as you've been working for me?"

"Well...not that I can recall, Mr. Zep-er, Tony."

"Vincenzo, If this is what you want, after all you've done for me and this family over the years...then you have my blessing, kid.  I'm gonna miss the hell outta you, man.  Wherever you go, I wish you nothing but the best."

So there I was at my boss' place telling him that I'm done with the mob and he's wishing me luck on my new beginning.  A forty-six year old Italian hit man who years ago wouldn't bat an eyelash at the idea of whacking somebody who I would consider a threat or an obstacle and yet there I was no longer able to hold back my tears.

"Thank you so much, Tony!"  I said.  I'm gonna miss you too.  C'mere!"

"Likewise."  Tony replied before muttering something under his breath.  "Goddamnit, where the fuck's my knife?"

Tony and I embraced each other in what would be our last hug and I bid him farewell.  I may be considered a tough-guy by many on account of having killed those who openly disagreed with it, but by mob standards, I was just a big softee.  Over the course of twenty-five years, over half my pathetic life, I lived and worked in the criminal underworld that is an organized crime family.  Over that amount of time doing what I was doing, I started thinking about shit a little too deeply.  

At first, I could piano wire some prick's head right off without thinking twice about it.  Last week I busted some punk's knee with a baseball bat and went home and puked over it.  I couldn't ignore it anymore.  I was tired of maiming and killing as a career and I wanted my soul back.  I needed to get outta here and I needed to quickly.  I figured it was time to quit while I was ahead and hope to whatever deity exists that it's not too late.  

After all, there were still plenty of assholes who wanted nothing more than to present me with a nice pair of concrete boots and one free eternity to sleep with the fishes at the exclusive river floor inn.  There were also others who would prefer to catch me off guard and have something rigged to my car that would result in a fireworks show when I started the engine.  That's another one of my gripes.  It would be nice to not have to look over my shoulder every time I go grocery shopping and worry about somebody putting a magnum in the back of my head. 

Leaving the mob was just the start of it all.  It sure as shit doesn't finish anything.  I have to leave the city If I'm gonna find serenity.  I'm thinking a nice country home upstate in a nice small town with a new legal name.  On the other hand, that's still a bit too close.  They've found other guys like me who moved even further away and look how they ended up.  Maybe a little cozy cottage in the mountains of Colorado would do nicely.  Nah, screw that!  I've gotta think of a place where one would at least need a passport to get to.  I decided that I'm going to the old country where my roots are...Italy.

After my conversation with the Don, I headed to my apartment to start packing.  This change in my life couldn't wait.  If I was going to leave the city and start over, I had to do it now.  As I walked in the general direction of my place, I did what I always did and hailed a cab and made my way back to say goodbye to the nice twenty-five hundred dollar a month apartment I called home for decades.  It was decent but no palace.  You think that price sounds high?  Well, I guess I forgot to mention that this is New York I'm talking about.  I've had no trouble affording it though.  Cash came easy in my line of work.  One would think that I was fortunate to have a thick wad of Benjamins but I sure as hell wasn't happy.  I haven't been happy for a very long time and no amount of money can buy happiness.

While I was in the cab, we passed by Central Park.  It was still sinking in that this would be the last time I would ever see it again so I ended up losing track of the fact that I had to get outta here quick.  I always loved to just go here and relax and think.

"Hey driver, change of plans."  I said.  "Since we're passing by the park just drop me off here."  To which he responded by pulling over.  I then paid the fare and I was just gonna enjoy the park one last time.

My favorite thing to do there was to just stare into the water in the fountain and think.  Not really about anything in particular, but I always ended up getting stuck in deep thought.  At this point I was thinking how quickly things were gonna change for me.  A guy like me doesn't like to admit he was nervous but I was.  It was a bittersweet moment for me as I knew I was going to miss everything I had known for so long.  After about a half hour of pondering over a few cigarettes, I figured it was about time I got back home to pack up.  That however, proved to be too little too late because at this point in my ordeal, I was about to get into some really serious trouble.

"Vincenzo Scungilli?"  A familiar voice said behind me.

"Who wants to know?  I retorted back as I turned around to face two old rivals and the business end of a glock in my face.

"You haven't forgot about us have ya punk?"  Said the gun wielding Joe Hoblini.

"Does it really matter, Joe?"  His obese sidekick Luigi Largenassi added.  "This prick's about to have no brains left to remember anything with."

"Of course I haven't forgotten you two."  I replied to them with my trademark blood boiling smug grin.  "The two pains in my ass, Fatman and Hobblin'."

That was the nickname I'd given that pathetic duo that had always made the twerpy little Joe so pissed that the gimpy little left leg of his would start involuntarily kicking so hard, he could have kicked an oil drum further than a Clydesdale could.  Luigi would always turn red and start to sweat and bitch about being hungry.  My smart ass attitude was short lived though because to my surprise, they didn't seem too upset by my insult.  This could only mean one thing.  They knew they had me this time and they knew they were about to finally turn me into Swiss cheese.

"Vinnie, I'm disappointed." Joe said returning my smug attitude.  "You're off your game.  I've never been able to sneak up on you fast enough hobbling over on this leg of mine."

"I was just thinking about stuff, Joe."  I replied now starting to get worried.  "Didn't you hear?  I'm retiring from the mob.  I'm leaving here to make an honest living and just live the rest of my days in peace."

As soon as I was done telling them what I knew for my own good I shouldn't have, they both bust out laughing.

"That's not happening, pal!"  Luigi said.  "Ya shoulda thought of that before you fucked with the wrong guys."

"Tell ya what."  Joe said as he pushed his 9 mm closer to my forehead.  "I'm a nice guy so I'll just give you a few seconds to say your last words before I splatter you, alright?"

I was determined to get out of the city and start over so I wasn't planning on anybody getting in my way even if that meant I had to kill again just one last time so I decided to go along with it and seize my opportunity.

"Well Joe, I think I speak for everybody in the whole damn city when I say that YOU CAN KISS MY ASS!."

Catching him off guard and proving to them that I still had fight in me I knocked his arm aside causing his gun to go off followed by a firm headbutt to his face, knocking the human toothpick on his ass.  Although it dazed him long enough for me to brace myself for the blob coming after me, nobody wins with a headbutt.  

Luigi was fat but he wasn't as slow as one would assume and he proved that when he clothes lined me right into the park's water fountain.  This was my favorite fountain that had a statue of one of my favorite Greek myths.  A winged Pegasus squirting water out of it's mouth...and this fountain was about to become my grave.  I was sinking in the knee deep water wondering what was to come next.  Were they gonna have mercy and just put one in my head like they were going to at first?  Or did they want to try a new approach by holding my head under until the bubbles stopped?  Either way, this was how it was gonna end. 

I opened my eyes under water expecting them to just be blasted out of their sockets and realized something weird was going on.  I had sunken all the way to the bottom of the two foot deep fountain and then some.  I looked like I was under six feet of water and counting and speeding up my decent.  I didn't see it coming but I figured this must be what it feels like to die weather I drowned or got my brain popped.  

I looked up to see my two killers looking down at me all slack jawed as if they had seen their mothers get blown up in their cars.  For some reason they were quickly getting further and further away and I was sinking deeper and deeper into the pool.  I'm no expert judge of distance but I think I was about 30 feet under by the time that all light visible to me was all gone.  Still holding my breath, I just lay there sinking with nothing else happening until I started to spin around under what seemed like a whirlpool.

"So this is how I'm gonna die."  I thought to myself as I drifted off to Hell.  "Flushing like a shit in a toilet bowl without a shred of dignity."

As I was bracing myself for soon meeting the devil, I also began wondering why the newly formed light above me didn't look that bad.  I could almost say that it was beautiful.  Then, for some reason my spinning came to a stop and I was heading right for the surface.  I began floating back up and at this point I was back up into about fifteen feet under.  All of a sudden, I started getting jolted upward even faster.  So fast that I thought once I reached the surface, I would almost rocket right out of there.  As I finally approached the surface just about to break it, I quit worrying about how or why.  I realized that I still may not have been dead but I would be soon if I couldn't take in a fresh supply of air.

"GASP!

Finally, with new oxygen in my lungs I could assess the situation I was in and gather myself to make sense of the whole thing.  I was looking around at my surroundings and asking myself too many questions for my own good.  "What the fuck just happened?  How did it happen?  Did I just break the laws of physics somehow sending the world into a black hole?  Why am I all of a sudden in the middle of a large pond without the statue and no city around me?  What gives with the flower filled meadow with butterflies all over the place?  That wasn't there before!"

Before I tired myself out just staying afloat, I knew I had to chill the fuck out and figure out what I had just gotten myself into and swim to shore.  On my way there, I started getting a better look around.  The place I was in looked nothing like any Hell or Underworld that I've ever been taught about when I was a kid in church.

At long last, my struggle was over as I pulled myself onto the grassy bank of the pond to lay there on my back to rest for a bit.  Was this it?  Were all the horrible things I had done in life forgiven?  Did I die and go to heaven even though I had robbed, stolen, laundered, smuggled and killed as a career?  For the first time in who knows how long, I felt like I was on top of the world and yelled out the first thing that was on my mind.

"HOLY SHIT!  THIS PLACE IS ALRIGHT!"

End Chapter 1