It Wasn't Happening

        Off work, Thompson drank. If sorrow repeatedly drove him to booze, as in the case of Jim Dillon, the narrator of Now and On Earth - two sorrows must've weighed heaviest.

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       Over all else hung the guilt of having left his father in an Oklahoma City nursing home. He wanted to send for "Pop", reunite the family in San Diego. But at $36 a week, split between Thompson, his wife, three kids, and his mother, it wasn't happening.

Ken Kuhlken
excerpts from
Metaphysical Okie - Jim Thompson in San Diego
San Diego Tribune
1995

Thompson & wife Alberta circa 1930s

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1995/mar/30/cover-metaphysical-okie-jim-thompson-in-san-diego/