Read Last God Standing for Free Online

television.”
    “Why don’t you take five?” I said. “I’ll smooth their feathers.”
    The ostrich – whose name was Sauwk – hissed a reluctant assent, and spread its wings in a threat posture intended mostly to intimidate. The big bird was exhausted. I sympathized: long experience with Herb and his passions could wear down the Rock of Gibraltar. I stroked his neck while silently appealing to his professionalism with compliments and offers of future employment.
    “Hey, Jacques Cousteau, why don’t you marry the bastard if you love it so much?”
    Do it. Reverse his digestive system. No one will notice.
    I untwisted the orange extension cord dangling from Sauwk’s neck and invited him to enjoy more Puppy Chow. Sauwk released six eggsized fecal pellets in Herb’s general direction and strutted back to his food bucket.
    “What’d ya have to stick your nose in it for?” Flaunt sneered. “Herbie and me would’ve got the situation under control just fine without you, Mister Save the Whales.”
    “You know, Chick, if you’re trying to insult someone, pointing out their better qualities is pointless unless you’re trying to make them feel really great.”
    “Oooohhh, somebody flunked out of his fancy graduate school. Hey, Emily Post, how ’bout pitchin’ yerself into that saddle? Then Herb can ride you around for the commercial!”
    Flaunt laughed in the irritating way he did when he thought he’d scored a point. I reconsidered burning him alive just to make a bigger one.
    “We’re doing a new spot for the website,” Herb said. “That damn pelican has thrown us off schedule. We’re gonna have to do it tomorrow: I got meetings.”
    “Hey, Pop. Can I borrow some money?”
    “Jesus H The Christ,” Flaunt moaned. “Kids today, ingrates… every one of ’em. Hell I remember…”
    “Give him a break, Chick.”
    “Herbie this kid’s had more ‘breaks’ than a mirror with a million cracks. Back in the day…”
    “Chick…”
    “…my old man would’a kicked my ass harder than Chinese algebra. I mean if you ask me…”
    “I didn’t ask you, Chick!”
    Flaunt threw up his hands in a “why do I bother” flutter of exasperation, his Elvis pompadour flapping like a detached scalp. Then he turned on one elevated heel and stomped off to annoy the camera crew.
    Herb turned back to me, shaking his head.
    “I suppose I’ll be paying for that till Judgement Day. Why the hell do you need money?” (Herb could switch conversational gears faster than a newly-avowed lesbian at a Texas prolife rally.) “Don’t I pay you enough to mismanage this place?”
    “I want to take Surabhi somewhere special Friday night. But I need a minor advance.”
    “Hey! You thinking about poppin’ the question, son?”
    “Well…”
    “You are, aren’t you? You’re gonna ask Sonoma–”
    “Her name is Surabhi for the seventy-eighth time this week. And there’s not going to be any wedding.”
    Herb’s face fell. “No wedding?”
    Herb loved the institution of marriage. That was the problem: he loved the institution more than the woman he married. He could also smell imminent weddings and pregnancies like a bloodhound on the hunt.
    “I see,” he sighed, laying a smallish hand on my elbow. “Step into my office, son. Time you and me talked mano to mano.”
    “I have to watch the front desk. The customers…”
    “What customers? We don’t open till ten.”
    “But...”
    “Come on.”
    We entered the Fortress of Gratitude: Herb believed that every employee who entered his office should do so with “An Attitude of Gratitude.” He’d even had the words inscribed on a little plaque on the wall behind his big mahogany desk; right between his autographed poster of Ronald Reagan and the life-sized standup of himself dressed as “Super Herb.”
    “Sit.”
    I sat in the small chair in front of his desk. Herb rifled through his drawers and came up with a wrapped sandwich.
    “You hungry?”
    “No thanks.” Two