In Tyler We Trusted

Chapter One: All Your Friends are Make Believe



This is the start of a new series I'm writing. I managed to destroy "American Psycho" for some people. I even heard that some people can't watch "Friends" anymore. Let's see what happens when I turn my attentions to "Fight Club". It follows on after the film. However, I have borrowed some elements from the book. So, anything you don't remember from the film have probably been taken from the book.



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It's been five years since what my doctors like me to refer to as "The Incident". Five years and in that time I have managed to come to terms with the fact that for a brief period in my life I was insane. Tyler would say that in someways everyone is insane. But it doesn't matter what Tyler would say. Tyler's gone.



It's funny really because when I first came to the psyche ward I thought it was Heaven. My doctor was God and Marla was writing to me from Earth. However, after a while I gave up. Whether I had a moment of clarity or the drugs I was fed everyday finally managed to get into my bloodstream through to my brain, it didn't matter. I was Jack's cold hard slap in the face. I was ready to leave. Before then I wasn't allowed any visitors. I wasn't ready for visitors. Not yet. That didn't stop Tyler. During a Prozac induced state I was able to wake up long enough to see Tyler banging from the inside on my cell door. Yelling. Get me out! Let me out you Fuckers! That was the second to last time I saw him.



Fast forward and I'm making my way out of the psyche ward. All my worldly possessions wrapped up into a brown paper bag. I walked outside and I was greeted by Marla. She looked good. While I had been inside, she had sole her story to every chat show and tabloid she could. Chat shows have this policy where you have to sign a contract that says whatever you talk about can not be talked about on any other show. You are their exclusive. This didn't stop Marla. While she appeared on one show talking about having sex with a man with dual personalities, she was on another talking about her addiction to support groups. With the money she made she moved out of her roach motel and moved on up. Right up to the newly restored apartment that used to belong to me before Tyler blew it up.



NO!



Tyler didn't blow it up. I did.



Another thing Marla had done was get me spots on the same chat shows for when I get out. Jerry Springer, Sally Jessy Raphael, Jenny Jones. Hell, even Geraldo came back to do a one hour special. They all wanted a piece of me and they got it. I am Jack's pound of flesh. Then when the TV vultures had picked apart my carcass, Marla turned my skeleton over to the ad execs. The white collars loved the idea of a sociopathic leader of an underground cult selling their goods. Especially when said leader had a tendency to fight again commercialisation and materialism before failing to blow a series of credit card buildings.



I am not my car keys.

I am not my bowel cancer.

I am not my grande latte.

I am not my bank account.

But I am my beer. I drink Bud Lite.



Very Post-Ironic.



And not once did I complain or struggle. Why should I? Marla was helping me to edge my way back into society. She gave a roof over my head. She let me sleep on the living room floor. In the exact same spot where I use to have my coffee table shaped like the Ying-Yang symbol. However, a part of me knew that Tyler was gonna come back. How did I know? In Tyler I trusted.



Y'see, while I had been sleeping on Marla's living room floor, Tyler had been reading. He had been reading all the newspaper clippings Marla had made about Project Mayhem. Tyler wasn't happy.



The purpose of Project Mayhem was that should I have succeeded in stopping Tyler, each person in the group could carry on independently of leadership. However while the cat's away, the mice shall play. Some people had got to big for their boots and had made themselves leaders of certain sections of the movement. Without Tyler they had got sloppy and a year before I got out, 95% of the space monkeys were arrested. It was rumoured that the other 5% were to afraid to leave their houses and so the threat of Project Mayhem was over. No more sticking "OUT OF ORDER" signs on ATM machines. No more attempts to blow up federal buildings. No more urban myths about Tyler. No nothing.



Now this wasn't what bothered Tyler. He could always get new space monkeys. I knew this because Tyler knew this. What did bother him was what he read in the final few pages of Marla's scrap book. What Tyler read would forever scar him. When he had finished reading he would leave and the next morning I would be left with the feeling that Tyler had been here and that Tyler had a plan. As I say, in Tyler I trusted.