The mechanic says, "Believe in me and you shall die, forever."

Too late, the truck swerves and the mechanic swerves but the rear of our Corniche fishtails against one end of the truck's front b.u.mper.

Not that I know this at the time, what I know is the lights, the truck headlights blink out into darkness and I'm thrown first against the pa.s.senger door and then against the birthday cake and the mechanic behind the steering wheel.

The mechanic's lying crabbed on the wheel to keep it straight and the birthday candles snuff out. In one perfect second there's no light inside the warm black leather car and our shouts all hit the same deep note, the same low moan of the truck's air horn, and we have no control, no choice, no direction, and no escape and we're dead.

My wish right now is for me to die. I am nothing in the world compared to Tyler.

I am helpless.

I am stupid, and all I do is want and need things.

My tiny life. My little s.h.i.t job. My Swedish furniture. I never, no, never told anyone this, but before I met Tyler, I was planning to buy a dog and name it "Entourage."

This is how bad your life can get.

Kill me.

I grab the steering wheel and crank us back into traffic.

Now.

Prepare to evacuate soul.

Now.

The mechanic wrestles the wheel toward the ditch, and I wrestle to f.u.c.king die.

Now. The amazing miracle of death, when one second you're walking and talking, and the next second, you're an object.

I am nothing, and not even that.

Cold.

Invisible.

I smell leather. My seat belt feels twisted like a straitjacket around me, and when I try to sit up, I hit my head against the steering wheel. This hurts more than it should. My head is resting in the mechanic's lap, and as I look up, my eyes adjust to see the mechanic's face high over me, smiling, driving, and I can see stars outside the driver's window.

My hands and face are sticky with something.

Blood?

b.u.t.tercream frosting.

The mechanic looks down. "Happy Birthday."

I smell smoke and remember the birthday cake.

"I almost broke the steering wheel with your head," he says.

Just nothing else, just the night air and the smell of smoke, and the stars and the mechanic smiling and driving, my head in his lap, all of a sudden I don't feel like I have to sit up.

Where's the cake?

The mechanic says, "On the floor."

Just the night air and the smell of smoke is heavier.

Did I get my wish?

Up above me, outlined against the stars in the window, the face smiles. "Those birthday candles," he says, "they're the kind that never go out."

In the starlight, my eyes adjust enough to see smoke braiding up from little fires all around us in the carpet.

19.

THE FIGHT CLUB mechanic is standing on the gas, raging behind the wheel in his quiet way, and we still have something important to do, tonight. mechanic is standing on the gas, raging behind the wheel in his quiet way, and we still have something important to do, tonight.

One thing I'll have to learn before the end of civilization is how to look at the stars and tell where I'm going. Things are quiet as driving a Cadillac through outer s.p.a.ce. We must be off the freeway. The three guys in the back seat are pa.s.sed out or asleep.

"You had a near-life experience," the mechanic says.

He takes one hand off the steering wheel and touches the long welt where my forehead bounced off the steering wheel. My forehead is swelling enough to shut both my eyes, and he runs a cold fingertip down the length of the swelling. The Corniche hits a b.u.mp and the pain seems to b.u.mp out over my eyes like the shadow from the brim of a cap. Our twisted rear springs and b.u.mper bark and creak in the quiet around our rush down the night road.

The mechanic says how the back b.u.mper of the Corniche is hanging by its ligaments, how it was torn almost free when it caught an end of the truck's front b.u.mper.

I ask, is tonight part of his homework for Project Mayhem?

"Part of it," he says. "I had to make four human sacrifices, and I have to pick up a load of fat."

Fat?

"For the soap."

What is Tyler planning?

The mechanic starts talking, and it's pure Tyler Durden.

"I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived," he says, his face outlined against the stars in the driver's window, "and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables."

The drop of his forehead, his brow, the slope of his nose, his eyelashes and the curve of his eyes, the plastic profile of his mouth, talking, these are all outlined in black against the stars.

"If we could put these men in training camps and finish raising them.

"All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction.

"You have a cla.s.s of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need.

"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

"We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them.

"Napoleon bragged that he could train men to sacrifice their lives for a sc.r.a.p of ribbon.

"Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world.

"Imagine hunting elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.

"What you said about your job," the mechanic says, "did you really mean it?"

Yeah, I meant it.

"That's why we're on the road, tonight," he says.

We're a hunting party, and we're hunting for fat.

We're going to the medical waste dump.

We're going to the medical waste incinerator, and there among the discarded surgical drapes and wound dressings, and ten-year-old tumors and intraveneous tubes and discarded needles, scary stuff, really scary stuff, among the blood samples and amputated tidbits, we'll find more money than we can haul away in one night, even if we were driving a dump truck.

We'll find enough money to load this Corniche down to the axle stops.

"Fat," the mechanic says, "liposuctioned fat sucked out of the richest thighs in America. The richest, fattest thighs in the world."

Our goal is the big red bags of liposuctioned fat we'll haul back to Paper Street and render and mix with lye and rosemary and sell back to the very people who paid to have it sucked out. At twenty bucks a bar, these are the only folks who can afford it.

"The richest, creamiest fat in the world, the fat of the land," he says. "That makes tonight a kind of Robin Hood thing."

The little wax fires sputter in the carpet.

"While we're there," he says, "we're supposed to look for some of those hepat.i.tis bugs, too."

20.

THE TEARS WERE really coming now, and one fat stripe rolled along the barrel of the gun and down the loop around the trigger to burst flat against my index finger. Raymond Hessel closed both eyes so I pressed the gun hard against his temple so he would always feel it pressing right there and I was beside him and this was his life and he could be dead at any moment. really coming now, and one fat stripe rolled along the barrel of the gun and down the loop around the trigger to burst flat against my index finger. Raymond Hessel closed both eyes so I pressed the gun hard against his temple so he would always feel it pressing right there and I was beside him and this was his life and he could be dead at any moment.

This wasn't a cheap gun, and I wondered if salt might f.u.c.k it up.

Everything had gone so easy, I wondered. I'd done everything the mechanic said to do. This was why we needed to buy a gun. This was doing my homework.

We each had to bring Tyler twelve driver's licenses. This would prove we each made twelve human sacrifices.

I parked tonight, and I waited around the block for Raymond Hessel to finish his shift at the all-night Korner Mart, and around midnight he was waiting for a night owl bus when I finally walked up and said, h.e.l.lo.

Raymond Hessel, Raymond didn't say anything. Probably he figured I was after his money, his minimum wage, the fourteen dollars in his wallet. Oh, Raymond Hessel, all twenty-three years of you, when you started crying, tears rolling down the barrel of my gun pressed to your temple, no, this wasn't about money. Not everything is about money.

You didn't even say, h.e.l.lo.

You're not your sad little wallet.

I said, nice night, cold but clear.

You didn't even say, h.e.l.lo.

I said, don't run, or I'll have to shoot you in the back. I had the gun out, and I was wearing a latex glove so if the gun ever became a people's exhibit A, there'd be nothing on it except the dried tears of Raymond Hessel, Caucasian, aged twenty-three with no distinguishing marks.

Then I had your attention. Your eyes were big enough that even in the streetlight I could see they were antifreeze green.

You were jerking backward and backward a little more every time the gun touched your face, as if the barrel was too hot or too cold. Until I said, don't step back, and then you let the gun touch you, but even then you rolled your head up and away from the barrel.

You gave me your wallet like I asked.

Your name was Raymond K. Hessel on your driver's license. You live at 1320 SE Benning, apartment A. That had to be a bas.e.m.e.nt apartment. They usually give bas.e.m.e.nt apartments letters instead of numbers.

Raymond K. K. K. K. K. K. Hessel, I was talking to you.

Your head rolled up and away from the gun, and you said, yeah. You said, yes, you lived in a bas.e.m.e.nt.

You had some pictures in the wallet, too. There was your mother.

This was a tough one for you, you'd have to open your eyes and see the picture of Mom and Dad smiling and see the gun at the same time, but you did, and then your eyes closed and you started to cry.

You were going to cool, the amazing miracle of 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 pa.s.s, but the mechanic said to only take the driver's license. An expired community college student card.