No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (31 page)

All the windows were open, and the music was blaring.

“By the time we get to Atlantic City, I want to know everything about you, Janice. And don’t leave anything out, because if you do, I’ll know.” I laughed. “I’m not joking,”

he said. “By the time this trip is over I want to know you better than I know the side of my hand.”

“The
side
of your hand?”

“Yeah. Everybody says the back of their hand, but I don’t know the back of my hand all that well. The side of my hand—well, I’m on intimate terms with the side of my hand.”

You know that old joke, “But enough about me; what do you think of me?” Well, Belushi was the exact opposite.

He refused to talk about himself. All the way to Atlantic City, he pelted me with questions. The more personal, the better. And he seemed genuinely interested. He considered every answer carefully.

“You know, Janice,” he said toward the end of the ride.

“I’m not a therapist, though I’ve played one on TV. And stop me if I’m out of line. But I think you’re pretty fucked up about men.”

“No!
Me?
How can you say a thing like that?”

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 231

He looked over at me and smiled that old John Belushi smile. He’d had a few Tall Boys by then and was feeling very little pain. “You ever read any Sigmund Freud?”

“Just the Cliff Notes,” I said.

“Well, Freud had this theory, see. And I’ll try to keep it simple—seeing how you’re a model and all. But it goes something like this. Most of us have something in our past—our distant past, like with our parents, say—that didn’t work out too good. And what we do, see, is we spend the rest of our lives playing that same fucking tune over and over again, with more and more people, in one relationship after another, thinking we might just get it right some day. You follow?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Every idiot understands the repetition compulsion.”

He looked at me in disbelief. “You
have
read Freud!”

“Not really. I went to see a shrink years ago. We talked about all that, but I didn’t really understand it. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

He took a beat, reached for another Tall Boy. “Okay,” he said, popping the can. “But, like, you know—stop me if I’m being an asshole.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I will.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“I promise.”

He had a sip of beer and launched in. “This shit with your father, Janice. What a fucking monster. Telling you you’d never amount to anything. Don’t you see what it’s doing to you?”

“What?”

“You keep falling for guys who make you feel like you don’t amount to anything.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. And you think, ‘I’m going to show this bastard 232 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

that I’m a great girl. I’m going to show him how wonderful I am.’ And of course that’ll never work, see? Because it isn’t about any of those assholes. It’s about
you;
it’s about what happened to you. They’re just assholes. Unfortunately, they’re the assholes you happen to be attracted to, because they remind you of your father. That’s why you need to work on the dynamic, babe. That’s why I’m here, Janice.

Tonight. With you. To tell you that your life would be a lot easier if you were attracted to nice homely fat guys—guys like me.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

“This love shit. Pretty hard to figure out, isn’t it?”

I nodded again. Joking aside, I was pretty floored by what he’d just said.

“Why don’t you roll another joint?” he suggested. I rolled another joint. Or
half
a joint. It was the last of the pot. The exit for Atlantic City was just ahead. He took it. I lit the joint and passed it to him without taking a hit. I still didn’t like pot. It made me hungry and paranoid. Not a pretty picture, especially in brightly lit fast-food joints.

“By the way, what I just told you—don’t lose any

sleep over it,” he said. He was still holding the smoke in his lungs. “Everyone I know is deeply fucked up.” He exhaled loudly. “Like with me there are things about myself I understand so well, but I can’t do a damn thing about them. Because that’s
one
part of me—the intellectual part. John Belushi the Thinker. But the other part, the emotional part of me—well, that John’s a fucking train wreck. And those two guys are constantly at war.”

“So I’m two Janices?” I asked. “Is that it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And tonight I’m gonna fuck them

both.”

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 233

* * *

pretty gracious about it. He signed autographs and cracked jokes and kept telling everyone that he loved Atlantic City.

“They’ve got the best hookers in the world here,” he told them now, putting his arm around me. “Look at this girl.

Where else in the world can you get a girl like this for a hundred bucks? I will be doing things with this girl in about an hour that are still illegal in the southern part of this country. So—synchronize your watches,
amigos
—at ten sharp I want all of you to close your eyes and picture me and this girl, naked and grunting.”

Gorshin was just wrapping the first half of his second set. We went backstage and John introduced me and we chatted a while, but Gorshin had to go back out, and we told him we’d come by after the show. John wanted to watch the show, but he really needed to get stoned again, and he was out of pot.

“Do you know anyone in Atlantic City?” he asked me.

“No,” I said.

So we went out to the casino and he cupped his hands over his mouth, right there near the blackjack tables, and hollered at the top of his voice, “ANYONE HERE GOT

ANY POT!?”

It got people’s attention. Some people snickered.

“You there, sir,” John said. He was pointing at this skinny long-haired guy at one of the blackjack tables. “You look like a pothead from way back. You got anything?”

The guy shook his head. “So you’re not a pothead. You’re a card-counter; you just look like a pothead to confuse the pit boss. Anybody else got any pot? Anybody at all?”

234 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

We had quite an audience at this point. A man in a suit approached. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked John.

“If you’ve got pot on you, yes you can. Absolutely.”

“I’m Detective Bensink,” the man said. “I’m with vice.”

“That’s very funny,” John said.

“Would you please come with me, Mr. Belushi.”

“He was just kidding!” I piped up. “We’re practicing a sketch for the show.”

“That’s right,” John said, catching on. “It’s called,
Got
any pot?
I’d be happy to walk you through it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. And we followed him outside, though none too happily.

“Where are you parked?” he asked.

John pointed at the wreck across the lot. “I have some dynamite shit at home,” the detective said. “I’ll pull round.

Just follow me. My wife is a big fan.”

His wife practically fainted when John walked through the door. She couldn’t believe it. John Belushi! In her home! They pulled out the Polaroid and I took some pictures and John signed autographs for assorted nieces and nephews.

Then we got to the stash. Tons of stuff.
Shoe boxes
full of it. They had bags of
sinsemilla
that rivaled anything John had smoked in a year. “Here, take some,” the detective was foisting it on us an hour later, as we went on our way. “Really. I insist. There’s plenty more in the Evidence Room. And thanks for making my wife’s day. It’s her birthday tomorrow. Now I don’t have to buy her anything.”

We were too stoned to go to Memphis, so we drove

back to New York, getting in at the crack of dawn. He dropped me at my place. “Thanks,” I said. “I mean it.”

“It was a good time,” he said, looking solemn. “And it hurts. Because I know that’s all I am to you. A
good time
.”

He couldn’t stop with the jokes.

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 235

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re a good time. But I’m actually thinking about what we talked about last night.”

“Refresh my memory,” he said.

“You’ve inspired me.” I said. “I’m breaking things off with Jagger.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “Really.”

“Great,” he said. “Give Jagger my number. Tell him I’m available. Tell him I’ll do anything. Anything at all. You want to hear me squeal like a pig?”

I stopped returning Jagger’s calls. He stopped calling.

Easy as that.

And I never saw Belushi again. A few months later, on March 5, 1982, he was dead. He never got to dance on Elvis’s grave.

One summer night, not long after I ended things with Mick, I found myself sitting at the bar at Heartbreak, an after-hours club in downtown Manhattan. I’d spent the better part of the day getting in and out of various outfits for
Cosmo;
now I was tired and on my way home. But suddenly I felt unimaginably lonely, lonely and pensive, and I didn’t want to sit in my red bedroom by myself, thinking about the Meaning of Life. Thinking had never gotten me anywhere. It had never gotten anyone anywhere, as far as I could tell.

So I walked into Heartbreak and made my way to the

bar and heads turned to follow my progression across the room. And of course I immediately felt better. So I’ve got my shallow side. Sue me.

I ordered a drink and saw someone I recognized at the end of the bar.

“Hey, Peter,” I said. “How you doing?”

“I’m not Peter,” he said.

236 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

He was joking, of course. It was Peter Aykroyd, Dan’s brother. “Why are you so afraid to call me?” I asked.

“I’m not afraid to call you,” he said. “Give me your number and I’ll call you.”

“You’re funny,” I said. “Can you dance?”

We danced. He was a good dancer. He had a nice, kissable mouth. For a young guy, I mean. And me—well, I had a thing for fatherly types. We went back to the bar and he bought me a drink. I thanked him, calling him Peter again, and again he insisted his name wasn’t Peter.

“What do you want me to call you?” I said.

“My friends call me Bruno,” he said. He was very nice.

The next day was Saturday. He told me he was playing softball with his buddies, in Central Park, and said I should come by and watch. I went. I didn’t have a life.

At the bottom of the ninth, with the game tied and the bases empty, Bruno knocked a ball deep into left field and ran for all he was worth. It didn’t look like he was going to make it, so he dove for home plate. He made it, but he tore up his left arm. Several girls offered to take him home and tend to his injuries. Bruno picked one. Then he saw me there.

“Hi, Peter,” I said.

“Hey, Janice—I didn’t think you’d make it,” he said.

“I got lost on my way over,” I said.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked. “I tend bar at Café Central. Come by and I’ll prove to you that I’m not Peter. I’m
better
than Peter.”

The little nurse at his side was tugging at his good arm.

She was getting jealous.

“Okay,” I said.

I went to Café Central just before closing time. Christopher Walken was sitting at the bar. He looked at me like he wanted to fuck me.
Join the club, motherfucker.
The wait

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 237

ers were starting to clean up. Peter, aka Bruno, was tallying the day’s take. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt and looked very buff.

“Sorry, miss,” he said, smiling. “We’re closed.”

“I know a little place not far from here that’s open all night,” I said.

I took him back to my apartment. He was impressed.

“What do you do?” he asked.

“A little modeling,” I said.

He spent the night. It was nice. An age-appropriate man.

I almost felt a little maternal.

In the morning, he snuck out to fetch breakfast. It wasn’t exactly Paris—no buttery croissants, no fresh strawberries, no fine cheeses—but a warm blueberry muffin will always do in a pinch.

“So who are you?” I asked.

His friends called him Bruno, like he said, but his name was Bruce Willis. He was from New Jersey, but he’d

picked up the acting bug at Montclair State College. He was determined to make it. He was busy chasing parts in small, off-Broadway productions. A real
mensch.
A Jersey guy, a guy from the ’hood. He was such a cliché that I couldn’t help liking him. We started seeing a lot of each other. I liked his friends, too. They were totally unpretentious, which was virtually unheard of in my world. I liked the fact that he was nice to everyone. Customers, famous and infamous; waiters; busboys. He was especially nice to the busboys. “You see that kid?” he told me one night, pointing at a scrawny little guy who was busy clearing tables. “If he takes twenty bucks home at the end of the night, he sends eighteen of it to his parents, back in Puerto Rico. Look at him.
Christ.
Don’t you think he deserves better?”

Who knew bartenders had such depth?

238 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

Of course, that didn’t do much for his career. In the eight months we were together, all he ever got was one gig.

It was on a soap opera. He was going to play a house painter. He had two lines. “Will that be high-gloss or semigloss?” And, “I’ll start first thing in the morning.” He walked around the apartment for three days, practicing his lines, varying his inflection. “Will
that
be high-gloss or semi-gloss?
I’ll
start first thing in the morning. I’ll
start
first thing in
the
morning. First thing in the morning, I’ll start. Will that be high-gloss
or
semi-gloss?”

I liked Bruno. He was sweet. But he was no actor.

Me, on the other hand, I was going to be a singer. I really thought I was going places. I hung out with Keith and Ron and spent a lot of time in recording sessions, and everyone around me seemed to think I had a gift. I was seriously thinking about a career change. I was starting to find modeling quite irritating, if you must know, and I couldn’t seem to make it through a session without a hit or two of coke.