Monroe

Chapter One. In the beginning.

"Fuck!" Bob's eyes flew open as he half sat up in bed, a sudden and tremendous pressure on his bladder having yanked him out of his slumber.

He looked down to find his cat sitting primly on Bob's abdomen, happily kneading his stomach. "Monroe," he grumbled as he attempted to nudge the twenty-four-pound cat off. "Mreow," Monroe replied as he proceeded to hop off his human servant and lead the way to his tragically half-empty food bowl.

Bob sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He glanced at the alarm clock. Five AM. He was due to wake up in half an hour anyway. With a sigh, he stood up and followed Monroe to the food bowl, which was not, despite Monroe's insistence, empty. He dutifully topped up the bowl and made sure the water was still flowing into his cat bowl via the fancy automatic fountain.

He ambled into the bathroom, taking a seat on the porcelain throne. No sooner had his cheeks hit the seat, than Monroe came barreling in, winding around his legs before settling down in Bob's pooled boxers. Bob smiled and recalled the warning the man at the shelter had given him six years ago. "Ya gotta know that this guy is a lover - he's gonna want to be around you all the time - and I mean all the time. He's gonna follow you into the bathroom, and hopefully, your girlfriend is ok with threesomes because he will hassle you in the bedroom too".

"Morning buddy," he said as he reached down and scritched Monroe's ears, causing the internal purr-motor to start rumbling.

Bob had adopted Monroe when he started working on his masters. Six years had gone by in a flash, and he couldn't imagine life without him.

After completing his morning ablutions, wherein Monroe watched from the edge of the tub as he showered and shaved, he headed for the kitchen and fired up the stove. Eggwhite omelet for him and scrambled egg yolks for Monroe. Bob liked mornings. He didn't have the built-up tension and anger that inevitably plagued him by the time he got home from the Lab. He spent half an hour just relaxing, eating breakfast, cleaning up the dishes, and playing with Monroe.

Sadly all good things must end; he found himself grinding his teeth as he locked his apartment door and headed towards the stairs. Why did every day have to feel like a battle?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bob closed his eyes and focused on keeping his breathing calm. When Cal-Tech had announced they were reactivating Fermilab in Illinois, he had been ecstatic. He had applied for and been accepted to do his masters work, part of the first group of undergrads to work on the Particle Accelerator as it was being refurbished and brought back online. But years had passed, and while others had gone on to submit their thesis, he had somehow gotten stuck.

His latest submission had received a reply, which merely read "Rejected. Derivative of an ongoing project, revise and resubmit."

They didn't even try anymore. When he had submitted his first proposal, he had received a flowery rejection and been directed towards a different avenue. The rejections had started to become a bit condescending. Then sarcastic. And now this.

He opened his eyes. He forwarded a copy of the message to his personal email address, his Cal-Tech address, and then the Head of Department.

Bob shut down his PC and grabbed his phone from his desk drawer and headed towards the Administrative section of the Lab.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There wasn't anyone at the assistant to the head's desk. That was a bit odd. Bob hesitantly approached the head's door but paused when he heard several voices laughing inside. Then the laughter died down. The voices started speaking. And his blood boiled.

"Robert submitted another project," the head's voice drifted through the door. "I saw - if he were as smart as he thinks he is, he would have gotten the hint by now," said a voice that sounded an awful lot like Lisa, the director of the Lab.

"He just doesn't get it," replied a voice that he recognized as Larema, the head of HR. "I've dropped massive hints that this is a progressive, diverse environment and that he needs to show some support - but he doesn't even see his privilege or acknowledge the microaggressions he exhibits."

Bob stepped back quietly. Then he turned around strode back to his office. 'This fucking bullshit again!' he raged internally. It had been the same shit all through grade school and high school. Being white in a primarily black and hispanic community had been a terrible transgression on his part.

Bob tried to calm his breathing. He'd never seen any of that so-called "privilege" everyone talked about. His mother had gotten knocked up at fifteen and didn't know who his father was, which spoke volumes for her character. All through school, she'd worked as an exotic dancer at one strip club or another. He'd grown up in the kind of poverty you rarely find in the U.S.

He had learned to cook ramen noodles when he was five. Learned to sew when he was six. Lived with the nickname "Bob the Hobo," or "Hobob" for short. He had done his homework on the roof of the tenement building, relying on the sodium lights to work, as electricity wasn't a common occurrence in the apartment.

He went to school early and stayed late. His "privilege" let him score a free lunch every day. Bob had been caught eating out of the trash when he was six, which didn't help with the Hobo label.

He had spent his entire life being mocked for his poverty on the one hand and accused of enjoying white, male, or straight privilege on the other.

Bob had found a sort of father figure when he was five. His mother had brought home a man, which was not at all unusual. What was unusual was that this one was well dressed in a suit and tie. He had come out of Bob's mother's bedroom and found Bob struggling to lift a pan full of water onto the stove. He had reached over and moved the pan for him, then sat down in the rickety, greasy plastic chair that stood as a sad sentinel next to a decrepit table.

"Kid," the man had said, snapping his fingers to get Bob's attention. Bob had turned to face him. "This," the man had motioned around him, "isn't forever." He went on, "You are in a bad place right now, and you're already learning the hard lesson that no one cares about you." Bob nodded. The man sighed and said, "But you can get out. All you have to do are these five things," He held up a finger making sure he had Bob's attention.

"First, work hard. For now, that means studying hard in school," he said seriously, "Don't be lazy." He held up another finger and went on, "Be respectful. Say yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, and no ma'am. Only speak when asked a question and keep your answer short and to the point."

Bob nodded uncertainly. He didn't speak much as it was. The man held up a third finger and said, "Eat healthily," he grimaced as he looked around the barren kitchen. "Or as healthy as you can. You'll learn more about that in school." Bob didn't nod. He was always hungry, and wasn't sure what eating healthy was, but knew he wanted to eat and would eat healthy if it was offered.

"Fourth," another finger came up, "and this ties into number three, keep yourself fit. Situps and pushups and run a mile every day," the man admonished.

Finally, he raised his thumb and said, "Number five, remember that things get better. When you get angry, and growing up like this, I'm sure you will, you need to swallow that anger." He closed his fingers to form a fist to demonstrate. "Life isn't fair, and you're going to have it tough, so swallow that anger, stay calm, and focus that energy into studying and exercising, and living well, because one day," he held Bob's gaze firmly, "You'll make it out of here, and you'll be strong enough that world won't be able to break you."

He stood up, took a long look at Bob, then shook his head and walked out of the apartment.

~~~~~~~

Bob sat down in his chair and stared at the dark monitor. He tried to unclench his teeth and calm his breathing.

He was struck by the memory of his high school principal explaining that he wasn't going to be valedictorian because this was a historically black school, and it wouldn't be appropriate to have a white male take that honor from a more deserving young woman of color.

Just as quickly that memory was replaced by his high school guidance counselor informing him that despite his scores on the SAT, and a 4.21 GPA, none of his scholarship applications had been granted. He'd later learned that his applications for those scholarships had never arrived at their destination.

Then the memory of a professor kicking him out of her course for submitting a paper that documented the "Wage Gap" between men and women as being patently false.

Time after time, keeping his head down, biting his tongue, and swallowing his pride as he was mocked for being poor, for being white, for being straight, for being a man.

And for what? It was clear he wasn't ever going to accomplish his goals here. He was treading water, barely staying afloat. He lived in a shitty one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood. He took side jobs in the evening translating textbooks into Spanish, a language common in the neighborhood he grew up in, which he had further learned in high school and perfected in college. He made enough to live on, barely.

So why stay? 'They hold all the power, and they want me to leave,' he thought to himself. He took several deep breaths. He loosened his jaw, realizing that it was aching from the strain. "I'm done," he said quietly. He turned on the PC, signed in, and started sending all his work files to his personal email, before sending a request to have his drive backed up at three pm, then starting a full format and restore.

'I'm twenty-seven, I'm in good health, and in good shape,' he thought as he packed up his few personal items into his briefcase. 'I make less than someone working at a fast-food restaurant. I can do almost anything and live on the income.'

'I have my degree, if not my masters,' Bob thought, 'the past three years have been a perfect example of the sunk cost fallacy.'

Bob took a deep breath and picked up the nameplate on his desk, which read "Robert Whitman." With a shrug, he dropped in the trash and towards the director's office.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He approached the director's office for the second time that day, only to find his way barred by the director's assistant. "Can I help you?" Anita asked. "Yes, I need to see the director," he replied with an inward sigh. He had gotten a general impression that Anita didn't like him, although he wasn't sure why. He'd never messed up her pronouns on the rare occasions he spoke to her and wasn't sure exactly how his lack of interaction could have offended her.

"The Director isn't in; she is supervising a project being tested on the accelerator," Anita responded gruffly. Bob nodded and replied, "Thank you, I'll catch up to her at the Lab." He turned to go and heard Anita mutter behind him, "I can't wait till they bounce him out the door."

He eventually reached the control room for the accelerator and found the place crowded with people who all seemed to universally dislike him. The director, the head of HR, his department head, and Amber, a research fellow that he shared office space with. The door was open, and their backs were to him as he approached.

"Well, of course, I expect this to prove out, despite Robert taking my code and bungling it," Amber said as she leaned over a keyboard. "I can't believe he had the audacity to submit that project as his own," the head stated with a wink towards Amber, but unseen by the director. "Yes, well this is the final straw, I've given him plenty of chances to adapt to the times and take a reconciliatory tone, but he just can't look outside himself and see the problems he causes," the director responded.

"And done," said Amber as she stood up and continued, "I had to fix about eight hundred lines of code, but I'm ready now," she finished.

Bob fumed and started to take a step forward to explain that Amber was, in fact, plagiarizing ~his~ work, then stopped. He turned around and quietly walked down the corridor next to the accelerator. 'It doesn't matter,' he told himself, and he loosened his tie as his mind started cycling up, working on a plan. His lease was up next month, and he could spend that time taking on more translation work and finding a job that less closely resembled hell. He was jerked from his thoughts as he heard the particle accelerator begin winding up and frowned. That was his work they were trying to prove, after all. The dull pulse of the accelerator increased, then suddenly stuttered and began to become increasingly erratic.

Bob paused midstep, concerned. "She wouldn't have fucked with the impulse parameters," he muttered as he started to turn back towards the control room. "She can't possibly be that stupid," he said out loud as he began to hurrying back as the sound reached a chaotic crescendo, and the world turned blindly white, then black.