Fight Club

death. One minute, you’re a person, the next minute, you’re an object, and Mom and Dad would have to call old doctor whoever and get your dental records because there wouldn’t be much left of your face, and Mom and Dad, they’d always expected so much more from you and, no, life wasn’t fair, and now it was come to this.
    Fourteen dollars.
    This, I said, is this your mom?
    Yeah. You were crying, sniffing, crying. You swallowed. Yeah.
    You had a library card. You had a video movie rental card. A social security card. Fourteen dollars cash. I wanted to take the bus pass, but the mechanic said to only take the driver’s license. An expired community college student card.
    You used to study something.
    You’d worked up a pretty intense cry at this point so I pressed the gun a little harder against your cheek, and you started to step back until I said, don’t move or you’re dead right here. Now, what did you study?
    Where?
    In college, I said. You have a student card.
    Oh, you didn’t know, sob, swallow, sniff, stuff, biology.
    Listen, now, you’re going to die, Ray-mond K. K. K. Hessel, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. So lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. I don’t give a shit. I have the gun.
    Finally, you were listening and coming out of the little tragedy in your head.
    Fill in the blank. What does Raymond Hessel want to be when he grows up?
    Go home, you said you just wanted to go home, please.
    No shit, I said. But after that, how did you want to spend your life? If you could do anything in the world.
    Make something up.
    You didn’t know.
    Then you’re dead right now, I said. I said, now turn your head.
    Death to commence in ten, in nine, in eight.
    A vet, you said. You want to be a vet, a veterinarian.
    That means animals. You have to go to school for that.
    It means too much school, you said.
    You could be in school working your ass off, Raymond Hessel, or you could be dead. You choose. I stuffed your wallet into the back pocket of your jeans. So you really wanted to be an animal doctor. I took the saltwater muzzle of the gun off one cheek and pressed it against the other. Is that what you’ve always wanted to be, Dr. Raymond K. K. K. K. Hessel, a veterinarian?
    Yeah.
    No shit?
    No. No, you meant, yeah, no shit. Yeah.
    Okay, I said, and I pressed the wet end of the muzzle to the tip of your chin, and then the tip of your nose, and everywhere I pressed the muzzle, it left a shining wet ring of your tears.
    So, I said, go back to school. If you wake up tomorrow morning, you find a way to get back into school.
    I pressed the wet end of the gun on each cheek, and then on your chin, and then against your forehead and left the muzzle pressed there. You might as well be dead right now, I said.
    I have your license.
    I know who you are. I know where you live. I’m keeping your license, and I’m going to check on you, mister Raymond K. Hessel. In three months, and then in six months, and then in a year, and if you aren’t back in school on your way to being a veterinarian, you will be dead.
    You didn’t say anything.
    Get out of here, and do your little life, but remember I’m watching you, Raymond Hessel, and I’d rather kill you than see you working a shit job for just enough money to buy cheese and watch television.
    Now, I’m going to walk away so don’t turn around.
    This is what Tyler wants me to do.
    These are Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth.
    I am Tyler’s mouth.
    I am Tyler’s hands.
    Everybody in Project Mayhem is part of Tyler Durden, and vice versa.
    Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you’ve ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your entire life.

21
    YOU WAKE UP at Sky Harbor International.
    Set your watch back two hours.
    The shuttle takes me to downtown Phoenix and every bar I go into there are guys with stitches around the rim of an eye socket where a good slam packed their face meat against its sharp edge. There are guys with sideways noses, and these guys at the bar see me with the puckered hole in my cheek and we’re an instant family.
    Tyler hasn’t been home for a while. I do my little job. I go airport to airport to look at the cars that people died in. The magic of travel. Tiny life. Tiny soaps. The tiny airline seats.
    Everywhere I travel, I ask about Tyler.
    In case I find him, the driver’s licenses of my twelve human