Annotations for Personal Life: Family

Oh my goodness. That's interesting. Children. Later, much later.

Later?

This is how it works. Good results. You're married again. Marry another. American girl. Let me see how many children you'll have. It'll be a little while until you make up your mind what you want.

Mhm.

Definitely. See, this is definitely a divorce. Three children in the house. Very easy, if you think you can afford them, you better start working right now.

[Laughter]

You better start right now. Definitely, that's your nerves, yeah. You gotta watch those nerves, yeah. The only thing troubling you is money. And that would be the only thing keeping you from having a child. I don't think your wife was anxious to have a child, was she?

Yes, she was.

At one point.

Yeah.

That's your wish.

That's the wish, there?

In other words, you have a child. Two children or three. But I know you'll have children, because I know you'd love to have a child. And you know somebody already? Another girl?

Mm, no.

Well then you're going to meet someone. She has brown hair.

Yeah?

Why are you blushing if you don't know anybody?

[Laughter]

Sometimes you gotta play cards close to the chest.

[Laughter]

Her cards.

Her cards.

I'll look it up. Tell me about, uh, is it Lily's husband Ben? Is that his name?

Who?

Ben.

Ben who?

Lily's husband Ben.

Oh yeah, Ben, my husband, Lily, my Aunt Lily's husband was, was Ben.

Was he a strong character in your childhood, or just a…?

No, he was a, he was sort of a joke in the family, nobody took him seriously. But he had, he had grudges. And Ben's letter- Ben, Ben was a writer. Ben wrote, Ben thought of himself as a writer, he thought of himself - is it, can you hear, can this pick up, with all the background noise? you just pick up with all the background noise?

Very early, yes. And I was lucky in a way, aside from the misfortune of my talk of suicide, in that I had teachers who told me I was going to be a poet from the fourth grade on.