The Game

started screaming like fucking crazy.

    HB: Aaaaaaaahhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhh!

    All these people started looking over at me. She was freaking out, screaming her head off like a banshee, flailing her arms around and shit.
    I was thinking, “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I knew this shit would backfire someday. Fuck. I should have waited for more IOIs or something. Fuck. I thought I had the IOIs! I’m never doing this ever again!”

    TD: Um, I said I loved you first.
    HB: Aaaaaaaahhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhh!
    TD: Um, are you okay?
    HB: Aaaaaaaahhhh!
    TD: Uh-oh.
    HB: Um, okay. That will be five dollars and thirty-one cents. Aaaaaaaahhhh!

    She was trying to regain her composure by talking, but she kept screaming intermittently.

    TD: Please calm down.
    HB: Um, yeah. I’m okay. What’s your name?
    TD: Please don’t call the police on me.
    HB: No, no. It’s just for the computer. I ask everyone.
    TD: Okay. It’s Tyler.
    HB: Wow, that’s an awesome name.
    TD: Um, thanks. What’s your name?
    HB: Lauren.
    TD: I like that.
    HB: Oh my God, that was the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life!
    TD: Cool!
    HB: Oh my God, you rock. Oh my God, I love you! That was fucking awesome!
    TD: Glad to be of service. I promise I’ll come back. I’ll make you close your eyes again.
    HB: Will you do more next time? ( winks, implying sex, I suppose )
    TD: I won’t let you down. You know I love you.
    HB: I’m looking forward to it.
    TD: Wow, it looks so cool back there. Give me the backstage tour.
    HB: Okay, c’mon back.

    I was thinking, “Holy shit, I can’t believe this!” I felt inside my jacket pockets, and I still had these two LifeStyles Tuxedo Black condoms that Orion had given me last weekend, so I could go for it if I wanted to.
    Then I totally chickened out. I was like, “I can’t handle this shit! I met this girl not even two minutes ago!”
    There were literally fifty people all staring at me, watching the chick open the door for me to come back there with her. They were all looking like, “What the fuck is going on?” And it was making me really uncomfortable. With hindsight now, I would have done it. But at the time, I was so taken by surprise.
    So I said:

    TD: Um, actually I’m in a major rush.
    HB: Will I see you again?
    TD: Well, I’m leaving town tomorrow.
    HB: Okay, what about after work?
    TD: Um, I have to go hang out with my friends. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll go out then.
    HB: Okay. Oh my God, that rocked! Wow!

    Then I turned around and walked off.

    —TD

Mystery was back.
    No. 9, his roommate, called and told me Mystery had been released from the hospital and was staying with his family. He was expecting him back at the apartment the following week, when Tyler Durden would be driving in to take a one-on-one workshop. It was probably too soon to be teaching again, but Mystery needed to pay the rent—and Tyler was determined to meet him.
    “I came out of this strange emotional journey with some incredible cognitive models,” Mystery told me a few days later.
    His voice was Anthony Robbins clear again, his mind lucid. Life appeared to matter once more. However, something seemed different. He was in manic mode—more so than ever—but it was a new type of manic mode. He hadn’t exactly returned; he had transformed.
    “I have my life goals set,” he continued. “The motivational carrots are all dangling properly in front of me. This year, I will build the foundation to take down Copperfield. I’ve decided to beat him. I am a superstar. My brain pupated into a butterfly.”
    I asked him if he was on any medication. He said he wasn’t.
    “I’ve given it a great deal of thought,” he went on. “I only get depressed when I isolate myself. Look at what got me there: the pair-bond break with Patricia, new hotties staling and blurring, 7 no career momentum, and being alone in the apartment with no one to talk to. So we need to design a social environment with people to motivate me—something like Sweater’s place in Australia. We can all motivate each other. While I was at the hospital, I took a lot of notes on this idea. I showed them to my psychiatrist. Even he was impressed. I’m calling it Project Hollywood.”
    That moment was the first time I heard the phrase Project Hollywood. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I figured it would end up like Project Bliss: another stillborn scheme consigned to the trashcan of mental masturbation.
    “I shine,” he went on. “I