Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

sacrifice. No stepping outside your comfort zone. No growing up.
    So here I stand in my unenviable position as a wife rather than a fan, insisting that Billy not engage in behaviors that are contradictory to a healthy, mutually respectful relationship, playing pass interference between him and what he really wants. I am being pummeled.
    This is where the shame and horror come in for me. Why do I stay for the whole game when it is painfully obvious to myself and everyone around me that my team has no chance at a Hail Mary in the fourth quarter on this one? The easy answer is that apparently my psychosis fits very neatly into the grooves of Billy’s psychosis. But then we would only be talking head knowledge. And as I said earlier, to completely understand why, you have to ask my heart.
    The ultimate answer lies in the fact that I love Billy. That flawed, vulnerable, playful, confused, funny, confusing, infuriating, hopeful, depressed, talented, happy, shallow, deep, subtle, forceful, sometimes kind, sometimes abusive, entertaining, never easy, all consuming human being that Mitch was never able to completely kill no matter how hard he tried. I love him. I do.
    Megan Levise, wife of Mitch Ryder
    September 2011

Introduction
     
    I WAS GOING THROUGH MY THIRD divorce and living alone in an apartment with no furniture except a bed, dresser, kitchen table, chair, desk, telephone, and computer. A male friend called and suggested we get together at a bar not too far from me. We had quite a few drinks and the ashtray was filled with stinking butts, the juke box was too loud, and the smoke was choking me when he asks, “So, what are your plans?”
    Plans? What plans, I think to myself. I’ve got no money, all of my bills are late, my soon to be ex-wife got an attorney who thinks I’ve got a fortune stashed away somewhere, the IRS is on my ass, and I’m pissed off because this is the third time I’ve been married and I don’t know why I keep wanting to hurt myself this way.
    I throw back the Sambuca and quickly grab for the Heineken to stop the burning in my throat. I look him in his eyes and say, “Plans? I don’t have plans. I got dreams, but they’re just dreams. However, I did manage, in my financial ruin to somehow save a hundred dollars for drinks. You ready for another one, Nick?”
    Nick laughs. He loves watching me suffer. He especially likes it when I drink enough to become comically cynical. “Sure,” he says. “You’re buyin’.” Then he becomes more serious. “Listen,” he says.” I know this is a tough time for you but you’re not the first man to go through a divorce.”
    I immediately shoot back, “Three, Nicky. Three times a loser. How many guys do you know that can’t get it right three times? What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t afford this anymore.”
    He leans back in his chair, thinking about what to say, and moves his bottle around the table as if it was some kind of figure skating champion. Then he offers these hidden jewels of stunted knowledge, “You know, my old lady’s got a really hot girlfriend an’ she knows you’re getting divorced an’ she’d really like to meet you.” Then he moveshis eyebrows up and down and smiles. “What d’ya think? I mean she is really hot and she just got divorced an’ she’s horny as hell, at least that what my old lady says. She says she’d really like to meet you.”
    “I’ll think about it,” I say. I was a little horny myself, but sweet Jesus where would we go to have sex? If she saw my place she would wonder where my money was, given the lack of furniture. Where would we sit? On the bed? Or, I could let her sit at the table and stand there like an asshole, or we could sit on the bed and I could tell her all of my considerable fortune was tied up in escrow until the divorce was final.
    Then Nick pulls her picture out of his wallet. She is beautiful. “Don’t worry about the kids,” he says. “They’re real small. Besides, I hear her ex is trying to get custody because he claims she’s an unfit mother.”
    “Why did they get divorced?” I ask.
    Nick raises his shoulders and says, “I don’t know. He claims she was cheating on him, she claims he was cheating on her. You know how it goes by now, right?’
    “Who filed for divorce, Nicky?”
    “I think he did. Yeah. I’m pretty sure he did. But don’t worry about money. He’s rich. He’s some big auto executive an’ she says she’s gonna clean him out.”
    Right