Welcome to the first installment of Anselmo's Street Stories (or A.S.S. for short), a collection of Mob Tales spun by a man born of a regal bloodline of fascinating storytellers.  You can expect them all to be titiilating and exciting, with a lesson and moral at the end.  Enjoy, and Salut.

Volume 1: The Closed RP

Anselmo steps out of a local speakeasy and walks over to a nearby congregation of Mobsters.  He interrupts their meaningless, nothing of a conversation to tell them a story of a botched crime he had committed the previous night.  His powerful voice drowns out the various whines coming from some of the softcore mobsters on the corner, muffling out the "Why are you standing out in public discussing crimes?" drivel.

So my fucking Ford breaks down on the highway late last night on my way back into NY.  I've got a body in the back of my trunk too, so you can imagine I was under a little pressure.  I look around to see if there's anyone around to help me get my Ford going again, but at that hour, all that was out was some drunk guy and a cat.  Fortunately, there was an R&P Fuel Station a mile down the road, so I pushed the damn car to the RP station to see if anyone could fix it, or at least tow me back to New York City.

Anselmo lights a cigar.

So I get the car to the RP Gas Station, dead body in the back and everything, and the fucking thing is closed.  I try peeking into the window to see if anyone is inside, but I can't see anything.  Just a counter with a jar of licorice and a small icebox with some dairy product in it.  But I also notice a safe in there too, so I figure maybe I'll let myself in.  I've been jimmying locks since I was a kid so getting in was no problem.  I could even pick the safe.  But no sooner do I start stuffing my pockets with the RP Fuel safe money, I hear some noise from the back.  Apparently the owner of the RP station sleeps on a cot in the back.  He must have heard me messing with the safe and came out to check the noise.  So I pull my gun out on him and he shits his pants.  Literally.  It stunk horribly because it wasn't that big a room.  He's begging me not to kill him, so I tie him up with his cruddy cot-sheets and gag him with his own soiled underwear.  I tell him to keep quiet.  Right as I'm tying him up, I hear the door open.  It was a cop.

The people on the corner soil their own pants, as they are so intrigued by Anselmo's suspenseful story.  He continues, much to the appreciation of everybody.

So the cop starts telling me he was so glad to see the gas station open, since most R&P's are closed at this hour.   Then he tells me to fill up his squad car.  He thinks I work there, capice?  The guy who actually does work there is bound and gagged in the back, so I didn't have any choice but to play along.  So I'm pumping gas for this cop, seething.  It was so demeaning... an esteemed Mafioso such as myself pumping gas for a cop like a goddam errand boy.  In the meantime, the cop's standing inside calling out to me how the store smells like shit.  I was beginning to worry the guy in the back would start calling for help.

So I finish filling his tank and I go inside.  He's paying me for his gas, and I'm fidgeting with the register trying to get it to open.  I only know how to break these things open, not open them properly.  He's beginning to look at me funny.  The whole place still smells like shit.  I'm sweating.  I've got a dead body in my trunk and a hostage in the back room.  Just when I think it can't get any worse, that drunk guy I had seen earlier walks into the gas station asking me where the bathroom is.  I tell him I have no idea.  The cop says 'What do you mean you have no idea?  Don't you work here?"  I tell him I'm new.  Now he's really looking at me funny.  The drunk guy starts throwing up all over the floor.  The cop grabs the guy and arrests him for public drunkeness.  Then he looks at me and asks "Aren't you going to mop all this up?"  So I grab a mop and start mopping this drunk idiot's mess up.  Again, I had no choice.  It was getting all over my new shoes too.  I look out the window and I see a cat sitting on my trunk sniffing and clawing at it.  The cop notices it t0o, and turns to me and asks suspiciously "Is that your car?  What's that cat sniffing at?  What do you got in your trunk?"  Now I'm really sweating.  Then to make matters worse, the RP attendant in the back managed to break free of his soiled underwear gag and starts yelling to the cop "HELP!  PLEASE HELP ME!  GET ME SOME WATER! IT TASTES SO BAD!"

There's no more point in pretending to be a gas station attendant anymore.  The scam is up.  The cop drops the drunk guy and reaches for his gun.  I pull my revolver and put two slugs in the cop.  The RP attendant screams as the cop drops to the oil-spotted floor.  I silence the attendant with three bullets.  I've got one bullet left.  I look at the drunk guy.  No sense in leaving a witness, so I shoot him too.  I fill a bucket with gasoline and douce my Ford with it.  I can't leave it there with the body in the back.  I toss my cigar onto it and it bursts into flames.  The cat scurries off the trunk as the Ford explodes, illuminating the R&P Service Station sign.  If I had a bullet left I would have shot the cat too. That furball almost got me locked up for murder.  But I really like cats so I probably wouldn't have shot the damn thing anyway, even if I had the extra bullet.

In retrospect, I shoud have shot the R&P gas attendant, the cop, and the drunk guy upon my initial contact with all of them.  Would have saved me lots of headache.  Had I had shot them all first, and asked questions later, I wouldn't have had to pump gas for a cop, mop up some drunk guy's puke, and smell some guy's shit for a lousy sum of money a mobster can get for a petty/felony crime.

Had to walk home, too.

Albert closes his jaw that dropped half way through the story in pure amazement. He quickly spits on the sidewalk and lights a cigarette, and turns to the wordsmith that is...Anselmo!

"Jesus, Mary, Joseph. I tell ya' you've gotta' be one of the unluckiest guys I've had the misfortune to meet!"

Albert takes another puff of his smoke and takes a look at his rolex...

"Guys, I gotta' love you an' leave yous, Anselmo, I'll see you tomorrow, you remember that guy with the thing..."

The younger of the Agueci brothers jumps into his Austin Healey and speeds off into the distance...

Leela wiggles her nose as Anselmo finishes his story. 

You would. 

She walks away.

Marley tosses his joint roach

Shakes his head

Damn you Anselmo! I enjoyed knocking off that R&P Station before you had to go and fuck it up. Damn muscle heads.

Marley runs away

Marley stops running because he tired already

Coughs, coughs again, tried to catch his breathe, looks back and says

Mon!

:laughs:

A riveting story, Anselmo -- that's quite a situation you got yourself into-- and well told.  I especially like the details in the beginning, like the licorice on the counter.

It's also nice to see a story with a moral.  Common sense and courtesy are so lost on some people nowadays.  Nice to see someone reinforcing a sense of decency around here...