Life: Complexity And Adversity

1981 July - Annalise

I guess the only way to put it is this year is going slow, it's only July and it feels like 2 years should have passed. Of course this may have been one of my many idiosyncrasies. I knew what was on my mind it and it wasn't Annalise or Vera. They had both betrayed my innermost thoughts, I wanted one and could not have her and the other wanted me but I did not want her. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Annalise had only caused me pain and Vera I did not desire her, maybe once I did in a different time. I needed to revisit my socially anxious friends, Johnny Sawyer, Suzy Marsh plus Ross and Arthur, and of course Gwen was always with Johnny. We were all meeting the bar, the same bar we had visited in October of last year.

I step through the archway after pushing the door, I look to the bar then to the stage, I then proceed to walk to the bar and sit with the 5 friendly faces of people whom I knew. Johnny was sat with his arm around Suzy, He hadn't managed to muster up the courage to propose to her yet. Suzy had rested her head on his shoulder. Ross and Arthur had both sat there drinking, Ross drinking a grasshopper and Arthur ginger ale. Gwen was there she looked at me as I step through the door then immediately turning away and sipping her drink. In a way I was still thinking about her, if she disappeared from my life it would be missing something.

Johnny was a confidant, egotistical and a narcissistic character. Her was 5'10" had a dark shade of curly hair, and a set of dark eyes that were sunken into his sockets with age and wisdom, he also had a big nose, in relevance to noses Gwen, Johnny and I all had big noses just different types, Mine sloped with a singular bump, Johnny had a curved outward nose and Gwen had a triangular nose. He was also Jewish although he was not a practicing Jew he did still follow the main religious beliefs with the exception to one, he did not abide by Kashrut, in other words he loved to eat loved bacon and crabsticks. He was also what is called a megalomaniac, he had a lust for power and dominance.

"Johnny." I said looking to him, "How ya been?" I asked ending my words to him. "Okay, you?" He said this then waiting for a response, "I'm fine. Thanks." I said to him smiling. He then turned to Suzy and proceeded to start making out with her, there and then, asserting his dominance. Ross then looked to Arthur and the pair ran off to the toilets. I knew what they were gonna do in there. I was sat here with a beer, that the others had ordered for me, thinking and contemplating because I had nothing better to do. I felt two taps at my shoulder, I turned to see Gwen, I wondered what ridicule would come my way now, what pain I would have to endure now, I had asked her out not too long ago and she rejected my feelings, so at this moment, there and then I was feeling out of place, Annalise had no interest, and nor did Gwen to my knowledge. She just looked at me and I gazed back at her. "Yes?" I ask her looking into her eyes. She stands there looking at me, the awkwardness growing, I contemplated whilst I waited for her response. I wondered through the deserts of my mind and searched for the watery answers that were so hard to find. I didn't know what she wanted and I couldn't imagine anything either. She opened her mouth revealing a set of teeth and a tongue that was familiar. She then said when word, and this one word was enough to shake me, rob me and kill me all at once. "Orleans" She mumbled just loud enough for me to hear but quiet enough so that nobody else could hear. She the turned and walked back to her seat then sitting while she adjusted her vintage-styled glasses. This reminded me of a few things.

The first thing this reminded me of was a song, "The House Of The Rising Sun" a song centered around the city of New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana. The song was about gambling and the addiction to it, I simply refused that she was trying to say she was making a gamble in a sort of way or that she was in trouble with gambling issues.

The second was a place, a place we knew as kids, we called it Orleans for some dumb reason, it was a nature reserve type of area that was full of greenery and woodlands, it was beautiful, she liked to walk her dog there from my memories, I always like the dog, he was a nice dog. It hit me that she was more than likely talking about this place and not the actual city of New Orleans, it struck even more fear into my heart when thinking of this, because of the pain and misery we had caused each other and that place there was where she had rejected taking me back, I now knew that she hated me and if she didn't she would never take me back because of my stupidity and my many idiosyncrasies, some saw them as quirks but I now knew that they were curses, she would get back at me in anyway she could now, if that was her bringing back painful memories or just driving me insane, she absolutely wanted my suffering to go on because I had effected her so deeply. I remember that she even had someone threaten to castrate me after we broke up, which I had ended. I wish I hadn't which I tried to express but I knew and everyone knew I was bad at I wish I could convey my innermost thoughts and feelings but I just couldn't. It washed over me I didn't love her it was just my guilt for the past and she had done this on purpose, she wanted me to feel bad, and I did.