Before you read any more of this, I need you to think for a moment about how this was for me. Can you do that? I mean can you really do that? Is it even possible for you to imagine how isolated it made me feel? I was in a dark place. Looking at the world from the bottom of a deep well and simply not knowing what to do about it. All those things in my life which had been so important to me beforehand now became junk. I couldn't talk about it at Church. I couldn't exactly bring it up at the tennis club. And as for family? Forget that one from the start. Mom had cried when I told her about that one time I'd voted Democrat. There was no way I was going to get her to accept this...

Jessimine felt sick. She had definitely over-indulged and was on her sixth, or was it the seventh pint of lager. She'd also smoked a joint a little earlier, which seemed alright at the time but now was making her feel extremely nauseous. That last dance hadn't helped either, but she was a great dancer and loved to throw herself into the gyrations of the music...

We'd had a fight again. Which ended in the same way it always did. I got cross and hurt, and Charley just sat there, staring into space. This time it was about trying to get her out of the house. Earlier on it had been about brushing her hair. Before that it had been about getting her out of bed...

To my daughter, a daughter.
To me, a first grandchild.
No words needed.

A poem about getting what we need...

A homage to Philip Marlowe, Bogart and Bacall and Film Noir...