Bob Slocum Timeline and Summary

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• Young Bob Slocum walks in on his older brother having sex with Billy Foster's skinny kid sister on the floor of the coal shed behind their childhood apartment.
• Seventeen-year-old Slocum gets a job at the auto insurance claims agency and develops a crush on Virginia.
• Slocum leaves the company to go off and fight in the war.
• Slocum returns from the war and marries his wife. The two live in an apartment in the city (likely Manhattan) before moving out to the suburbs in Connecticut.
• Slocum and his wife have three children, a daughter, a son, and another son named Derek, who they discover can't surpass the mental capacity of a five-year-old.
• Slocum does well in his company, but his boss Jack Green does not allow him to make a speech at the annual company convention.
• Slocum engages in several extramarital affairs, including a ten-years-and-counting run with a woman named Penny.
• The head of the division, Arthur Baron, tells Slocum that he's being considered for promotion to Andy Kagle's job. Slocum finds that he really, really wants this job.
• Slocum returns home to tell his family the news, and they react rather unenthusiastically.
• The family members engage in their usual dinnertime banter, with everyone leaving the table feeling disappointed and unhappy.
• Slocum and his wife go upstairs to have sex, which is void of any passion and just a part of the daily routine.
• Slocum confesses that he dislikes coming home and feels more comfortable at the office, even though everyone is afraid of everyone there, too.
• The news is announced that Slocum will be taking over Kagle's job, and Green will move into Slocum's old position.
• One day, Slocum hears a teenage boy shout, "Something's happened!"
• Slocum finds his son lying on the ground next to a car with shattered windows. His son is bleeding from his face and is in clear pain.
• Slocum feels sorry for the boy, and in a conscious act to put him out of his misery, he hugs him so tightly he suffocates to death.
• Slocum learns at the hospital that his son would have survived his injuries, but it was asphyxiation that killed him.
• Slocum lives with his secret and continues on with his life. He ascends his new position with grace and ease, and he's finally able to deliver his speech at the annual company convention.
• Slocum admits that he occasionally misses his son, but then he continues telling of all of the great things he's now doing. And he seems to be doing quite well.