“Those two laughing men before,” Margo says a couple of minutes later, “did they actually bother you so much where you got scared? They did us, me and Julie agree,” and I say “‘Julie and I, Julie and I,’” and Julie says “I said they scared me only a little but not so much,” and Margo says “That’s not true, we were just talking about it,” and Julie says “Don’t lie, I didn’t say those men were so bad, only for a little,” and Margo says “She doesn’t know what she says, even right after she says it,” and Julie says “Not so, you’re lying again,” and swings at her it seems because Margo says “Dada, you told me to tell you when she’s hitting me so I’m telling you instead of hitting back, she just punched me in the arm,” and I say “Did it hurt?” and Julie says “It couldn’t have, I missed her,” and Margo says “All right, so she almost did it,” and Julie says “‘Almost’ isn’t doing it,” and Margo says “You aimed to hit, that’s bad from the start,” and I say, “Girls, girls, enough already, arguing over what you said about those men and now this is silly and swinging at anyone about anything, even if you intend to miss, is dead wrong. And now you’re distracting me even worse than those guys. Anybody mind some music? I think I know the public radio station in this neck of the woods. 91.1 or 91.9—one or the other, for we’re somewhere between Philadelphia and Delaware and I’ve heard them both on these trips,” and Margo says “Not your music, do me a favor; I don’t like it. Can’t we have some of ours for a change?” and I say “Maybe it’ll be interesting talk or folk music or something, even someone reading for kids, but we’re not going to listen to your music — that you can do when you’re home in your own room, for it stinks,” and she says “That’s not nice, I only said I didn’t like your music, I didn’t use profanities against it,” and I say “‘Stinks’ isn’t a profanity and anyway, all of it? — all my music? You don’t like any of it? That Bach Christmas stuff we listened to last Christmastime, in New York on that twenty-four-hour radio station that goes — you know, the Columbia University one run by students — all night for eight days or so with just Bach and maybe some of his family? You said you liked some of it. That was to me like a breaking-open moment for you with good music when you said that and without any prompting from me. I think it was part of the Mass and then those organ preludes played on the piano. And also, just a few weeks ago when I played the tape, the Messiaen
Journey Till the End of Time or for the End of Time—no ‘journey,’ just a Quartet for