I take out my wallet and show Marla my driver's license with my real name.

Not Tyler Durden.

"But everyone knows you're Tyler Durden," Marla says.

Everyone but me.

n.o.body at work calls me Tyler Durden. My boss calls me by my real name.

My parents know who I really am.

"So why," Marla asks, "are you Tyler Durden to some people but not to everybody?"

The first time I met Tyler, I was asleep.

I was tired and crazy and rushed, and every time I boarded a plane, I wanted the plane to crash. I envied people dying of cancer. I hated my life. I was tired and bored with my job and my furniture, and I couldn't see any way to change things.

Only end them.

I felt trapped.

I was too complete.

I was too perfect.

I wanted a way out of my tiny life. Single-serving b.u.t.ter and cramped airline seat role in the world.

Swedish furniture.

Clever art.

I took a vacation. I fell asleep on the beach, and when I woke up there was Tyler Durden, naked and sweating, gritty with sand, his hair wet and stringy, hanging in his face.

Tyler was pulling driftwood logs out of the surf and dragging them up the beach.

What Tyler had created was the shadow of a giant hand, and Tyler was sitting in the palm of a perfection he'd made himself.

And a moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

Maybe I never really woke up on that beach.

Maybe all this started when I peed on the Blarney stone.

When I fall asleep, I don't really sleep.

At other tables in the Planet Denny's, I count one, two, three, four, five guys with black cheekbones or folded-down noses smiling at me.

"No," Marla says, "you don't sleep."

Tyler Durden is a separate personality I've created, and now he's threatening to take over my real life.

"Just like Tony Perkins' mother in Psycho Psycho," Marla says. "This is so cool. Everybody has their little quirks. One time, I dated a guy who couldn't get enough body piercings."

My point being, I say, I fall asleep and Tyler is running off with my body and punched-out face to commit some crime. The next morning, I wake up bone tired and beat up, and I'm sure I haven't slept at all.

The next night, I'd go to bed earlier.

That next night, Tyler would be in charge a little longer.

Every night that I go to bed earlier and earlier, Tyler will be in charge longer and longer.

"But you are Tyler," Marla says.

No.

No, I'm not.

I love everything about Tyler Durden, his courage and his smarts. His nerve. Tyler is funny and charming and forceful and independent, and men look up to him and expect him to change their world. Tyler is capable and free, and I am not.

I'm not Tyler Durden.

"But you are, Tyler," Marla says.

Tyler and I share the same body, and until now, I didn't know it. Whenever Tyler was having s.e.x with Marla, I was asleep. Tyler was walking and talking while I thought I was asleep.

Everyone in fight club and Project Mayhem knew me as Tyler Durden.

And if I went to bed earlier every night and I slept later every morning, eventually I'd be gone altogether.

I'd just go to sleep and never wake up.

Marla says, "Just like the animals at the Animal Control place."

Valley of the Dogs. Where even if they don't kill you, if someone loves you enough to take you home, they still castrate you.

I would never wake up, and Tyler would take over.

The waiter brings the coffee and clicks his heels and leaves.

I smell my coffee. It smells like coffee.

"So," Marla says, "even if I did believe all this, what do you want from me?"

So Tyler can't take complete control, I need Marla to keep me awake. All the time.

Full circle.

The night Tyler saved her life, Marla asked him to keep her awake all night.

The second I fall asleep, Tyler takes over and something terrible will happen.

And if I do fall asleep, Marla has to keep track of Tyler. Where he goes. What he does. So maybe during the day, I can rush around and undo the damage.

24.

HIS NAME IS Robert Paulson and he is forty-eight years old. His name is Robert Paulson, and Robert Paulson will be forty-eight years old, forever. Robert Paulson and he is forty-eight years old. His name is Robert Paulson, and Robert Paulson will be forty-eight years old, forever.

On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero.

Big Bob.

The big cheesebread. The big moosie was on a regulation chill-and-drill homework a.s.signment. This was how Tyler got into my condominium to blow it up with homemade dynamite. You take a spray canister of refrigerant, R-12 if you can still get it, what with the ozone hole and everything, or R-134a, and you spray it into the lock cylinder until the works are frozen.

On a chill-and-drill a.s.signment, you spray the lock on a pay telephone or a parking meter or a newspaper box. Then you use a hammer and a cold chisel to shatter the frozen lock cylinder.

On a regulation drill-and-fill homework a.s.signment, you drill the phone or the automatic bank teller machine, then you screw a lube fitting into the hole and use a grease gun to pump your target full of axle grease or vanilla pudding or plastic cement.

It's not that Project Mayhem needed to steal a handful of change. The Paper Street Soap Company was backlogged on filling orders. G.o.d help us when the holidays came around. Homework is to build your nerve. You need some cunning. Build your investment in Project Mayhem.

Instead of a cold chisel, you can use an electric drill on the frozen lock cylinder. This works just as well and it's more quiet.

It was a cordless electric drill that the police thought was a gun when they blew Big Bob away.

There was nothing to tie Big Bob to Project Mayhem or fight club or the soap.

In his pocket was a wallet photo of himself huge and naked at first glance in a posing strap at some contest. It's a stupid way to live, Bob said. You're blind from the stage lights, and deaf from the feedback rush of the sound system until the judge will order, extend your right quad, flex and hold.

Put your hands where we can see them.

Extend your left arm, flex the bicep and hold.

Freeze.

Drop the weapon.

This was better than real life.

On his hand was a scar from my kiss. From Tyler's kiss. Big Bob's sculpted hair had been shaved off and his fingerprints had been burned off with lye. And it was better to get hurt than get arrested, because if you were arrested, you were off Project Mayhem, no more homework a.s.signments.

One minute, Robert Paulson was the warm center that the life of the world crowded around, and the next moment, Robert Paulson was an object. After the police shot, the amazing miracle of death.

In every fight club, tonight, the chapter leader walks around in the darkness outside the crowd of men who stare at each other across the empty center of every fight club bas.e.m.e.nt, and this voice yells: "His name is Robert Paulson."

And the crowd yells, "His name is Robert Paulson."

The leaders yell, "He is forty-eight years old."

And the crowd yells, "He is forty-eight years old."

He is forty-eight years old, and he was part of fight club.

He is forty-eight years old, and he was part of Project Mayhem.

Only in death will we have our own names since only in death are we no longer part of the effort. In death we become heroes.

And the crowds yell, "Robert Paulson."

And the crowds yell, "Robert Paulson."

And the crowds yell, "Robert Paulson."

I go to fight club tonight to shut it down. I stand in the one light at the center of the room, and the club cheers. To everyone here, I'm Tyler Durden. Smart. Forceful. Gutsy. I hold up my hands for silence, and I suggest, why don't we all just call it a night. Go home, tonight, and forget about fight club.

I think fight club has served its purpose, don't you?

Project Mayhem is canceled.

I hear there's a good football game on television...

One hundred men just stare at me.

A man is dead, I say. This game is over. It's not for fun anymore.

Then, from the darkness outside the crowd comes the anonymous voice of the chapter leader: "The first rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club."

I yell, go home!

"The second rule of fight club is you don't talk about fight club."

Fight club is canceled! Project Mayhem is canceled.

"The third rule is only two guys to a fight."

I am Tyler Durden, I yell. And I'm ordering you to get out!

And no one's looking at me. The men just stare at each other across the center of the room.

The voice of the chapter leader goes slowly around the room. Two men to a fight. No shirts. No shoes.

The fight goes on and on and on as long as it has to.