1980 was the year that I thought Anne Rayburn in a red bathing suit was all that. And funny enough I still think that. Anne had formed a big ego and had strong opinions.
Unfortunately when I saw her up there in Lake Placid it was among the most confused, panic-stricken times of my life.
It took me a long time to calm down and focus. It took about six years. Then Anne finally called me but all she could talk about was herself. Goodbye I said, and she said goodbye and I thought I heard some of that old emotion in her voice, but she never called again and I never called her.
I mixed Anne up with young love. I thought she and it were the same thing. And oh how different is young love from the life I lead now.
There are people I am sure I will never hear from or even hear about again. They are the people who inflicted tremendous hurt on me. But Anne? Innocent or guilty I got it as anguish, then it calmed down and she became for many years Anne Rayburn in a red bathing suit, both of us about 22 years old, me a dropout and she just graduated from Potsdam State about to go to music school in Michigan.
Four years later I am a zombie and a failure. Two or three psychotic episodes behind me, two or three more to go. Desperate, on the wrong medication. I show up at her door in San Francisco, where she is again succeeding, about to get her master’s degree in music. And she hates me. She hates my desperation and neediness, my extreme depression. We are now both about 26.
She called me one last time about three years later, we were both about 29, and all she could do was talk about herself, innocent or guilty.
I confused her with young love. She called to put me down because she figured out I wasn’t a loser. That I could go through a lot of shit and still come out on top, and she didn’t want me to pull it off. She seemed to have it all but it was very important to her that I didn’t recover. Innocent or guilty.
Anne Rayburn in a red bathing suit. A manic reaction. The red glows in the summer sun.
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