She
peered over her wire-rimmed glasses as she swiped the book on the scanner. She doesn’t think it’s for me. Its red
and black striped cover stood out in comparison to the other books on the
counter. It was the bloody fist that did it.
She thinks that I’m getting the book for my brother or my boyfriend or
something. I pay, grab the book, and wait for my friend Tyler. Tyler is
6’1”, burly, and gay. The book he hold’s up to the bookstore cashier is The
Last Unicorn. He gets the same
odd look I did before. First the small
girl with Fight Club, and now here’s this man with a book about
unicorns.
It’s not the first time I’ve received odd looks. For some
reason people can’t believe that a girl can be so obsessed with a story. A
story about men who were raised by their mothers and then form secret cults
were they beat the living crap out of each other. A story about men being men,
fighting men, eating manly man sandwiches, wanting to live on the edge so they
can remember what it feels like to be a man. I’m not the one who buys the
unicorn books.
In the car we laugh about the cashier.
“It’s fine,” Tyler says as he looks down
at the medieval unicorn tapestry on the cover. I look at the bloody fist. “We
could just say we were buying each others books.” He laughs and drives out of
the parking lot. As we drove back to the dorms I couldn’t help thinking about
that idea. Why would I have to have the unicorn book, and he have the manly
book? Why couldn’t I have the man sandwich?
***
She
held the pink frilly training bra up to my chest. There’s no way I’m going to wear this thing. My mother holds up the
small straps to my eleven year-old body. The
small red hearts accentuate the femininity in the bra. The straps constrain me
like a straightjacket. I can think of thirty different places I would rather be
at, like the tree house behind Leon’s house.
Built between a boulder and a twisted
tree branch, the tree house was our version of MI6 from the Bond movies. Behind the camouflage
curtains, Leon would be James Bond, Jake would be some sort of villain, and I
would always be the Bond girl who dies in the end. I hate being the Bond girl.
“Stop struggling, we won’t be able to
find one that fits unless you stop moving.” I stand pin straight, allowing my
mother to continue to find the bra of best fit. To me they’re all the same.
They’re cold reminders that I am different from the boys. Bras are reminders
that I am always going to be stuck as the Bond girl, the damsel, and the
princess in all our games while they play hero.
***
“Why do you have to be so much like a
boy? Why can’t you act more like a girl?” My little sister looked up at me with
painful frustration as she held her Barbie dolls. She stroked their blonde
hair, dressed them in their gowns, and got each doll ready for the ball. I shrugged away into a corner to read
my comic books. Each scantily clad woman stares up at me from the page. Their
perky breasts hardly able to be contained beneath their spandex gear, their
sultry eyes glaring at their male counterparts, the sexual tension building
with every fight. They use their gender to get what they want.
The male superheroes use brute force, yet
the women have a different power entirely. They have their sex. Stronger than
any hero these women were able to bat their eyes and make their enemies melt.
And then they could go off and kick butt. I wanted to be one of these women. I
set aside any aspirations I had to become an astronaut, an archaeologist, or a
paleontologist to become a female superhero. I wanted to have the opportunity
to hit something.
***
I
first met Tyler Durden on AMC. The two and a half hour movie took somewhere
around four hours to watch. Tyler Durden’s rants about our materialistic
society were interrupted with commercials for “Shamwow” and “Snuggies.”
“May
I never be complete.”
The Shamwow is superabsorbent, watch as
it is able to absorb this gallon of Koolaid.
“May I never be content.”
The Shamwow can be yours with one easy
payment of $19.95!
“May I never be perfect.”
Act now, and we’ll add another Shamwow to
your order absolutely free (just pay shipping and handling.)
Fight
Club, both the movie and the novel, became a way of life for me. My world
was exposed to the existentialist rants left from the frayed remnants of the
mind of Chuck Palahniuk, and I could never return. I became more confident in
my interests. I was unafraid to confront my own identity, question what identity
I was buying into. I was open about myself, while I simultaneously hid my
obsession. Most people don’t admit that their life’s mantra is found in between
the bloodstained words of the controversial Tyler Durden. I knew the rules. I
kept it a secret.
***
My
roommate paints Santa Claus on my nails. Last night she painted candy canes,
and the night before I sported rainbows that looked like they fell straight from
“My Little Pony.” Chocolate smears our mouths as we watch chick flicks. This is
what we call a “girl’s weekend” in our apartment. It’s one of the last we’ll
have before we all split for a month for winter break. We’ll make up for it
later when we come back and watch all five “Fast and Furious” movies with pizza
and beer. We have no idea what we call those weekends.
We
have no roles to fulfill. We have no stereotypes we have to buy into. The smell
of acetone and chocolate keeps us company. As an English major with a minor in
WEST (Women’s and Ethnic Studies) my mind is constantly on a roll. Reading into
every statement, every character, and every motion made in every movie we
watch. It’s a curse.
“Who
owns Fight Club?” Kyle, a friend of
Stacy’s, my other roommate, looks at our extensive movie collection. He stands
there in almost disbelief as he sees peeking from between Lion King and Mary Poppins is
the masculine manly man sandwich itself.
“It’s
mine.” I say not looking up from nails, as Jenna magically draws a fluffy white
beard on my middle finger.
“That’s
so weird. Cool. But weird, you don’t look like the type of person who would
watch that kind of stuff.”
I
look up, not knowing what to really say. It
has been an ongoing love of mine for the last four years now. I wanted to start
my own fight club in my friend’s basement. Her mother didn’t quite approve. I
smile, look him dead in the eyes.
“I
don’t really talk about it. It’s the first and second rule.”
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