Day One

[Author's Note: These events happened several years ago. I've put them together from memories, emails and other blog posts, but my main source was a journal I kept as a means of stress relief. This journal was written as things happened, in present tense. As a result, posts are dated as though they are happening in real time. Like 24, only with less gunfire.]

 

My name is Noah, and I’m reasonably sure I’m about to be fired from my job. I don’t know it yet, but this will be the beginning of one of the most fucked-up part of my life. All I know is that I’m hanging by a thread here. 

Let’s cover the basics: My job is as white collar as it gets.  I’m a scientist at the University of Chicago.  I do genetics research.  My boss is a Chinese guy with a first name that’s hard to pronounce. He goes by Bruce. He picked that name after a McDonald’s janitor told him he looked like Bruce Lee. Seriously. Bruce is the stereotypical university professor who’s a genius in the lab and an absolute moron about everything else in his life.  Sometimes, this is amusing. He once hired the woman he was sleeping with to work for him.  This time though, he’s really fucked us over: He frittered our lab’s research budget on the scientific equivalent of a handful of magic beans.  And he’s done this twice in a period of less than one year.  The last time, the foundation that provides our funding finally put their foot down and said he has to make some salary cuts. 

I should have seen this coming.  After all, I was the one who decided to work for a man who was promoted three times before realizing he hadn’t gotten a raise in seven years.

Next Time: The noose tightens, job options emerge, and the quality of Noah's dental hygiene is called into question.

[Bonus Bruce Story: The University of Chicago is in Hyde Park, which is an island of civilization in the crappy seas of south Chicago. Everyone who works for the University lives in a one-mile-square area safe zone around the campus. Everyone except Bruce, that is. He lives in the ghetto. One night, after a chemistry graduate student was gunned down in a drive-by that happened (quite literally) on Bruce’s doorstep, we had the following conversation:

Noah: Bruce, do you feel safe walking home at night.

Bruce: Yeah… why do you ask?

Noah: (incredulous) You live in the hood and are an Asian man who is 5’7” and maybe 140 pounds.

Bruce: Yeah, but I have a secret.

Noah: What’s that?

Bruce: All the thugs see that I’m Asian, and think that I know karate.

Noah: But they have guns.

Bruce: They know not to mess with me.

Noah: Do you actually know karate?

Bruce: No… but they think I do! (laughs maniacally)

 Bruce also claimed to perform the (now-famous, thanks to Obama) “pound and explode” fist bump on gang-bangers.]