The first fight club was just Tyler and I
pounding on each other.

It used to be enough that when I came home angry
and knowing that my life wasn't toeing my five-year plan,
I could clean my condominium or detail my car.
Someday I'd be dead without a scar
and there would be a really nice condo and car.
Really, really nice,
until the dust settled
or the next owner.
Nothing is static.
Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart.
Since fight club, I can wiggle half the teeth in my jaw.

Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer.

Tyler never knew his father.

Maybe self-destruction is the answer.

Tyler and I still go to fight club, together.
Fight club is in the basement of a bar, now,
after the bar closes on Saturday night,
and every week you go
there's more guys there.

Tyler gets under the one light
in the middle of the black concrete basement
and he can see that light flickering
back out of the dark
in a hundred pairs of eyes.
First thing Tyler yells is,
"The first rule about fight club
is you don't talk about fight club.

"The second rule about fight club,"
Tyler yells,
"is you don't talk about fight club."

Me,
I knew my dad for about six years,
but I don't remember anything.
My dad,
he starts a new family
in a new town
about every six years.
This isn't so much a family
as it's like he sets up a franchise.

What you see at fight club
is a generation of men
raised by women.

...

You aren't alive anywhere like you are at fight club.
When its you and one other guy
under that one light
in the middle of all those watching.
Fight club isn't about winning or losing fights.
Fight club isn't about words.
You see a guy come to fight club for the first time,
and his *** is a loaf of white bread.
You see the same guy here six months later,
and he looks carved out of wood.
This guy trusts himself to handle anything.
There's grunting and noise at fight club
like at the gym,
but fight club isn't about looking good.
There's hysterical shouting in tongues
like at church,
and when you wake up Sunday afternoon
you feel saved.