Adjustment Day

by Chuck Palahniuk

The man above him, Garret Dawson, gave Charlie a cardboard box containing one hundred thousand Talbotts and told him to spend what he could and pass the balance to the man below him along with the same orders. Charlie bought a necktie and planned to keep the rest of the money, but the next day Garret came to him with another box, and a third on the third day. All along the Tal-botts were fading infinitesimally, and Charlie was forced by good sense to begin passing them along to the next man who spent what he could and passed the balance to the next. In this way the money flowed down the length of each lineage, making those men wealthy beyond their dreams and making the people who knew them wealthy and the people who knew those people rich and those who knew those rich people became well off, and in this way the new economy began to float and stabilize itself. The new money cascaded down. It bucketed from man to man. Because the money could not be hoarded many tried to trade it for gold and diamonds, but those who held the gold and diamonds refused to sell, and thus gold and diamonds fell out of circulation and lost all value. They became like masterpiece paintings, items traded among the rich as signs of status, but they meant nothing to the majority of people. As the largest fortunes of the old times lost their wealth, because they could not use money to make money, and knew no other way to survive, their possessions came to the market.

Democracy was a short-lived aberration. He’d insisted that America needed a ruling class of men who’d seize power the way men had always seized power. Men who take action will become this new royalty. Learning

trade was fine. College wasn’t for every man. But thirty years into framing houses or wiring buildings and what will become of your body? Once a man’s knees or his back age, how will he earn his livelihood? Adjustment Day was about men joining forces. Walter had looked up from his typing. “So this is like Fight Club?” His new old man had shaken his head. He’d asked, “Are you referring to the novel?” “What novel?” had asked Walter. His fingers poised above the keyboard. Talbott had smirked. “Hardly.” He’d said, “Fight Club was about empowering each man through

series of exercises.” His ghastly face shined with its coating of blood. “Fight Club taught each man that he had capacity beyond his greatest concept of himself. Then, it set each man free to fulfill his destiny: to build a house, to write a book, to paint a self-portrait.” Walter could recall that much from the film. Shaking his head dismissively, Talbott muttered, “Palahniuk. All of his work is about castration. Castration or abortion.” Adjustment Day, Talbott had explained, was to be a model for how men could form an army in order to attain permanent high status. It would draft them to take action before society drafted them. These men would kill on their own behalf, for their own benefit, rather than for the benefit of those who already held power and assets. “What men want,” he’d said, “is a structure for communion.” As Talbott had seen it, a demographic explosion of young men were becoming men, men with good educations, healthy and well fed, who’d been raised to expect a glorious...

be a handful from among the millions. Walter had waited, uncertain if this merited writing down. “What happens to the rest of us?” Talbott had smiled and sighed. His eyes blink-blinked and drifted to consider the blood-flecked cement floor. “What happens is what always happens.” Going on, he’d claimed that the government had always known Pearl Harbor would be attacked by the Japanese. He’d insisted the government had known...

obsolete. The Twin Towers were a necessary expenditure. In both cases, what the nation had really needed was a war to cull the impending generation of young men reaching adulthood. Such a war would cut down the labor pool and ensure a sizable wage to the survivors. It would throw the surplus men of many countries into combat and stimulate economies the world over. “Most importa...

A man might hesitate to kill if it meant only his own benefit, but if his action would crown his sons and, in turn, their sons and their sons as royalty in a new society, that man who had no option but to commit murder

in someone else’s war, that man would gladly create a meritocracy based on murder. At this Talbott had fallen silent. His gaze had come to rest on the computer in Walter’s lap. It was clear the discussion had been over for the time being when he’d pronounced:

“This is the senator,” the voice had announced. “Yes.” Walter had gone on watching Talbott for any signs of approval or disapproval. “You need to introduce the War Resolutions Act.” Talbott had explained the situation. How the youth bulge of surplus males threatened to destabilize this country as well as any number of foreign nations. The act would catalyze the induction of a million young men into the military, and these men would be pitted against equal forces conscripted in other countries. It wasn’t lost on Walter that whenever events in the world went south it was always men his age who’d be dispatched to clean up the mess. Walter had told the senator, “Mr. Talbott would like the war to commence no later than the opening day of grouse hunting.” “Of course,” the senator had said. Unless Walter had been mistaken, the man had been panting for breath as if he’d sprinted to reach the phone. Talbott had explained that a world war would reduce the surplus of labor. The global manufacturing markets would explode with growth. Finally, Walter had imagined he could see some big money at the end of this very long tunnel. He’d told the senator, “Mr. Talbott sends his best wishes to your wife.” “Of course,” the senator had said. “Thirty seconds,” had barked Talbott from his chair. Tipsy with power, Walter had baited the man on the phone. “How is Mrs. Senator?” The senator had hesitated. “She’s fine, sir.” To date Walter had never been addressed as “sir,” and it felt surprisingly go...

to expunge her parking tickets. “One minute,” Talbott had snapped, “hang up!” As one last mocking gibe Walter had asked, “Senator, when is grouse hunting season?” His voice reedy with stress, the senator had asked, “This year?” “This year,” Walter had confirmed. “It begins one day after the onset of World War III,” had said the senator, adding, “sir.” Only then, with the test complete, with Talbott glaring bullets at him, taking his own sweet time, did Walter hang up.

Throughout history white men had claimed that magic carpets were a fiction simply because no white man could duplicate

the achievement. Vehemently, whites had long sought to humiliate blacks by claiming the latter had never invented the wheel.

Blacks in Africa had no use for wheels because they flew. They’d no use for any written language because they combined their wisdom utilizing the technique of cognitive amalgamation. All of this wisdom had been secretly locked away when Europeans had begun to invade the continent.

creature could only stare, its mouth agog.

Anyone Who Denies That Fact Is Simply Trying to Dominate You.

The great chieftain estates with their fabled swaths of runner beans and red cabbages, they’d displaced the wild packs of wolves and coyotes. Those animals as well as bears and cougars had roamed into the city streets, the parks and neighborhoods, seeking new prey. Nights when they howled and their victims screamed, Nick had the pills to sleep soundly in whatever abandoned automobile. Days, he’d come across a mess that might stretch for city blocks. The ribcage and spine in one place, the head and pelvis would be dragged off. The skull might be gone, but there was always the matted hair. Usually the hands, too. The sidewalk or alley would be sticky with dried blood, with footprints of blood wandering off in every direction. The footprints of wolves or bear. The scavenger prints of coyotes and raccoons, magpies, rats. Each trail of red prints pointed the direction of some missing arm or entrails. Some hapless so-and-so. The fingers, the fingers of the gnawed-on hands would be loaded with diamond rings, ruby rings. The eyes would be pecked out, but a pearl necklace would be left behind, mired in the blood. Carnivores knew what was actually of real value. The Xanax took care of the absolute worst aspect of modern city life. Not the food insecurity or the dying nighttime screams. The toughest detail to deal with was the loneliness.

Flattery is addictive. Convince others they’re special. Assure them they have talent. Make yourself the source of people’s self-worth. Doing so binds them to you and it preempts them from developing their skills and proving their true potential.

Assembly is expression. Individuals must be granted the right to associate with those and only those they select. The groups that result shall not be compelled to open their ranks to those they wish to exclude. Delirious from so many tiny infections, Talbott had ranted: Be horrible, exist as a horrible threat, and at the moment of your greatest power stay your hand. By hurting people and then not hurting them you acquire their love. He’d told them: Imagine there’s no God. There is no Heaven or Hell. There is only your son and his son and his son, and the world you leave for them.