Last God Standing Read Online Free PDF

I’m pitching something to Corroder today and I’m nervous. I think it could be really big.”
    “Swell. What is it?”
    “I woke up with this idea in the middle of the night. It was so powerful I started developing it right then and there…”
    “Here’s my stop. Stop now!”
    Yuri jammed on the brakes, throwing me against the dashboard. I bounced. Then I grabbed my backpack and opened the door.
    “You up for a movie tonight?” Surabhi’s got to work, and I’ve got two tickets to see Namaste, Brahma Blumberg at the Biolark.”
    “I hate when you do that.”
    “What?”
    “Ask me what I’m up to and then change the subject before I can answer. Besides being the worst backseat driver on Earth, you’re also incredibly self-centered.”
    “No I’m not.”
    “You make everything about you.”
    Yuri shrugged, and lit a cigarette from the box he’d recently begun keeping in his glove compartment. “Sometimes it’s hard to be your friend. I’m just sayin’.”
    “Hurtful. Come on, hang out with me tonight.”
    “Negative. Corroder and I have a dinner meeting with the Vice President of Comedy Development at Fox. He’s in Chicago looking to scare up some talent.”
    “OK, meanwhile, I’ve got the gig at Coconut Jose’s on Thursday; a proposal dinner to plan for Friday night; and my parents are about to kill each other and take a Korean callgirl with them.”
    “You’re gonna kill at Coconut Jose’s. This is going to be a big gig for you. I can feel it.” Yuri glanced at his Greenpeace Whale Watch. “Damn. I gotta jet. You want me to pick you up Thursday night?”
    “No thanks. I finally got a monthly bus pass. You’re a carpool-free agent, my friend.”
    “Bus pass? One of these days you’ll work up the balls to actually drive a car.”
    “I prefer public transportation. Why add to the black cloud of toxins already hanging over our fair city?”
    “Dude,” Yuri sneered through the passenger’s window. “When the Hell are you going to stop fooling yourself?”
     

CHAPTER III
THE ELEPHANT WAS DOUBLE BOOKED
    “Livin’ on borrowed time.”
    (Response to the question, “What are you doing?”)
    God’s Twitter Page
     
    In the twenty years he’d owned and operated Cooper & Sons Auto Supply, Herb Cooper had skydived on camera while playing an accordion, and waterskied across the Chicago River towed by a speedboat covered with tastefully nude pictures of himself. Once, he attempted to ride a bull in front of a screaming crowd during a rodeo at the United Center. He’d actually stayed on for four seconds before the bull, a bovine killing machine named Assassin, bucked him off and nearly trampled him to death while he screamed at the camera crew to “…keep rolling! No matter what!” The bull hurled Herb over the retaining fence. He landed in the lap of the Governor of Illinois.
    From his hospital bed Herb convinced local stations to run the footage the next day, complete with a sped up rendition of Dueling Banjos playing underneath. The stunt cost him a broken leg, three cracked ribs and a concussion… and made Cooper & Sons a household name. This was back in the early Eighties, before cable made local broadcasting a thing of the past. New York had its Crazy Eddie. LA had its Carl Worthington. And Chicago had Herb Cooper.
    When I walked into Cooper & Sons Westside Auto Supply on Monday morning, my father was humping an ostrich. Someone had affixed a saddle to the ostrich’s back, and Herb, who was wearing a white cowboy outfit complete with tengallon hat, chaps and spurs, was attempting to mount it. The ostrich had other ideas. Herb grabbed the bird’s long neck and tried to throw one leg over it. The ostrich stepped lightly to its right, pivoted, and flipped Herb over its back.
    “Ow! Goddammit!”
    I fought back a wave of wooziness and silently counted to ten. I still struggled with the compulsion to damn things when people demanded it. If I hadn’t curtailed the practice at some