Whoops. I forgot I had a blog.Frank McCourt is supposedly near death, (from skin cancer. The sun can be more fatal to us Irish than Guinness.) and because you turn to me first for all your Frank McCourt-related news, I thought I'd share my story of meeting him.
Like everyone in Oprah's Book Club that year, I'd wept my way through Angela's Ashes, so when I heard he was coming to speak at my campus, this sophomore reporter – fresh from covering the ins and outs of the chess team (P.S. Shit got craaaazy. P.P.S. That's a lie) – lobbied hardcore to cover the event.
Trouble brewed early in the form of shrimp salad. At the time, I'd been a vegetarian for about two years. But even when I ate meat, I couldn't bear that weird crunch of shrimp. (That and the summer I had to de-poop shrimp at a restaurant. Never forget.) I realized I couldn't eat anything in the shape of an animal, which put me in a bind with animal crackers. Regardless.
So shrimp was served. Frank dug in. How could he not? I thought, with his empty-stomach childhood. This was the man who'd stolen his teacher's apple peel after all.
Crunch. Good God, that crunch. Shrimp won't let you forget that it's shrimp-the-animal. It doesn't have the courtesy of ham. It's so hard like harder than celery. My teeth wanted to stop at the first resistance, but I chewed up bite after grim and grusome bite. They landed in my stomach almost intact, which my stomach was none too keen about. I'm probably going to see these almost-whole shrimp again in a few hours, I thought as we talked about the book.
I asked him to sign my copy of 'Tis.
"Where's your copy of Angela's Ashes?" he wants to know, reverting to his teacher tone and seeking my delinquent homework.
"I leant it to a friend." I left it on the bus? The dog ate it?
"Well, tell them to get their own copy!"
We burst out laughing. I slid a shrimp under some lettuce. My stomach had its work cut out for it, but it was worth it to not insult his childhood trials by wasting food.
The waiter came to mercifully clear our dishes, and I looked at Frank's plate.
Fucker barely touched his food.
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