I Quit - Fight Club Memories
I wake up, roll over to see my battery powered alarm clock with the red numbers glaring back at me. Fuck, I’m late for work. I work as a recall coordinator of a liability company; ashitty 9-5 office job. Answering calls, answering questions, with the occasion of flying to a crash site to assist in the lawsuit.
I get dressed, dressed with the same pile of work clothes I had work that week. I don’t even wear a tie to work anymore. I jog down the decrepit sunken stairs, into our kitchen. Our whole house was melting at the walls, but I didn’t mind.
I grab the cup of coffee that Tyler had already made. I didn’t have time to sit down. I open up the pack of cigarettes sitting on the table. I see Tyler sitting at the end of our table, leaning back into his seat, wearing his same purple bath robe with the patterns on it. He had obviously woken up before me.
I pull out two cigarettes, “Want one?” I say, gesturing a smoke toward him.
“You quit?” I scoff, how could Tyler, the man who got me into smoking, possibly quit. He never even once showed a concern in his smoking habits. I shrug it off, good on him.
I put the loose cigarette behind my ear, ready to walk out the door. I check my wrist watch on my left hand
“Fuck- I’ll see you later, I’m already late.”
“To work, I gotta go to work-“
Tyler gave me a sarcastic glare, a look that could speak a million works, I have lived with Tyler for months; I can tell what all of his little scoffs and looks mean. This one means “really?”
“What?” I reply, why would he give me this look? He knows I have to go to work. I have been doing this every week day for months. Well, almost every day. I don’t go nor care about work as much as I used to.
“Do what you like, man” Tyler sighs, looking away from me and grabbing his coffee.
I didn’t have time to have this conversation right now, I open up our back door and down through our garden and leave for work.
I call a cab, I don’t have time to wait for a bus. I had a lot of thinking to do today, do I really need to work? Tyler seems to have a plan, Why don’t I?
I sit on the curb, pull the cigarette from behind my ear and my red lighter out of my pocket. This was originally Tyler’s lighter. I smoke and think as I wait for my cab to show up, I need to think of a plan.
Once I arrive at work, I sit at my cubical for only around an hour. I don’t even do any work anymore. I just write shitty haiku’s and send them to my coworkers. This day, I just sat there, smoking, thinking of a plan. Tyler always had a plan, Why can’t I be like Tyler?
I knock onto my bosses door. Richard Chesler. This horrible self centred man who has the audacity to think he can run a business and police our lives. Why does this man hold any authority over other beings?
”okay, where to begin?.. constant absenteeism, unpresentable appearance, you’re up for a review”
“I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”
I had picked up that line from one of Tyler’s talking organ books. His words coming out of my mouth.
“Let’s pretend. You’re the department of transportation. Okay? Someone informs you that this company installs front seat mounting brackets that never pass collision tests, break linings that fail that 1000 miles, and fuel injectors that explode and burn people alive. What then?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Get the fuck outta here, you’re fired!-“
“Better solution.” I interrupt, holding up my finger. “You keep me on the payroll as an outside consultant. In return for my salary, my job will be never to tell people these things that I know. I don’t even have to come into the office, I can do this job from home.” I feel a wave of adrenaline flow all over my body, and a subtle smirk onto my face.
“Wh.. who the fuck do you think you are, you crazy little shit?”
He stands up, and pulls the phone off the hook. “Security!”
I knew what I had to do. This was my cue. I felt my hand shake and clench. I instantly thought back to that clever one liner I had said earlier.
I am Jack’s smirking revenge.
I punch myself in the jaw, falling back out of my chair. I stand up, groaning in pain.
“What the hell are you doing?”
This was my plan. To frame my boss. I punch myself again, falling back onto a glass table with a loud smash. Blood now falling from my nose.
”that hurt” I chuckled softly
Richard had dropped the phone in shock. Whatever he is thinking right now, must not be a good one.
I sit up, “why would you do that?”
I start to stand up, “oh my god!, no! Please stop!”
Yes, this is working. Everything is going according to plan. I grab at my shirts collar and drag myself around the room groaning from the fake pain I am giving myself.
“What are you doing?” I shoulder check to make sure I am in line of the row of glass shelves behind me.
“Oh god, no! Please! No!” I throw myself backwards, crashing down onto the shelves.
for some reason I thought of my first fight, with Tyler.
I punch myself some more, falling face first into the shattered glass. glass stuck in my arms, I drag myself toward him; my nose now gushing blood.
Under and behind and inside everything this man took for granted, something horrible had been growing.
I reach him, still standing there in shock, phone off the hook, beeping.
Gripping onto his hands and pants, I spew “Look. Give me the pay checks, like I asked! And you won’t ever see me again.” My nose and throat clogged with blood caused me to sound nasally.
And right then, at our most excellent moment together, security busted open the office door.
“Oh thank god, please don’t hit me again!” I cried onto the floor. My brilliant plan had worked.
The security guards got me a cart, and piled it with everything from my cubical, plus more.
Telephone, computer, fax machine, 52 weekly pay checks, and 48 airline flight coupons, we now had corporate sponsorship. This is how Tyler and I were able to have Fight Club every night of the week.
They walked me to the front door without saying a word, I nodded at Ricky, I could tell he knew my plan before I even spoke to him.
I walked my way home, humming and nearly skipping due to adrenaline. I walk in through Tyler and I’s door and see him sitting on the couch wearing his slippers, his robe, his sunglasses and his klondike hat.
He just looked at me, I blew some blood out of my nose.
“I quit.” I cough. Tyler stands up.
“Oh, no no no it’s okay! I g- I gotta explain that to you but look! This is all free stuff an-“
“We gotta take fight club up a notch.” Tyler responds, completely ignoring my condition or what I had in this cart.
Tyler walked towards the stairs, was not even acknowledging me. He had obviously done some thinking over the hours I was at work.
“We gotta take it up a notch or shut it down for good.” He replied, walking fully up the stairs, most likely to his bedroom to go to sleep.
I walked towards the base of the stairs, baffled at the fact that Tyler was not even looking in my direction.
“Can you please come down here?”
He walked down halfway, where he was visible.
Look at us, two best friends in a run down house arguing like a married couple.
He walked down the stairs, and he sat back down onto the couch. I followed.
We sat there in silence for about a minute. “So.. why’d you call me down here?”
“What do you mean by ‘kick fight club up a notch’”?
Tyler went on to explain.
“We need to change something, we gotta bring it to the extreme”
“...What are you thinking?”
“We gotta change peoples lives, fighting is secret clubs only does so much, man. We change their way of thinking, their way of life, we get others to encourage that way of thinking. No more shitty office jobs, man”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“We figure it out together” Tyler responds, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one. “Oh yeah- you want one?” His voice muffled from holding a cigarette between his lips.
I take the pack from his hand, pull out a smoke and light it.
“I thought you quit?” I ask
Tyler chuckles “For a few hours” as he takes a drag.
I scoff and chuckle at his response
“Man, we gotta get you cleaned up” he exhales.
“Oh fuck, yeah I-I kinda forgot” I say laughing, I choke on dried blood in my throat and cough.
“C’mere” he gestures as he stands up, I follow him into the kitchen
“Sit up here” he says, as he pats the table in the middle of the room.
Tyler were a cloth and starts to clean my face, wiping away the blood softly. He pulled out a bag of bandaids and gauze from the below cupboard and placed it on the table beside me.
“What the fuck happened man?” He says laughing a bit
I laugh slightly too, “got into a fight with my boss” I was only half lying “security showed up and they’re giving me money and shit because of it. I wanted to quit but I didn’t wanna just, quit, yknow?”
Tyler laughs, blowing out smoke. “So all that stuff in the cart is from your work?”
“Sure is, I don’t have to work a day in my life anymore”
“Nice!” Tyler exclaims, still wiping the blood from my chin and nose.
He cleaned my face until only the cuts were visible, and put bandaids on them. He also took off my button up and tossed it into the sink to clean for later. Tyler took good care of me.
He picked out the pieces of glass from my arm and wrapped the area with gauze.
“You all good?” He asked after he finished
“It’s no problem- you probably should clean your shirt before it stains”
I start to run water into the empty sink where my white button up is sitting.
Tyler sits while I clean, smoking and talking. I couldn’t have ever asked for a better best friend
