«Invisible Monsters», Chuck Palahniuk

For Geoff, who said, "This is how to steal drugs."And Ina, who said, "This is lip liner." And Janet, whosaid, "This is silk georgette." And my editor, Patricia,who kept saying, "This is not good, enough."

CHAPTER O N E

Where you're supposed to be is some big West Hillswedding reception in a big manor house with flower arrangements and stuffed mushrooms all over the house. Thisis called scene setting: where everybody is, who's alive, who'sdead. This is Evie Cottrell's big wedding reception moment.Evie is standing halfway down the big staircase in the manorhouse foyer, naked inside what's left of her wedding dress,still holding her rifle.

Me, I'm standing at the bottom of the stairs but only in a physical way. My mind is, I don't know where.Nobody's all-the-way dead yet, but let's just say the clockis ticking.

Not that anybody in this big drama is a real alive per-son,either. You can trace everything about Evie Cottrell's look backto some television commercial for an organic shampoo, exceptright now Evie's wedding dress is burned down to just the hoopskirt wires orbiting her hips and just the little wireskeletons of all the silk flowers that were in her hair. AndEvie's blonde hair, her big, teased-up, backcombed rainbow inevery shade of blonde blown up with hairspray, well, Evie'shair is burned off, too.

The only other character here is Brandy Alexander, who'slaid out, shotgunned, at the bottom of the staircase, bleeding to death.

What I tell myself is the gush of red pumping out ofBrandy's bullet hole is less like blood than it's somesociopolitical tool. The thing about being cloned from allthose shampoo commercials, well, that goes for me andBrandy Alexander, too. Shotgunning anybody in this roomwould be the moral equivalent of killing a car, a vacuum cleaner, a Barbie doll. Erasing a computer disk. Burning abook. Probably that goes for killing anybody in the world.We're all such products.

Brandy Alexander, the long-stemmed latte queensupreme of the top-drawer party girls, Brandy is gushing herinsides out through a bullet hole in her amazing suit jacket.The suit, it's this white Bob Mackie knock-off Brandy bought in Seattle with a tight hobble skirt that squeezes her ass intothe perfect big heart shape. You would not believe howmuch this suit cost. The mark-up is about a zillion percent. Thesuit jacket has a little peplum

skirt and wide lapels and shoulders. The single-breastedcut is symmetrical except for the hole pumping out blood.

Then Evie starts to sob, standing there halfway up the staircase. Evie, that deadly virus of the moment. This is ourcue to all look at poor Evie, poor, sad Evie, hairless and wearingnothing but ashes and circled by the wire cage of her burned-up hoop skirt. Then Evie drops the rifle. With her dirty face inher dirty hands, Evie sits down and starts to boo-hoo, as ifcrying will solve anything. The rifle, this is a loaded thirty- aught rifle, it clatters down the stairs and skids out into themiddle of the foyer floor, spinning on its side, pointing at me,pointing at Brandy, pointing at Evie, crying.

It's not that I'm some detached lab animal just conditionedto ignore violence, but my first instinct is maybe it'snot too late to dab club soda on the bloodstain.

Most of my adult life so far has been me standing onseamless paper for a raft of bucks per hour, wearing clothesand shoes, my hair done and some famous fashionphotographer telling me how to feel.

Him yelling, Give me lust, baby.

Flash.

Give me malice.

Flash.

Give me detached existentialist ennui.

Flash.

Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.

Flash.

Probably it's the shock of seeing my one worst enemy shootmy other worst enemy is what it is. Boom, and it's a win-winsituation. This and being around Brandy, I've developed apretty big Jones for drama.

It only looks like I'm crying when I put a handkerchief up under my veil to breathe through. To filter the air since youcan about not breathe for all the smoke since Evie's bigmanor house is burning down around us.

Me, kneeling down beside Brandy, I could put my handsanywhere in my gown and find Darvons and Demerols andDarvocet 100s. This is everybody's cue to look at me. My gownis a knock-off print of the Shroud of Turin, most of it brown and white, draped and cut so the shiny red buttons willbutton through the stigmata. Then I'm wearing yards andyards of black organza veil wrapped around my face andstudded with little hand-cut Austrian crystal stars. You can't tellhow I look, face-wise, but that's the whole idea. The look iselegant and sacrilegious and makes me feel sacred andimmoral.

Haute couture and getting hauler.

Fire inches down the foyer wallpaper. Me, for added setdressing I started the fire. Special effects can go a long way toheighten a mood, and it's not as if this is a real house. What'sburning down is a re-creation of a period revival housepatterned after a copy of a copy of a copy of a mock-Tudor bigmanor house. It's a hundred generations removed from anything original, but the truth is aren't we all?

Just before Evie comes screaming down the stairs andshoots Brandy Alexander, what I did was pour out about agallon of Chanel Number Five and put a burning weddinginvitation to it, and boom, I'm recycling.

It's funny, but when you think about even the biggesttragic fire it's just a sustained chemical reaction. The oxidation