No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel by Janice Dickinson

blues.
    “If you’re young you got no business singing the blues,”
    he said, “because you ain’t fixin’ to die. Only ole people can sing the blues. You got to be older than dirt. But if you’re young, it’s best to be blind. Or maybe you shot a man in Texas or Memphis. Or maybe you’re missing a leg. But you can only sing the blues if a alligator got your leg. If you lost your leg in a skiing accident, that ain’t the blues.”
    Muddy bent over the mirror and a huge line of coke
    leapt into his left nostril. He looked a little dazed for a moment, then turned his eyes on me. “Janice,” he said.
    “Can you sing the blues?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not mean as a rattlesnake.”
    Muddy laughed. “You can sing the blues, woman. Body like that, you gotta know how to sing the blues. You be exonerated, girl.”

    70 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
    They jammed for a while. People drifted in and out of the place. We killed a couple of bottles of Courvoisier.
    Hours later, Muddy turned to me again and insisted I could sing.
    So I said, “Well, I’ll try anything once.” I was young and stupid in those days. And very drunk at that moment.
    Muddy plucked his guitar and I recognized the tune and got to my feet and sang: “Take me to the river and wash me down / Take me to the river and put my feet back on the ground.”
    Everybody cheered when I was done. I guess they must have been pretty stoned. The only ones who didn’t cheer were the bums who were passed out all around us. On the floor. On the couch. By the edge of the stage.
    “Well, you didn’t wake none of them up,” he said.
    “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I wondered.
    “ I think you can sing, Janice. And I’m Muddy, so I must know.”
    One Sunday morning, about a month after the Ocean City trip, Ron and I were sitting in the claustrophobic kitchen of the 14th Street apartment, nursing coffees, trying to plan the day ahead. I had a little Courvoisier-and-coke hangover. He didn’t feel all that good himself. He kept saying drugs were evil, a duplicitous bitch; he was going to quit once and for all.
    He looked at me, his other bitch, the less evil bitch. And he flashed a mysterious smile.
    “What?” I asked.
    The smile just wouldn’t quit.
    “I’m thinking,” he said.
    “A thought of yours would die of loneliness,” I said.
    He laughed and had another sip of coffee and looked up at me and the smile disappeared. “Janice. Baby. I. Was.

    N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 71
    Wondering . . . ” The words came slow and heavy. He was making me nervous. Then he blurted it out: “How would you feel about marrying me?”
    We were married in his parents’ living room, in front of the fireplace. It was a small affair. Just family. Along with a rabbi, of course, and a minister. The rabbi was a friend of the family, and the minister was the rabbi’s idea: For some reason, he thought he wasn’t legally able to marry a shiksa .
    Okay, that was the weird part. Here’s the really weird part: My parents came to the wedding. Yes, it’s true. My mother and the rat bastard showed up.
    And the oddest thing of all: Shortly after Ron proposed, we came back to Brookline to tell his family. His mother was elated. The next day she and I went out and did girl stuff in town. Shopped. Had our nails done, side by side.
    Ate lunch at her club. Like that . . . I was floored. I felt so close to her. I found myself wishing that she’d been my mother, instead of the mother I had. And on the way back to the Brookline house I began to cry. She pulled over and asked me what was wrong. I couldn’t hold back. I told her everything. I honestly couldn’t help myself. I told her things I had never told anyone in my life.
    The night before the wedding, both families went out to dinner. My father was trying hard not to be impressed by all that wealth and power. His little girl, the piece of trash who’d never amount to anything, had clearly hooked a man who thought