Last God Standing

by Michael Boatman

  “Ah for Christ’s sake!” Yuri cried. “Ninja Sexforce is a classic!”

  “It’s utter crap, Kalashnikov. And when did you start smoking?”

  “Sorry. Acid reflux.”

  “What’s up, guys?”

  “Lando!”

  I browsed some of the familiar titles while Yuri continued his losing battle, trying to lose myself in the stacks and racks. But there were too many colorful reminders of my dilemma. Takahashi said he was hungry and invited us to join him for lunch.

  We left SNGGG and headed out onto the main floor of the convention center. Around us milled hundreds of vampires, werewolves and aliens of every conceivable stripe. A lithe black woman dressed as Storm from the X-Men comics sauntered toward us. Her eyes flicked past me with a quickness I’d come to expect from beautiful women; just as I had come to expect what happened next. When the supermodel’s gaze settled on Yuri, she gasped, her eyes widening as if she’d recognized the avatar of her deepest carnal desire. My fatally handsome friend had that effect on a lot of people.

  The supermodel grinned as she subtly altered her course to collide with us, her face becoming even more painfully aroused the more she ogled Yuri. Conventions like FantaCon sometimes hire local models to dress up in revealing costumes. The proximity of so much unattainable beauty kept the fanboys overstimulated and looking to spend money to burn off their frustration.

  “Storm” could have graced the covers of magazines, caused sensations on international runways. Tall, blessed with legs that Artemis would have killed for, the supermodel had short, snow white hair and startling blue-green eyes. Enchanted by Yuri’s usual mojo, she didn’t see the trio of hobbits that tumbled into the aisle a few feet in front of us. The costumed little people were singing a drinking song warning of the dangers of Mirkwood and the glories of Lothlorien as they turned up the aisle, heading in the opposite direction with swords and staffs waving. The highstepping supermodel was so busy checking out Yuri’s package that she didn’t notice when her cape snagged the lead hobbit’s shortsword. A nanosecond later she was jerked backward off her feet. She went down hard and took the entire quest for the One Ring with her.

  Yuri was at her side in a flash. He helped her up, made certain she was uninjured (she wasn’t) and gave her his card. When she limped away, she was still smiling. Everybody ignored the hobbits.

  We went to lunch.

  “You’re not into it this year,” Yuri said, over Subway footlongs. We were seated in the shadow of a giant, inflated Wolfman. Yuri was “wolfing” down his roast beef sandwich as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  “When did you start eating meat?” Takahashi growled over his salad.

  “Who me?” Yuri said. The pleasure with which he was devouring his sandwich was vaguely disgusting. “Oh… I don’t know. Been off the meat wagon for a few weeks I guess.”

  I was picking listlessly at my vegan meatball parm. I’d filled him in on the past few days’ events leading up to the fight with Dionysus and the rift with Surabhi. Now, I was regretting my decision to show up at FantaCon. All the bright colors and crazy costumes only made me feel worse.

  Maybe Magnus is right. Maybe you are a loser.

  “Usually by this point I’m ready to shove a phony lightsaber down your throat just to shut you up,” Yuri said. “You look like your favorite hamster just exploded.”

  Yuri uttered a gentle hiccup.

  “Whew! Meatlock in the lower GI! Gotta hit the head, boys. More room out than in!”

  As my friend and agent set off toward the restrooms, Takahashi leaned backward and belched appreciatively.

  “You’re troubled, Yahweh. What’s wrong?”

  We’d met once or twice a year to compare notes and discuss the latest divine happenings. But the former Buddha was the best listener of all the gods I’d ever known.

  “Do you think it was worth it?”

  “What?”

  “The Covenant. Giving up immortality. Was it worth it?”

  Takahashi chewed his way around the question. He habitually chewed each mouthful forty times before swallowing, so I waited while he chewed. And chewed.

  “Sometimes sharing a meal with you is Hell.”

  “Second thoughts, Yahweh?”

  “Constantly.”

  Takahashi grinned. “Not me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. Glad we did it.”

  “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “Life,” I said. “It’s so… so…”

  Frowning, Takahashi speared an olive and tossed it over his shoulder. The olive bounced off the cowl of a nearby Batman. The elderly Caped Crusader never noticed.

  “Messy, yes?”

  “Messy,” I agreed, sliding my sandwich away from me. “It’s all so… unpredictable.”

  “Yeah! I love it!”

  “Even the crappy parts?”

  “Come on, Yahweh. You’re forgetting what it was like before. Sure, we had some limited power over the human soul, but nothing they couldn’t overcome with education and a little travel. All we really had – besides the magic and eternal life stuff – was each other: you, me, and a million other defunct gods giving each other the finger across endless battlefields of dead believers. It was interesting for the first few centuries, but after a while it got pretty damn dull. This?”

  Takahashi gestured, his arms opening as if to embrace the hotel, the Wolfman and the bustle of activity around us. “This is so much better.”

  Takahashi grabbed my forearm with his right hand. His enthusiasm was crushing, even painful. I remembered Baron Samedi, his still potent black magic, and found myself wondering how much of his true strength the Buddha had carried with him into his Embodiment.

  “We’re real, my friend. We’re here, not just Jungian concepts empowered by a cold multiverse with an existential crisis. We exist, Yahweh! What’s better than that?”

  “Well… order, for one thing,” I said. “Control.”

  “Control is an illusion dreamed up by fundamentalists to minimize their own humanity. Get over it.”

  “But when we were… you know… Us… we were on top. We were Gods, Primal Forces. We had real power.”

  Takahashi reached under his Superninja Go! Go! Go! T-shirt and rubbed his round belly. “Power, huh? You didn’t even know your own history until some drunks wrote it down and called it the Old Testament. Before that you were just another Nameless proto-deity smiting horny goat herders.”

  “At least I was happy,” I replied. “Sort of.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, ’Weh. You were so schizo back then: ‘Angry and Punishing’ one minute, ‘Kind and Benevolent’ the next. Half the time you couldn’t decide if you were coming or going: ‘Honor thy Mother and thy Father’/‘The Sins of the Father shall visit his sons for seven times seven generations!’ / ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ / ‘Slaughter thine enemies in my name!’ Hey, watch this.”

  Takahashi belched stupendously, and a paunchy, middle-aged fanboy wearing a Spider-Man mask who happened to be passing our table at that moment, stopped and stared at us through his mirrored eyeholes.

  “I haven’t spoken to my daughter in three months,” the fanboy said. “She called me a selfish prick because I treat my wife like rotten garbage.”

  Takahashi grinned and kicked my shin under the table. “Is that so?”

  “Yes!” Spider-fan cried happily. “And I just realized that she’s right. I really am a dick!”

  Takahashi smiled and shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

  Spider-fan spun on his heel and made for the escalator, removing his mask and tossing it into a nearby trashcan as he ran for the nearest exit.

  “You were just like that guy, ’Weh. Back then you didn’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. And the whole Jesus thing…!”

  “Alright, there’s no need to bring that up.”

  “That poor bastard!”

  “Very funny.”

  “But it is funny, Yahweh. Think of th
e power they gave us. They slaughtered millions in our Names, and what did it all amount to? iPods in China, my friend. iPods in China.”

  “I hate when you get cryptic.”

  “Look, my friend, the Covenant? It was the only logical choice. It’s inevitable that they’ll eventually step out of their thought caves and take responsibility for themselves. They burned through thousands of gods getting to this point. We just happened along at the end of the ride.”

  Takahashi farted.

  “Childhood’s End, buddy.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A great book by Arthur C Clarke. It’s about a race of super-advanced aliens that forces the human race into maturity through non-violent invasion. No more wars, no more poverty, violence, crime, capitalism. Everybody’s needs get met simply to ensure the survival of the species. Pretty heady stuff for a hairless ape.”

  Takahashi: he was always so completely himself, seemingly without worry or care or regret. How did he do it?

  “I accept what is, that’s how. I’m the Embodiment of the Middle Path, remember?”

  “Hey! You just read my mind!”

  “Dude, I read your face. You’re not that complicated.”

  “Things sure seem complicated.”

  “That’s because life, real life, is change. And change is constant. Everything’s in motion. You. Me. Good times, bad times… they come and they go. And that, old friend, is a mercy. The minute you accept that you’ll be a happy little cog in our great big clockwork universe.”

  “But what if I don’t want to accept it? What if I tweak things, just a little?”

  Takahashi’s face grew still as the Face on Mars.

  “Then by the terms of the Covenant, I’d be duty bound to stop you.”

  “Stop him from what?”

  Yuri plopped himself into his chair, his eyes flickering back and forth between Takahashi and me.

  “Stop him from buying that shitty Action Comics #2 that Phil Lortman at Uber Comix is trying to pass off as ‘mint’ condition,” Takahashi said, lying effortlessly.

  “Comicbook geeks,” Yuri snarled. “You should all be killed. Hey, did I tell you I sold a TV show?”

  “Congratulations,” Takahashi said. “What’s the show?”

  “The working title is, The Lateside: a late night talk-advice infotainment’.”

  “Late night talk-advice infotainment?”

  “Yup. In every episode the audience gets to watch the guests explain their life challenges. You know; money problems, sex problems, relationship troubles, sex problems…”

  “You said sex problems twice.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, our host offers some meaningful advice, slings a little comic wisdom around, then we move on to the musical guest. What do you think?”

  “Sounds terrible.”

  “I know. It’ll make fifty million dollars in syndication.”

  Yuri finished his sandwich with one monstrous bite, his eyes glazing with satisfaction as they met mine.

  “I still have some work to do, but I was thinking… maybe you could host it.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. You’re funny… when push comes to shove. You have a kind of global, boy-next-door charm: innocuous, non-threatening, pleasant-looking enough without being particularly handsome…”

  “You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?”

  “Nope. Look, you’re pleasantly regular with a keen comic sensibility. Believe me, that could smooth over any lumps with those idiots who still have a problem with ‘ethnics’ on television. The question is: are you up for becoming the next Jerry Springer?”

  Over by the entrance, a noisy group of Trekkies came into the food court. One of them was dressed like Captain Kirk, while his friend, a dark-skinned, bald man, was decked out as Mister Spock complete with pointy ears. The dark brown Trekkie, an Indian or Pakistani, didn’t seem to care that the Spock ears obviously belonged to a white Vulcan. He looked like a deeply tanned elf in the early stages of vitiligo.

  “You’ll have time to think about it. I still have to do a treatment, but a major network is into it and Jeff loves the idea so much he’s having the contracts drawn up so Dream Lever Productions can produce the pilot.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not feeling that confident at the moment.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Yuri sighed. “This is your big break, pal: a major gig. Forget about Surabhi for a minute. If this show’s a hit you’ll have females landing on you like flies on a whale carcass.”

  “That would keep you busy,” Takahashi hiccuped.

  “Right-effing-on!’ Yuri sang, pounding me on the shoulder. “Gotta keep my star happy and stress free. Right?”

  “Stress free. Right.”

  “Look, promise me you’ll think about doing The Lateside. Then we can retire rich, fat, and happy.”

  “Happily ever after.”

  I was thinking of Surabhi’s parents; how impressed they’d be if I was the host of an edgy but socially responsible show that could actually claim to help people. Even Magnus would have to reconsider his opinion of me if I could wave a substantial television paycheck under his nose; one that didn’t have my father’s name on it.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  I watched the rowdy middle-aged Trekkies frolicking over by the Starbucks kiosk. The fake Captain Kirk reached over and yanked off one of Mister Spock’s ears. The dark-skinned Vulcan burst into tears and stormed out of the food court. Ken Takahashi roared with laughter.

  When I was a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man I put away childish things.

  “I’ll definitely think about it.”

  It was time for a change.

  CHAPTER XII

  LONDON CALLING, HERB & BARB, FIRE TAKES A HOLIDAY.

  On the bus ride home I considered Yuri’s proposal: a high profile gig that would get me away from my parents and their ever-expanding looniness. Real money: I could recommit to driving, maybe buy a car that didn’t explode when I pressed the brakes. I could find a rent controlled apartment.

  But thoughts of my mortal future were overshadowed by other responsibilities: a Conclave, a gathering of the gods. As the current Guardian of Eschatological Continuity for Human Consciousness and Development it was my right to convene. But the last time I had exercised it was during the final days of my official administration.

  It was in 1970. I, along with Lucifer, summoned the community of “friendly” Skyfathers, Earthmothers, Deathgods, and Elementals to a dimensionally convenient meeting place: the IHOP on Route 9 in Peekskill, New York. Over pancakes and human seemings, we’d cajoled the gods into alignment with the Covenant. Most of them had shown no interest in human affairs since the Industrial Revolution anyway. Any backsliders (and there were a few, Zeus being the most notable) would be dealt with forcibly. In the end, only the Buddha, Lucifer and I had opted for mortal incarnations.

  Currently, the biggest regular get-together of gods was the annual Summer Convention, where the world’s defunct deities gathered to rehash the good old days over truckloads of mead, ambrosia or enchanted wine. After I got sober I tried to change the Convention to a non-alcoholic format. Times were tough and no one wanted to be devolved any further than they already were. Even so, when the mead got flowing “drunksmiting” and badly aimed damnations were not uncommon. Last year, Odin and Osiris got into a drunken arm-wrestling match. Odin lost and tried to blast Osiris into Egyptian blood pudding. Osiris ducked – the explosion took out a city block before I could separate them, and afterward my head screamed bloody murder for two months.

  Now, with every defunct god hogging the dwindling supply of divinity, would they even answer my summons? And if they did, would one of them try to kill me? Was all this part of some takeover plot? Maybe calling the gods together was exactly what the entity called the Coming wanted me to do. What better way to ambush me than in the company of others who would be sympathetic to its cause? There were still plenty o
f gods who would support an uprising if they thought they could share the spoils.

  My mobile was on the third ring before I recognized Eye of the Tiger tinkling from its tinny speakers: Surabhi’s ringtone. I lunged across the seat, rifled through my backpack and came up empty: I couldn’t find my phone.

  “I’m coming!” I cried, eliciting glares from my fellow L train riders. “Surabhi!”

  I tore through the roughly sixteen thousand pockets in my backpack before remembering that I’d tossed the phone into my Lion King reusable grocery sack. I’d taken it along as a green alternative to plastic. I grabbed the sack, spilling fair-condition-rated titles across the floor, gripped my mobile and hit “redial”.

  Be calm. Relax.

  Surabhi answered on the fourth ring. “We have to talk.”

  “I love you,” I cried. “I’ve been calling you for–”

  “I’m on my way to the airport. We’re going to England.”

  “England England?”

  “That was part of my parents’ surprise. Daddy’s getting knighted.”

  “Wait a minute… go back to the beginning. I’ve been thinking about what happened since last night.”

  “Lando, I don’t have much time. I think we should–”

  “You’re on your way to the airport…” I said hurriedly, not liking the fatal tone I heard in her voice, the deliberation that, for Surabhi, always preceded bad news. She’d used that tone only once before, when she informed me that the friend who introduced us had been killed in a car crash. I didn’t want to hear the bad news brewing beneath the quiet storm in her voice.

  “You’re going to England?”

  “Yes. England England.”

  “So that your father can get knighted?”

  “Crazy, right? Listen, Lando–”

  “Why?”

  “It’s where the Queen lives. Can’t get a knighthood without the Queen of England. She hands ’em out.”

  “No! Why is your father getting knighted?”

  “Oh, for ‘…service to humanity in the fields of Sport, Business and Humanitarian pursuits in aid of improving the lives of people all over the world’ or some such twat-drizzle.”