How It All Goes Down
- Our narrator gets sent home from work early because his pants are covered in dried blood. Sounds about right.
- At home, all he can do is listen to the sound of Tyler and Marla boinking away.
- When they're done, Marla comes down to the kitchen, sits at a table, and burns her arm with a cigarette while insulting herself. We've heard of having a cigarette after sex, but… um. Tyler says that they need to make soap in order to wash the blood-stained pants, so our narrator sends Marla to the store to buy some lye.
- Before she leaves, she says all sorts of weird things about love, abuse, and abandonment.
- While they wait for Marla to return, the guys have to render fat in boiling water. Tyler just happens to have a few handy baggies of fat in the freezer. Who doesn't?
- As they boil fat, Tyler and our narrator talk about what it really means to hit bottom. "Only after disaster can we be resurrected" (8.85). Deep.
- Marla drops off the lye and leaves, pleading to our narrator to call her later.
- He gets her out the door as fast as possible and returns to Tyler.
- Tyler gives him a lesson: apparently making soap and making dynamite are actually quite similar. Who knew?
- Then, to show him what it's like to hit bottom, Tyler decides to give our narrator a chemical burn.
- Every kiss begins with lye...