Pigeon in a Crosswalk by Jack Gray

Author:Jack Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

THE (LARRY) KING AND I

The first time I saw Larry King in person was the summer of 2004. I was working on-site at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. At that point in my career, it was the most exciting assignment I’d ever had. The place was crawling with journalism legends, political icons, and Hollywood stars. Hillary Clinton, Bono, Barbara Walters, Puff Daddy, they were all there. My head was on a swivel.

In a hallway inside the FleetCenter, I squeezed past a little-known state senator from Illinois who smelled like cigarettes and was there to deliver the convention’s keynote address. No entourage, just him and another guy. When I got back to our workstation, I rattled off to my coworkers a list of the celebrities I had seen. “Oh,” I added as an underwhelming afterthought, “I also saw that guy from Illinois, the one who’s giving the keynote. What’s his name again?” A colleague, looking at a piece of paper, said, “Obama . . . Barack Obama.”

As far as TV news stars, there was none more iconic than Larry King. I first spotted him one day as I ate dinner at Dunkin’ Donuts on the ground floor of the FleetCenter. He appeared out of nowhere, headed toward an escalator. I was breathless. Trim and spry, he made his way through the crowd before the slack-jawed onlookers could react. It was all over in seconds. I barely had time to wipe the chocolate sprinkles from my mouth, much less go up to him and say hello. Larry was gone, up to his sky-box to hang out with anyone who was anyone. Anyone but me.

As luck—and blueprints of the building—would have it, I ran into Larry later in the week when I happened by the CNN work space. “Mr. King,” I said/screamed as I calmly approached/chased him down the hallway and extended my hand/placed him in a headlock, “may I have a photo?” Ever the class act, he agreed, though he drew the line when I asked to try on his suspenders.

It was a moment for which I had been waiting my whole life, or at least since my grandparents got cable. It was my Yiayia who first exposed me to CNN. She was a big Larry King Live fan and personified appointment television viewing long before I understood the concept. When Larry’s theme song began at 9 P.M., it sparked a level of excitement in my grandmother that could be rivaled only by a new bottle of Pinot Grigio. And if Larry’s guest happened to be Suzanne Somers, well, holy shit, get out your party pants. While other kids my age were busy developing social skills, I sat wrapped in Yiayia’s quilt watching Larry King interview Elizabeth Taylor and her jewelry. I started telling my Yiayia that I wanted to be like Larry when I grew up. She told me to be patient, a virtue she one day explained to me in the car as she cut off a fire engine.

I

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