Found Objects Read Online Free Page B

had shared with a slovenly man for two years, four months, and sixteen days.   His new job represented an increase in his take-home pay by precisely three point two six percent, enough to where he could justify having his own place.      
    Angie would be so proud to see him here, in his own place, arranging his own things.  He had called her, a week ago, after he had accepted the new job and signed the lease for the apartment.  She sounded tired.
    “I’m really happy for you, Martin.”
    “I’ll have three sinks, one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, and another in the laundry room down the hall. I’ll have to share that one. But that’s okay, I guess.” 
    “Martin?”
    “The gas range in the kitchen comes with four burners.  Four! How am I ever going to use four burners at once?  If the front two are going, I’ll burn myself if I try to reach over them to the back two.  I remember you taught me that.” 
    “Martin?”
    “Yes Angie?”
    “You need to stop calling me.” 
    He carried the next box into the bathroom.   One by one, he removed each small item and put them in their place.   There were six different prescription pill bottles.  He reached in and pulled out his toothbrush.   Where other people would see clumps of bristles, Martin saw numbers.   Twenty-five bristles per clump.   Thirty clumps.   Seven-hundred and fifty bristles on the brush.      
    He decided to allow himself five hours of rest that night, but sleep would not come.   Instead, he was beset by swirls of numbers.   The city was two hundred and th irty-four square miles.     Forty -six people had lost their lives by violent means last year in the city.   It employed four hundred and twenty garbage collectors driving sixty-two garbage trucks.     Staring at the popcorn ceiling, formulae swirled in the crenellations.   Outside his window the fluorescent sign for the liquor store below flickered twelve times per second.   The rate of traffic on the street outside was a normally-distributed bistatic variance with a median of eighty-six vehicles per hour.        
    He slept.
    The subway was new.   Actuall y, the subway was old; it had been built eight years before he was born .   But it was new to him .   T here were different people on the train, different ads, different station layouts.   He had been through it a few times over th e course of his life .  He remembered his parents taking him to the zoo on this line.  The ads were different back then.  His parents argued , his father claiming the zoo would be too much for Martin. When they got there, his mother signed them up for a family membership.  Martin remembered peering over his mother’s shoulder as she filled out the form and noticing she did not add his father’s name.  When he pointed this out to her, she became flustered and her face turned red.  They never went to the zoo again as a family.
    He closed his eyes and listened to the click-clack of the seams in the rails.   He noticed things.   He noticed far more than people would believe.   He noticed when his former boss got a new tie and changed up his usual 4-3-4 cycle of tie rotation.   He also noticed that his boss tended to introduce a new tie at approximately the same time every year; Martin inferred that date to be his birthday.   He tried to use some of the techniques Angie taught him to engage his boss in conversation.  That did not go well. 
    “You have a cat,” Martin said to his boss.
    His boss looked up and blinked. “What?”
    “You have a cat,” Martin said.  “I can tell from the bits of fur on your tie.” 
    “Martin,” his boss said.  “We’re discussing your performance review.” 
    “Okay.”
    “You’re smart but too easily distracted.  You need to focus so you can improve your output.”
    “It’s a calico, isn’t it?  Your cat, I mean. I like calico cats. ”
    “Martin.”  His boss sighed.  “Can you please sign this and then go back