After I got rid of the TV set Dawn took to listening to a lot of rock music. I can’t remember the names of any of the bands. It was just one long, horrible record to me. All of those Englishmen with their weary voices remind me of someone walking very slowly through the garbage they have strewn over the face of this earth. Dawn would sit in her chair and listen to these records, one right after another, which was just not healthy. It is music that was popular during the time she spent dating a boy named Rusty Miller. She used to carry on and on about Rusty. The sun rose and set with him. Rusty wasn’t the right type for Dawn but she, of course, couldn’t, wouldn’t, see it. In my opinion he paid too much attention to his hair. It was sprayed up on top and fell to his shoulders. Beautiful hair, like a girl’s. Dawn’s hair should look so good. She threatened more than once to run off with this Rusty character. Dramatic. She tried to convince me that she was pregnant with his child and that they would have to get married. They would cross state lines to do it. I knew she was lying. I have a better chance of getting pregnant than she does, but I said, “Fine, all right, you make your filthy bed and you lie in it.” But where was Miller after my daughter lost her feet? You tell me. He was just a fairweather friend and I tell her it’s a good thing she found out before it was too late. I found that out about Carol too late. I said, “Look at me.”

I figured Dawn had taken up with someone else when she started playing this new music. She hears it on the radio and has gotten hold of some records, too, big 45s the size of regular LPs. These are songs that have been retouched so that the singers stutter and the music falls back on itself. The same lines repeated over and over again as though they were intended for memorization. Simple, stupid lyrics repeated over and over again. “I I I I I I I, I Need, I Need You.” It’s as though the record were scratched intentionally. Normal, thinking people might ask themselves, “Haven’t I heard that phrase already?” They might notice that this relentless repetition is, at best, redundant and, at its worst, an insult to one’s ability to concentrate on anything of value. Dawn says that the beat is good to dance to. Dance? Her? I say, “Excuse me for nitpicking, but doesn’t one need to have two feet in order to dance?” This music encourages her to live in a fantasy world where everything is rosy and brightly possible — no need to work, just sit back and dream, dream your life away.