Who is Tyler?

Tyler is the one who re-aligned my perceptions to reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions. No fear, no distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter, truly slide.

A friend and I worked our asses off shoveling snow after a huge snowstorm. We made alot of money and we went to get some food from this little taco joint down the street. These two much older pretty girls came in right after us. I try to check them out from the corner of my eye, but instead, I observe Tommy do the same...Except he happens to be playing with his money. I watch as he looks at them, do a slight cough, and look at his money. I got it now, he was playing the showoff. "Do they really care how much money one has?" I thought to myself, and then smirked, because the two girls paid no attention to him. It also set off a huge competition between us as well. We always tried to outdo one another. I didn't stop there though. I wanted more things, mainly because I grew up poor. I thought that the more things I have would fill the emptiness inside.

The one who dies with the most toys wins.  The saying goes?

I always thought that I knew what I wanted. The Dodge Durango, with custom everything. Chrome rims and DVD player. I wanted all the toys, and so I collected. At the time, I was married as well, so it was a joint effort. And we both were getting tons of things from everybody. I was pretty close to paying off my credit card, I was even ready to start saving up for a house. I had a huge Star Trek collection( Yeah, the Hamilton Collection were very good friends of mine), enough books to fill two bookcases, couches, oak end tables, A pretty decent TV, and numerous other things.

After the thing I had mistaken for love ended, I found myself in a quandary. I had noticed I had alot of 'stuff' leftover from the relationship. I did not know it then, but this is what distracted me from the things that were really important: My art, and truly living life. Everything I thought was important at that time actually wasn't. I thought about putting up a fight for everything during the divorce, because she had responded with a list of everything she wanted. And damn, that was one long and very detailed list.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only 'stuff' left over from the relationship. There was a hole in my heart the size of the "Meteor Crater" in Arizona.

I spent my night and my paycheck at a local bar. That's where I met Tyler, for the second time.  I tipped the fourth beer to my lips, watching the barflies and college kids. The little hotties that could end up pregnant or have some STD, the headaches, and top news stories of tomorrow. I see Tyler making origami out of the beer bottle labels. Little swans, giraffes, hippos- all in an empty peanut bowl. A sort of alcoholic Noah's Ark. He glances at me and sees my drunken fascination with his animals.

"Hey. I'll make you a bet." I look at him as he takes the giraffe and sets it up on the bar, "If I can make it in the tip jar, you have to buy me a beer. If I miss, I will buy you one."

"You got it." There was no way he could. He was about 8 feet away, and the circumference of the jar was about 12 inches. He takes aim and flicks his middle finger right underneath the giraffe's ass. I watch it sail in an arc and bounce off the back wall, right into the tip jar. He raises his arms up.

"Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!!" He yelps.

Shit...

We closed the bar, walked down to AM/PM, and did a nacho run. I thought later how stupid that would have been if we got caught.

Press release: Man arrested for stealing nachos.

We sat on a bridge that crossed a dry flood channel and ate. He laughed at me after I told him what happened.

"That's it? I had a girl once tell me she had an abortion and it was mine. She didn't tell me until four years later. I wondered why I didn't hear from her for that long. Well, this stuff happens. Read the newspaper." Tyler lights up a cigarette, "When I was nineteen, I asked this girl to marry me, in front of her family, on video, on Christmas Eve. Everyone was happy, joy or all. On New Years Eve, she got an attitude so I dropped her like trash. She's almost 350 pounds now and freshly divorced from some Italian job... I wonder if she ever recorded over those twenty seconds of shame."

I get up and turn to take a leak. My sob story has been denied and forgotten. Replaced by abortions and Italian men. You know what they say about Italian men.

"And me, at least I still have my dick." He looks over at me pissing, "And looks like the ex didn't get yours or you'd be watering your boots right about now. Look. If you want to strike back without facing any charges, there are some things you can do. I can show you if you want. You will have fun. Trust me."

I said okay. I just met him, I am still drunk with nacho cheese wiped all over the side of my pants, and I am going to trust him. I already knew what he was going to say next...

"I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hit me as hard as you can."

I didn't hesitate. I said okay, and hit him on the jaw.

When I woke up the next afternoon, I was sore as hell and had a black eye. That whole week I had blood in my snot when I blew my nose.

"Have you ever seen the picture of the man with no face? He was on a talk show a while back. He got some type of virus in his sinuses and when he went to the doctors they had to do an emergency amputation of his nose, eyes, upper lip and sinuses. He was just lucky to be alive. When he talked about it, he told everyone that he was crying. But he said that no one could tell because he had no eyes to cry with." He looks at the bruise under my eye, "Poor you. You have it so bad."

He convinced me to give her everything. Well, almost everything. He told me to keep the vacuum, and the blender. But before all this is to take place, there were two things he had me do:

I had to make four copies of the lyrics 'This is The Last Day of Our Acquaintance' by Sinead O'Connor on one piece of paper. Then make ten copies of that. I cut them into four sections, giving me forty sheets of lyrics.

This is the last day of our acquaintance

I will meet you later in somebody's office

I'll talk but you won't listen to me

I know what your answer will be

I know you don't love me anymore

You used to hold my hand when the plane took off

Two years ago there just seemed so much more

And I don't know what happened to our love

Today's the day our friendship has been stale

And we will meet later to finalize the details

Two years ago the seed was planted

And since then you have taken me for granted

But this is the last day of our acquaintance

I'll talk but you won't listen to me

I know your answer already

"Now take them and put them in her stuff, everywhere." So I put them in her books, behind picture frames, in CD cases, cassette tapes, stuff I know she probably won't touch for years. All forty of them. I could see her years from now finding reminders of me.

"Do you have a fuck Buddy?"

"A what?" I asked.

"A fuck buddy. A girl who you can count on that will give it up to you on the fly. You got to have one. Everyone has a fuck buddy."

"No, I don't have a fuck buddy." Not like I was lying. This was the first time I ever heard of that.

"Ok, then, you need to find a prop."

"A prop? For what? What the hell are you talking about?"

"She is going to pick up her stuff. We need to make sure the cops are here and that you have a prop. It's the best way to make her think you have moved on. Preferably younger than her. And if not younger, she has to be sexier."

If I could have found that, I would have moved on. I didn't know any females who could be able to help me with this. I didn't know any females period. Damn, my wife just left. She took my esteem with her too?

"Then you better find one. I can't do everything for you."

I had four weeks. We hung out at coffee shops, libraries, bars? Then one day at a coffee shop, he points over to the direction of the counter.

"There she is. You know her right?"

I look over my shoulder and see Samantha. This damn sexy redhead my roomie introduced me to a while ago. She was married though. I don't even know if she-

"Shut up and go talk to her. She won't bite. And if she does, that's good. Make sure she bites you in a visible area."

So I do. I re-introduced myself, and got the pleasantries out of the way. I asked her if she would do me a favor, and explained Tyler's idea. Without hesitation and to my surprise, she said yes. She said that my roommate told her of my lovely history with the wife.

"Hell yea. I would love to do that" Samantha smiled at me. I smiled back.

A day before all this was going to happen, my dad got a tattoo in memory of my step mom. It was of an angel. So Tyler asked if I wanted one too. Of course I do.

"But you know what you have to do. You have to let go. Here you are being pathetic, writing sad poetry about some bitch that has just eaten you alive at a time when you should be mourning the death of Hilda. What are you mourning? Love? Salem? Fuck that. Let me show you real pain. Let me focus the cancer that killed your step mom on one spot. Can I see your hand please?"

Tyler licks his lips and kisses the top of my hand. I have seen this done hundreds of times and still wasn't ready for it. I could have pulled away at that moment, and continued on crying in the corner. But I didn't. I thought of one person that was no longer among us. My step mom.

He poured the lye.

Combined with water, lye heats up over two hundred degrees. Combined with saliva, it still does.

It's summertime again, and someone is focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass on my hand. A cigar burn. A splotch of hot grease fresh from the frying pan. A liquid drop of melted rubber band, still lit, smoking, falling onto flesh.

Yea, like that.

I scream like an eleven year old girl.

"Do you feel alive now? Can you see how pathetic you once were? You are becoming a new man now. Because everything up to now is a story," Tyler says, "and everything after now is a story."

I never felt so alive in my life. I already knew what to do, so I stayed with the pain. I let go of the feelings, the heartbreak, and finally understood. I stayed with the pain, but I had let go of everything else.

Tyler put a lock on my bedroom door where I hid my computer, and he hid the vacuum and blender outside in a storage locker.

I look at my hand, and see the black scab that formed where Tyler's lips once rested. My knuckles were numb and my pinky tingled. But I was alive. Every time I see it now, I think of my step mom, and what she endured.  I was no longer afraid of anything or anyone.

Samantha came over the next night and pulled out a bag of pot. She knew I didn't smoke, but she said I have to smoke one with her after to celebrate. Now I had nothing to lose.

Right on schedule, the police I called show up. Then my ex did, with some 'help'. I smiled when they see Samantha. The police run through the checklist with me. And I have to sign here, and here.

"What happened to your hand?" Mr. police officer asked me.

"Oh this? This, is a chemical burn." I can see one of the ex's drones look at me, then my hand. He knew Tyler. He never came back in the house either. Samantha calls me into the kitchen and whispers in my ear.

"This is fucking hilarious! She keeps giving me the evil eye!" I walk back out to ask my ex if she wants the table and the microwave and my book collection and the end tables, but she keeps glancing at Samantha. That 'I don't care about you- but I am hurt and I hope it doesn't show' look. She takes the last bag and walks out the door. She could have at least taken the end tables.

"I am going to park my car out front. I want to do something." I watch as Samantha walks out the back. I can hear her drive her car away. I have no distractions.

When she gets back she is laughing.

"I walked right past her and I wanted to start shit, but the cops were waiting for her to leave. I think I intimidated her." She tells me.

I'm sure she did.... Yes I did happen to smoke a bit in celebration with her before she went home. No fear, no distractions, and at last, the ability to let that which does not matter, truly slide.

"You don't truly appreciate life unless they threaten to take it away from you. And you had it backwards." Tyler told me. He was right. We took the rest of the things she didn't want and trashed it. He donated all the books I have not read yet, and gave my Star trek collection to Goodwill.

Finally my place was free from all distractions. I had one thing left in my life. Purpose. The only thing I ever needed. If it wasn't for Tyler Durden, I would have still been crying in my own filth, wondering what's wrong with me.

I understood more of life now than I have in the last 30 years of my life. People change and live and die. If they are lucky, they get to have great sex and get in at least one good fight before they end up dead. I will continue to go on with my life, and do art to my hearts content until they kick me off my planet. Because that is the one thing I want to do before I die.

They were wrong. Somebody needs to tell them they got it all wrong.

Because the one who dies with the most toys, IS STILL DEAD.

And the blender and vacuum cleaner? Tyler made margaritas with it then we smashed it. The vacuum was given to my sister's neighbor who needed one.