She claims to like the emotional workout of being with these people, which is "cheaper than a movie." However, when Marla abruptly begins to attend all the meetings he is attending. He becomes irritated by her presence because she is a fraud too and doesn"t belong in his grandfallon. Her company reminds him that he is impostor and he doesn"t like that. They workout a deal where they split the days up between them. She gets the breast cancer and emphysema group while he takes the testicular cancer group etc. Nevertheless, Marla becomes apart of Jack"s karass. .

             After a month or two, the feeling of identity he gets from the support groups wears off and he begins to develop insomnia again. Unable to sleep, he volunteers to travel and represent his company abroad. Unaffected by jet lag he begins to enjoy arriving at a new destination every morning. Consequently he avoids experiencing the torturous night in which he can"t sleep. The pivotal moment in his life occurs on his flight back to his home in LA. On the plane he meets Tyler Durden, who introduces himself as a soap manufacturer. When they land in LA, they exchange business cards. Soon after his encounter with Durden, he arrives at his condo only to step over a burnt piece of his couch, to be greeted by a fireman, explaining to him that his apartment blew up. "You left the gas on and something in your apartment sparked the explosion." In shock, Jack agonizes, "Everything I had was in there, I had my couch my matching plates and neat glasses, my life was in that apartment!" This explosion becomes the defining moment that begins his personal apocalypse. He is a man purged of identity by fire. Like Lancelot and young Tarwater, his former self is destroyed by a catastrophic event marked by flames.

             His new path begins when he finds Durden"s business card, with no place to go he calls him. The two meet outside a bar and sit talking over a couple of beers.