My fifth beer is going warm and flat in my hand, and the bartender says it's almost closing time. Could've fooled me; the place is still almost full, though no one's drinking and no one's talking. Last call came and went, but everyone still seems like they're waiting for something. Soon I'll have to go home and not only explain to my wife where I've been but how my boss denied me the promotion when he found me sleeping at my desk. Didn't matter that I was exhausted from finishing the all-important project he assigned me last minute. He just stood there with his receding hairline and pinstripe pants, swirling the dregs of his Tunisia Mocha Conchita whatever coffee and telling me I was being unprofessional.
Unprofessional my ass. Like we didn't all see Condi from sales emerge from his office on Tuesday with her skirt bunched up and her shirt buttoned up crooked.
A guy at the other end of the bar stands up. He's skinny, ordinary-looking, like any other office drone in his black pants, white shirt, no tie though I bet there's one discarded on the passenger seat of his car. He casts a glance around, nods, and makes for a door at the back of the room. As a man, the room stands up and follows him.
"What's going on?" I ask the bartender, but he pretends not to hear me. Curious, I follow the crowd. We go down narrow, metal steps flaking paint, into the dark, cool dampness of the basement. There's the rattle of a string pull and a single incandescent bulb comes on.
I put my back to one of the clammy walls. The crowd looks to the guy who led us down here, his hangdog face suddenly sharp and menacing.
"The first rule of fight club," he says, "is you do not talk about fight club."
The men around me nod, though it seems they've heard this speech before. A few, newcomers like me, lick their lips nervously, crack their knuckles. I lean to whisper to a young guy next to me, with dyed-black hair and thick black plugs in his earlobes. "Who is that guy?" I ask.
"Tyler Durden," he whispers back. "He started all this."
"What is all this?"
"Hey, quiet down," a guy in front of us mutters.
"If this is your first night at fight club," Tyler says, and all the newbies stiffen. A cold drop of sweat runs down my spine. "You have to fight."
I eye the stairs, the door at the top. No one would notice if I snuck out now. Or they would. What would they do? Chase me down and drag me back? Or just laugh at the ball-less wonder running home for fear of getting his nose bloodied.
I stay put. Two guys peel off from the crowd, face each other in the center of the circle. There's no ref, no handshake, no bell rung, just a moment of anticipation before they commence beating the shit out of each other.
There are no rules, no forms, no fighting style that I can figure out. Anything goes, I guess. It reminds me of playground fights, neighborhood brawls when I was a kid. Of course I was never involved in them, but they fascinated me nonetheless.
It's over pretty quick. One guy does some flashy kung-fu leg sweep kick to the back of the other guy's head, and he's down. The winner bends over and hooks his arms under the arms of the passed-out guy, almost gently dragging him outside the circle so the next fight can take its place.
It goes on like this 'til I get tapped by a guy who could be any one of the interns at work. Young, eager-looking, blonde and Ivy-league if I ever saw it. Clearly thinks he has the upper hand over this middle-aged failure. We go to the center of the circle.
"Take your shirts off, new guys," Tyler calls from the outside edge of the circle. We undo our buttons with the eager nervousness of a pair of new lovers, and toss our shirts aside in a pile with the others.
His fist grazes my jaw as I dodge, my stubble burning his knuckles. I punch him in the side. He kicks at my knee, the one I wrenched waterskiing on my honeymoon, and I hit the concrete. I swing my good leg out; he jumps it like a kid playing jump rope and goes to give me a kick in return. I grab his foot and yank. He goes down and I have him in a bear hug, smacking his head against the floor. His knee jabs my bad knee again and I release him. Then he's sitting on my chest, driving his knuckles into one cheek, then the other, yelling wordlessly as I lie back and take it.
The blows stop. I feel like I'm choking. I spit a gob of blood and it hits the kid in the forehead, runs down along the inner curve of where his eyebrow meets his nose. He doesn't even wipe it off, just gets to his feet and offers his hand.
"You okay, man?" he asks, no malice or gloating, just honest concern.
I feel like hell. I can barely stand on my right leg, and my face burns and throbs. But my failed promotion and my stupid boss barely concern me anymore.
"Yeah, man. You?"
The kid cracks a smile. There's blood between his teeth. He melts into the crowd.
I don't fight again that night. I fish my shirt out of the pile, pull it on. It feels just a bit too tight, and I fantasize that somehow my muscles have grown, like I've finally become a real man, a man who doesn't fit into his little boy clothes anymore.
As we're all leaving, I catch Mr. Durden's eye. He smirks. "Same time next week?" he asks as we spill out into the parking lot.
I pause and look up at the stars, feeling both tiny and yet huge and powerful. "Yeah," I decide. I look down and he's gone.
#
"So, what, you have a gay lover now?" my wife spits. I almost drop my mug. "Jesus Christ, I half expected you were sneaking off with someone after work all those nights you come home late, but I never thought I was married to a faggot."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I ask, turning to face her. She's making the same face she makes the second after I come in her mouth, as if she can't decide whether to spit or swallow. On one of her expensively manicured fingernails she's hooked a shirt. It's not one of mine.
"It's not even your size," she says, as if reading my mind. It must be the shirt I picked up that first night at fight club. I thought it felt too small; I thought it was my imagination. I must have grabbed some other guy's shirt by mistake.
I wonder if some other poor dude is getting accused of getting his ass pounded by some brawny office worker about now. "What's that smirk for, huh?" my wife demands.
"Nothing," I reply. This whole thing is less than unimportant. I go back to my coffee. "But believe me, you are not married to a faggot."
"Not for long, anyway," she says, stage-whispering. She opens the trash compactor, throws the shirt in, shuts it, turns it on. By the time the machine finishes growling, she's gone.
Whatever.
#
Months go by. Every Friday night I go to fight club. Some nights I beat the other guy, sometimes I get beaten, but I always leave feeling like I've won. My wife moves into the extra bedroom. I hear her crying but it's as if someone's left a movie on in another room; I have no connection to it. It's not real to me.
Even work isn't real. I go through the motions, waiting, watching the clock tick down every day, tearing off another sheet of my calendar every day, the clever and witty sayings of the day unread, as I wait for Friday night.
One Friday, my boss comes over to my desk. I haven't healed up from last week, but he's been out all week so he hadn't noticed the crusty stitches in my cheek, my two black eyes, my left middle and ring fingers buddy-taped together. "What the hell happened to you? Fight with the ol' lady?" he quips. I don't laugh. I just stare at him with the dead-zombie look of a slave waiting to be dismissed so he can get on with mucking out the stables.
My boss stops laughing. "Tell you what. Nothing's going on here today. I think you should go home, get yourself together." It isn't a suggestion. I nod and turn back to my computer to log out.
I don't go home. I go to Lou's Tavern, order a beer, and nurse it so long it goes flat and warm in my hand. Then I order another. I wait until night falls outside and familiar faces begin to filter in. We nod to each other, but sit at separate tables, space ourselves out at the bar. There is some low conversation but mostly we wait.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it. Probably my wife, wanting to know where I am. I imagine her leaving messages, furious, tearful things accusing me of all sorts of perverted things, telling me the papers are on the table awaiting my signature, telling me she's taking me for all I'm worth.
Take it, I want to tell her. You might find I'm not worth all that much.
The hour comes; we file down to the basement as if going to worship. I watch men fight for an hour before my turn comes up. When I face the man across the circle, it's my boss. He's flabby, sweaty and nervous, dukes up like a boxer in a movie. I don't think twice. He puts up a fight but goes down easy, my fist crunching his nose flat. Any malice I had for him is gone; the resentment I felt when he passed me up for the promotion, the anger at the condescension in his voice when he scolded me for petty misbehaviors like extended breaks or naps at my desk. We aren't at work, he isn't my boss. We're just a couple of men pitting muscle and brain against each other.
I bend to help him up, and he wheezes at me, "I changed my mind. The promotion is yours," as I haul him to his feet.
"I don't know if I want it anymore," I admit, and he nods as if he understands. Mr. Durden's sitting on a wooden chair off to the side, straddling the back like a playboy in a photo shoot, blood caked into his knuckles. Men crowd around. "Tonight I'm giving you all a homework assignment," he announces. I hold my breath and listen. "I want you to pick a fight with someone. You're gonna pick a fight, and you're gonna lose."
Hah, easy enough. How about a fight I've already lost?