Just Enough

         I was on the subway the other day, and I noticed that we never went underground. It seems to me that they shouldn't call it the subway, whoever they are. I suppose I'm one of them.
         I was on the bus the other day, the one that never goes underground, and I noticed that the noise that the doors make when they open isn't the same as when they close. When they open, there's a light misting sound, as though there's water somehow involved in the operation, but when they are closed, they just clatter together. I'm very observant about these sorts of things, which is a fat lot of help to me. When I was in school, I couldn't listen to any of the professors for more than a minute, and I mean that literally. Maybe two minutes, but only if it was a good day and the guy giving the lecture wasn't a complete chump. But I could tell you how many pieces of gum where on the underside of my desk, or how many stitches were in the sweater of the girl sitting in front of me. My innate brilliance, which I tend to think makes me smarter than pretty much anyone I've ever met, is never taken seriously, just because it isn't "useful." I'm never appreciated, and after five and a half years, I still didn't have a damn degree.
         My parents call me every day, sometimes more than once. They mean well, I know, but it's just so damn annoying to have to answer their calls. And I mean that I have to answer them, or else they get so damn worried about me. As if anything is going to happen to me. I'm 26 years old for Godsake, and I still get daily calls from my mother. And they're always so mad if I ever miss them, because they always make a big fuss and call anyone and everyone that might have seen me in the past year, even though I keep telling them not to worry about anything.
         It's funny, sometimes, when they can't get a hold of me, because the only people that they know are my old friends from high school. Half of my friends are crazy now, and I mean really bat-shit, carving-numbers-into-their-thighs, death-by-snorting-heroin crazy. No kidding, one of my buddies kicked it a few years ago when he tried to inhale what turned out to be about 40 percent heroin. The coroner said that even if he had injected it into his blood stream like any other normal junkie, it still could have killed him. Anyway, those are the sort of people that my parents try to contact when I miss their calls, and I guess it's why they get worried. But I mean I live in the goddamn city, and all of my friends are either back home or in prison. Or dead, if you still want to count the guys who are six feet under.
         I got a job a few weeks ago, which got the folks off of my back a bit. They always say that the city is too expensive for someone to be unemployed, and I think it's because I've never shown them my apartment. They think they're worried know, they would have a cow if they saw where I live. But now that I got a job, they don't call during the day, since I'm working. I think it calms them down a little to know that if I go missing, they won't be the only ones that notice.
         I've been looking for work for a while now, but I never find anything that I want to do. Or I find something that I want to do, and it turns out that the job is real shit, and I end up quitting after a few weeks. I think if I could get some real money for doing something, I wouldn't mind it as much, but it turns out that being a college dropout is worse than being a plain old high school graduate.
         The job I have now isn't so bad though. I found it through an employment placement agency, which my father recommended after I quit my last job. They think I was fired, my parents, just because I had a big fight with the bossman a few minutes before I quit. But it was my decision to leave, and my boss sensed that, because he didn't ever call me back to ask when I would be coming in next. He knew that I had left for good. That telling off that I gave him about his Fascist, nine dollars an hour regime was one of the best speeches that I've ever heard, and not just from me. From anyone. If you were there you would understand. It was outta here, and the look on his face when I called him a worthless know-it-all, it was like he was seeing himself for the first time. I wish I had recorded it or something.
         Most of my references are shit now, since I've been quitting most of my gigs, so this placement agency really did me a favor by getting me this new job. I could have done it myself, but I don't have any references, like I said, and it's just a pain to have to explain that I've been working for the past two years and don't have anything to show for it. So they helped me out, asking me what I wanted to do, and they really tried to find me something that I would like. The woman I'm working with, she's great. She's the one who goes with me to this job, and I'm starting to really like her. I've been thinking about asking her to a movie or something. I'm pretty sure that she would say yes. We've been spending a lot of time with each other.
         Anyway, I was on the bus the other day, listening to the sound of the doors opening and closing, trying to find a pattern on the design that's on the seats, and I realized that I haven't been this happy in a long time. I don't mean that everything is perfect in my life, but my life is back on track. I'm calm, I'm young, I'm a genius, I have a place to live, and I'll be able to pay the rent next month thanks to the job that my girlfriend got me, which means that I'll be able to actually go out at night without having to worry about not having any money. Maybe I can even get some new people for my parents to call when I don't feel like talking to them.