Story Notes: I have based this story more than loosely on the story line of Fight Club, the novel by Chuck Palahniuk and movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. I have however, decided to use the characters of the Harry Potter series. While you read, try to find as many characters from Harry Potter as possible. I'm sure you'll be surprised at who the narrator is.
Disclaimer: All characters from Harry Potter belong to J. K. Rowling. I am only using them due to total creative failure on my part. The story line belongs to Chuck Palahniuk, Jim Uhls, David Fincher and anyone else involved in writing the Fight Club script. I claim no ownership of anything anyone else wants in this story.
If you have watched Fight Club and notice any discrepancies, that's my creative license taking over.
We're standing on top of the New York branch of Gringotts Wizarding Bank, the largest branch in the world, and Harry's wand is pointed at my heart. In thirteen minutes, this building will be destroyed. When that happens, all of the 1's and 0's in the world's only international magical banking system will become only 0's.
300 pounds of muggle nitro-glycerin explosives are wrapped around the marble pylons in the deepest underground vaults on level -3. I look down, and see a desk falling out of a shattered window, parchments fluttering like doomed birds all around it. 165 stories before it hits the ground. Project Mayhem members must have done it. I know there are 34 space monkeys in the building. I know this because Harry knows this.
I look at Harry and ask, "How many civilians are in the building?" "You know the answer." None. Harry's men have cleared them all out. Security, janitorial staff, all gone. "Twelve minutes" Harry says. "We're going to be heroes" he says "And not one person will remember our names. We won't die here. Not until it's all finished." Vampires, Harry, I say. You're thinking about Vampires.
Now, because we're not Vampires, I will tell you. This is how I met Harry Potter.
If You Wake Up In A Different Time, And A Different Place, Can You Wake Up As A Different Person?
Greg had Bitch Tits. They were massive, the way you think of God's as big. I was here at Remaining Men Together, a support group for those who had been castrated by various magical accidents. Greg was crying on my shoulder. "They had to bump up the estrogen level yesterday again." sniffle. Greg used to be a bodybuilder. He had billboards in both the muggle and wizarding worlds. He had his balls removed because he took to much of an unsafe muscle-building potion. And why was I here? I still had my balls.
Wait. Let me start over.
I couldn't sleep.
With insomnia nothing is real. I went to my job at a magical means of transportation recall agency. And I couldn't sleep. I lay on my sofa at night, my wizarding wireless on, listening to infomercials. And I couldn't sleep. I hadn't slept for a week and a half. I went to the hospital, asked for a dreamless sleep potion. Anything to make me sleep. The doctor wouldn't give me anything. Apparently I needed natural sleep. But I'm in pain here, I said. The doctor said, if I wanted to see real pain, go down to the basement in St. Mungo's of New York. See the support groups. The people with blood parasites. The ones with twelve spleens from failed charms. The ones with ascending bowel cancer. The ones with no balls. So here I was.
"It will be all right," Greg says. "You cry now."
Anything you're ever proud of will be thrown away. Trash. Destroyed.
I'm lost inside. And out.
Greg has bitch tits because his testosterone ration is too high.
It's easy to cry when you realize everyone and everything you love will reject you or die.
Greg loves me because he thinks my testicles were removed.
On a long enough timeline the life expectancy for everyone drops to zero.
Around us in the basement, pairs are leaning on each other, crying. About twenty men. And one woman.
I peek out through Greg's armpit.
The only woman at my testicular cancer support group, smokes a cigarette under the burden of a stranger. Her eyes meet mine.
Faker, they say.
You are a faker.
Faker.
Liar.
Her hair is cut short.
Limp, dead reddish under faded black dye. Deathly thin, her used-clothing store dress sagging off of her sallow frame. Big eyes, looking out from between the dark smudges of shadow on her face.
This woman was in my tuberculosis support group on Saturday. My melanoma round table Wednesday. My Leukemia rap group Monday night.
With her here, I can't cry.
And when I can't cry, I can't sleep.
I'd been going to support groups for two years. First time I'd gone to a brain parasites support group. Free and Clear, it was called. Happy, upbeat names, always. Everyone smiling, with invisible death hovering over them.
At Free and Clear, we all introduced ourselves. This is Brenda. This is Jeff. This is Alice. I never gave my real name at support groups. This is Cornelius. This is Ryan. This is Vince.
A woman named Chloe led us through guided meditation. Walked us into the garden of serenity. Open the seven doors. Silver, Violet, Azure, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red.
Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light.
I DON'T THINK SO.
Into caves, to meet our power animals.
Mine was a penguin. It told me to slide.
Then it was time to hug.
Therapeutic Physical Contact.
Chloe said, the worst part about having brain parasites was no one would have sex with her. She just wanted to get screwed one last time.
With insomnia nothing is real.
A copy of a copy of a copy.
I didn't cry.
Not at Above and Beyond. Or at Organic Brain Dementia. Or Free and Clear, a blood parasite support group.
I didn't cry until I met Greg.
With her watching, I'm a liar. Not the little center the world crowds around.
When people think you're dying, they actually listen.
She walks in to my tuberculosis support group. I sit next to her. "I'm Jenna Weasley," she says, and she puts away her cigarette. It might not go over too well here. When the group's over, after guided meditation, I'll grab the little bitch, I'll shake her and I'll say, Jenna, you faker, you big tourist, this is the one thing real in my life and you're ruining it. I can't sleep with you here.
You wake up at the LA magical safety department. You wake in Chicago. You wake up in Washington. You wake up in Seattle.
I prayed for an accident. When a cross-continent portkey goes, your organs are crushed slowly. Your body contracts to the size of a tomato, and then explodes. The moment the swirling colors went wrong, my insomnia was cured with narcolepsy, when we might die helpless packed human tobacco inside the magical tunnel.
You wake up in Dallas.
This is how I met Harry Potter. Harry worked part-time in a magical theater, projecting the images onto the screen. Harry could only work night jobs. If a projectionist called in sick, the union called Harry.
Life Insurance pays off triple if you died on a business trip.
I had no will.
I prayed for a crash.
I study the safety cards they hand out in the portkey waiting area. It takes 30 minutes for a portkey to cross America. 30 to come back. 10 minutes loading at either end.
The people on the safety cards see the swirling green and violet that means the tunnel is decompressing in magical space time. A man gazes placidly at the other passengers around him implode.
In a magical theater, the projectionist is given a slip of red film to put in his wand. This contains the illusion that is projected onto the screen. In older theaters, you have to switch to a new film when the old one runs out. There are warning dots on the screen that tell you when to switch. In the industry, they call them cigarette burns.
I know this because Harry knows this.
In a picture on my safety card, a woman's hair floats around her as she floats into the colorless void outside the magical tunnel. Other passengers reach for the oxygen masks inside their portkey safety collars. Their eyes are wide open, neither smiling nor frowning. Calm as Hindu cows.
You wake up in Miami.
The tiny-life charm of traveling is everywhere I go. Tiny soap, tiny shampoo, single serving butter and jam, tiny toothbrush. Fold into the seat on the side of the portkey. Wait. You're a giant in an Alice-In-Wonderland world.
So maybe one day a projectionist is bored. Harry takes a single frame from a pornography movie and splices it into one of those pet movies where the dog and cat with human voices are left behind by their owners and have to find their way back home. And for one sixtieth of a second, a second divided into sixty equal parts, there is a giant penis, towering eighty feet over the audience. The audience doesn't see it. No one knows it happened. And yet, they do. Something wasn't right. Something didn't seem the same.
While Cinderella danced with Prince Charming, people cried and didn't know why. No one complained. A hummingbird couldn't have caught Harry at work.
The people I meet at the portkey waiting areas, I sit next to them. Single-Serving Friends. I make conversation. I tell them how we decide whether to issue recalls on means of magical transportation.
You take the amount of merchandise in the field (A), multiply it by probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the cost of an average out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is greater than the cost of recall, we issue the recall and no-one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of recall, we don't do it.
This is how I met Harry Potter.
I turned to my new single-serving friend. He wore a battered red fake-leather cloak over a stained black shirt. He looked like he hadn't had a haircut in weeks, and also like he didn't care. I introduced myself.
Do You Know About Harry Potter?
Used my conversation starter. I'm a recall co-ordinator for Magical Transportation Works, New York, New York. So, what do you do?
He showed me the safety card. He asked, me, do I know why they give us oxygen masks? So we can breathe in the void if there's an accident, of course.
"No," He says, "Oxygen makes you high. You become docile. You cease to care about your fate. Look at them. About to die. Calm as Hindu cows."
That's very interesting, Mr….
Potter. Harry Potter.
So what do you do, Harry?
Soap, Harry says. I make and I sell soap.
Soap is the benchmark of civilization.
Three ways to make Napalm, Harry says. One: You mix equal parts Gasoline and Diet Cola. Two: You mix equal parts Gasoline and frozen Orange Juice Concentrate. Three: You mix Kitty Litter into Gasoline until the mixture is thick. Take a 98% concentration of fuming nitric acid and add it to three times that amount of sulfuric acid. Do this in an ice bath. Add glycerin drop-by-drop. You have nitroglycerin. Mix the nitro with sawdust, and you have a plastic explosive. "With enough soap," Harry says, "You could blow up the world." And he gives me his business card. Paper Street Wizarding Soap, Co.
I say, Harry Potter, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I have ever met. "That's very clever," he says. "How's being clever getting you along in life?" Oh, I say, I'm Fine. Just fine.
When we stop, Harry gets up.
"A question of etiquette. Do I give you the ass or the crotch?"
He gives me the ass. He gives the woman two seats up the crotch.
This is how I met Harry Potter.
A single moment is all you can expect from perfection.