No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel Read Online Free PDF Page A

was thirteen. Nova Junior High, in Fort Lauderdale, was crawling with cute boys, and Eric loved pointing out the ones he liked. “I’d do him,” he’d say with false bravado. He didn’t even know what “doing” someone

    20 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
    meant. Neither did I, really. Well, okay—we had a fair idea, but we were both virgins.
    I liked this boy called John Burnett. He was always smiling, like he didn’t have a care in the world. I look back on it now and realize it was all about self-confidence—something I could have used in spades. Whenever I saw him, in the hallway, between classes, or in line at the cafeteria, I’d hide.
    I know it sounds corny, but I felt such intense longing for him that it would bring tears to my eyes. I was starving for affection. I had heard all about love—it was out there somewhere—and I wanted it pretty bad.
    Unfortunately, I was pathologically shy. Or maybe—
    having seen what I’d seen at home—I was terrified. Every time John came over to talk to me, I’d run off in a panic. He finally gave up, of course. I was crushed, in a funk for weeks. I thought I was worth fighting for. To this day, John AT SIXTEEN WITH TWIN BOYS WHOM I LOVED THEN
    BUT CAN’T REMEMBER NOW.
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    has no idea how much he hurt me. But of course it wasn’t him; it was me.
    The following year, at the ripe old age of fourteen, Eric finally entered the world of sex. All of a sudden, he was doing all these cute guys, and every last one of them was straight. He loved straight guys. He once told me that one of the great tragedies of being a gay man is that you aren’t really attracted to other gay men. “It’s real men you’re after,” he explained. “And if you keep after them, they’ll fuck you. But they won’t stick around.”
    Eric loved sex. He claimed to give the best head south of the Mason-Dixon, and he enjoyed describing his technique in detail: This is how you hold the shaft. This is how you flick your tongue. This is how you keep things nice and wet.
    I would get hot just listening to him. But I was confused. I’d seen that done in my own home, and it didn’t look like fun.
    One afternoon, both of us stoned and lying half-naked by his pool, I almost told Eric about my father. But I was afraid—more for him than for myself. Eric was oddly brave. He didn’t take shit from anybody. And he was very fair-minded, as if he understood morality at a very early age. He always knew the right thing to do. Which is exactly what frightened me: I could imagine him picking up a gun and going back to my house and shooting my father dead. Talk about confrontation! Suddenly, I really wanted to tell him. “Eric . . . ” I said.
    “What?” he said.
    I looked at him for a beat. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m glad you’re my friend.”
    My two best girlfriends in high school were Maria Romano and Jill Jensen. We would drive up and down the Florida 22 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
    coast, hanging out at the lesser-known surfing beaches, listening to Hendrix, the Stones, the Doors, and going through endless packs of Kools. I dropped my first
    Quaalude with those two, and I was hooked instantly. I liked ’ludes a lot better than pot. I liked the way they took the edge off life, mellowed you out. Life became bearable under their influence, and I always felt a little blue when the effects began to wear off. I also did a couple of half-hits of acid with them, but I was wary. We’d all heard stories about kids who thought they could fly, or thought they were turning into orange juice, and—bad as things were—I wasn’t ready to check out.
    Still, one afternoon, sitting on the beach with Maria and Jill, the three of us nursing beers, watching the surfers go by, waiting for our LSD to kick in, a strange thing happened. As I brought the beer to my lips, I saw my reflection in the can. Only it wasn’t me staring back at me. It was