Fight Club

imagination. Remember all that pioneer shit they taught you in Boy Scouts. Remember your high school chemistry.”
    It’s hard to imagine Tyler in Boy Scouts.
    Another thing I could do, Tyler tells me, is I could drive to my boss’s house some night and hook a hose up to an outdoor spigot. Hook the hose to a hand pump, and I could inject the house plumbing with a charge of industrial dye. Red or blue or green, and wait to see how my boss looks the next day. Or, I could just sit in the bushes and pump the hand pump until the plumbing was superpressurized to 110 psi. This way, when someone goes to flush a toilet, the toilet tank will explode. At 150 psi, if someone turns on the shower, the water pressure will blow off the shower head, strip the threads, blam, the shower head turns into a mortar shell.
    Tyler only says this to make me feel better. The truth is I like my boss. Besides, I’m enlightened now. You know, only Buddha-style behavior. Spider chrysanthemums. The Diamond Sutra and the Blue Cliff Record. Hari Rama, you know, Krishna, Krishna. You know, Enlightened.
    "Sticking feathers up your butt,” Tyler says, "does not make you a chicken.”
    As the fat renders, the tallow will float to the surface of the boiling water.
    Oh, I say, so I’m sticking feathers up my butt.
    As if Tyler here with cigarette burns marching up his arms is such an evolved soul. Mister and Missus Human Butt Wipe. I calm my face down and turn into one of those Hindu cow people going to slaughter on the airline emergency procedure card.
    Turn down the heat under the pan.
    I stir the boiling water.
    More and more tallow will rise until the water is skinned over with a rainbow mother-of-pearl layer. Use a big spoon to skim the layer off, and set this layer aside.
    So, I say, how is Marla?
    Tyler says, "At least Marla’s trying to hit bottom.”
    I stir the boiling water.
    Keep skimming until no more tallow rises. This is tallow we’re skimming off the water. Good clean tallow.
    Tyler says I’m nowhere near hitting the bottom, yet. And if I don’t fall all the way, I can’t be saved. Jesus did it with his crucifixion thing. I shouldn’t just abandon money and property and knowledge. This isn’t just a weekend retreat. I should run from self-improvement, and I should be running toward disaster. I can’t just play it safe anymore.
    This isn’t a seminar.
    "If you lose your nerve before you hit the bottom,” Tyler says, "you’ll never really succeed.”
    Only after disaster can we be resurrected.
    "It’s only after you’ve lost everything,” Tyler says, "that you’re free to do anything.”
    What I’m feeling is premature enlightenment.
    "And keep stirring,” Tyler says.
    When the fat’s boiled enough that no more tallow rises, throw out the boiling water. Wash the pot and fill it with clean water.
    I ask, am I anywhere near hitting bottom?
    "Where you’re at, now,” Tyler says, "you can’t even imagine what the bottom will be like.”
    Repeat the process with the skimmed tallow. Boil the tallow in the water. Skim and keep skimming. "The fat we’re using has a lot of salt in it,” Tyler says. "Too much salt and your soap won’t get solid.” Boil and skim.
    Boil and skim.
    Marla is back.
    The second Marla opens the screen door, Tyler is gone, vanished, run out of the room, disappeared.
    Tyler’s gone upstairs, or Tyler’s gone down to the basement.
    Poof.
    Marla comes in the back door with a canister of lye flakes.
    "At the store, they have one-hundred-percent-recycled toilet paper,” Marla says. "The worst job in the whole world must be recycling toilet paper.”
    I take the canister of lye and put it on the table. I don’t say anything.
    "Can I stay over, tonight?” Marla says.
    I don’t answer. I count in my head: five syllables, seven, five.
    A tiger can smile
    A snake will say it loves you
    Lies make us evil
    Marla says, "What are you cooking?”
    I am Joe’s Boiling Point.
    I say, go, just go, just get out. Okay? Don’t you have a big enough chunk of my life, yet?
    Marla grabs my sleeve and holds me in one place for the second it takes to kiss my cheek. "Please call me,” she says. "Please. We need to talk.”
    I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    The moment Marla is out the door, Tyler appears back in the room.
    Fast as a magic trick. My parents did this magic act for five years.
    I boil and skim while Tyler makes room in the fridge. Steam layers the air and water drips from the kitchen ceiling. The