How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Why would I want to admit to anyone that I hate and fear the man I work for, yet continue to work for him? Why do I let myself agonize over what even at best would have been no more than an amusing three-minute speech? The sky is falling, tumbling down on all our heads, and I sit shedding tears over an unhealing scratch on a very tender vanity. At least my boy's problems are real. They occupy space. (5.10)
Though Slocum is fearful of Green and Kagle and Baron and just about everyone else in the company, he feels his worries are still rather petty and insignificant compared to those of his son—who, like Slocum, is pretty much afraid of everyone and everything.
Quote #8
And then I understood why he did not move: he could not move. He was paralyzed. He was devoid of all power and ability to act or think. He could not even panic. He did not move because he could not move. He did not speak because he could not speak. He did not hit back because he could not hit back. He did not cry out or cast his gaze about for help because he couldn't: the thought was not there. He had no voice. (5.144)
Much to his own horror, Slocum witnesses his son become paralyzed by fear after he is slammed down by another boy in a summer camp relay race. It's Slocum's worst nightmare come true, an apparent onrush of death bearing down on him through the senseless, stupid action of another little boy.
Quote #9
I have this constant fear something is going to happen to him. (5.197)
Slocum reveals that his son is the kind of kid who is susceptible to freak accidents, like getting stabbed to death in the park or getting blastoma of the eyeballs. This—spoiler alert—is an eerie foreshadowing of what ultimately happens to his son.