The first time my dad met Joseph Lucky Gribble, he was fighting some
garbage men near the Burger King by my Gramaw’s house in Fairfax. It was
the 1960s. Dad and Lucky were fast friends.
My most vivid memory of Lucky is him standing perfectly still for
hours, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, his eyes staring out
the plate glass window of my dad’s VW repair shop in Fairfax.
I’ve never seen anyone stand so completely still for so long.
For a while Lucky slept in a loft at my dad’s shop, and for years had
a plywood shack on the grassy corner by Montgomery Ward in Fairfax,
near where Burlington Coat Factory is now. Sometimes he would disappear
for days, then return, like nothing had happened. He rode a yellow
Harley and drank endless cups of black coffee while smoking cigarette
after cigarette.
Sometimes I would work for Dad at his shop in the summers. When I’d
get to work, I’d ask where Lucky was, and Dad’s answers would range from
“He’s in a mood today,” to “Sleeping in a car,” to “In the bay, working
on a car,” to “I don’t know. He disappeared again.”
I always accepted Lucky for what he was. In a bad mood? Don’t talk
to him. In a good mood? Brief but interesting conversations, an
extremely intelligent man with deep brown eyes that would dart this way
and that, like he was expecting something to sneak up on him and hit him
with a length of pipe. His eyes would meet mine for a tiny moment then
flit away.
One day at the shop, Dad put Lucky and me to work stripping a VW for
parts. Lucky asked me about my life, expressing a genuine interest. We
had slow conversation most of the day while removing everything we
could from the Beetle, his cigarette smoke burning my eyes when it
wafted my way. I was fifteen.
Every once in a while, Lucky would bring me little gifts or send
things home for me with Dad. Usually it was Harley stuff, and I
appreciated the thought behind it. In return I made for him his
favorite: Gingerbread. These past few years, when Dad and I would
visit him, Lucky would give me Bluegrass CDs, their cases thick with
dirt.
One day it occurred to me that while this was normal behavior for Lucky, this was not normal behavior. So I asked.
“Dad, what’s wrong with Lucky?”
“That’s what too many drugs will do to you, Angie.”
My mom always said of Lucky, “He used to be so good-looking, all the girls just loved him. Really intelligent, too.”
At another time, wondering what would leave a person standing and
staring for hours, cigarette smoldering down to the butt, I asked my
Dad, “What kind of drugs did Lucky do, Dad?”
“PCP.”
Shit.
After being evicted from his squatter’s shack when they built the
shopping center where Burlington Coat Factory is, Lucky disappeared for a
while. I would ask Dad about him, how he was doing, and sometimes
there would be a sighting (7-11 off Jermantown Road, mostly).
Occasionally he would help Dad with things like putting new roofing on a
building (While they were working, Dad rolled off the roof and landed
in the bushes. Lucky laughed until they realized Dad’s wrist was
broken). Eventually he moved into a house in the woods off Braddock
Road and Dad would visit him there. It was a ramshackle little house
and he parked his yellow Harley in his living room, choosing more often
to drive the old blue and white Chevy truck my dad sold him for a little
bit of nothing.
One day Lucky appeared at my parents’ house, while I was visiting
them, to help Dad with something. I hadn’t seen him in years. He
looked older but the same, except for a few missing teeth. He was lanky
and tall, deeply tanned, black hair combed back, and his brown,
bloodshot eyes nervously darted around, still anticipating that length
of pipe. I hugged him and he smelled as he always did: Unwashed and
smoky. By this time I had Peony; she was still a baby. I proudly
showed her to him. He wouldn’t look at her because he said he was
afraid if he did, he would “make her retarded.” I told him it would be
okay, but he was too uncomfortable and I let it go.
Over the years, my Dad would go by Lucky’s home, where ever he was
living at the time, and bring him clothes and food and visit with him.
Lucky’s shack on the corner of Jermantown Road, my dad told me, was
insulated with clothes hanging on all the walls. A small woodstove
helped keep him warm. A couple times after he moved into the house in
the woods off Braddock, I went with Dad to visit him, but you never knew
when Lucky would be there. He was sort of a nomad, most certainly a
loner.
I once told Dad how my friends said if there was an apocalypse, they
were all going to find him because he’s so handy with, well, just about
everything. Dad said, “Shoot, I’ll be with Lucky. He can live anywhere
and survive anything.”
Lucky was a strange bird for sure, but there was something gentle and
almost otherworldly about him. He had a temper I’d only heard about,
never saw. And while he had no connection to anyone or anything, he had
great respect for my Dad, and despite some of the choices Lucky made in
his life, my Dad respected him and cared about him. When no one else
was there, my Dad was, and he didn’t pass judgment.
Every time after we’d go visit Lucky, I’d think, I really wish we
would do that more often. The last time I saw him was when I was
pregnant with Cedar, winter of 2010. Dad, Peony, and I stopped by with
gift bags full of homemade gingerbread and coffee. Lucky had moved his
living space to the basement of the old house in the woods. He had a
wood stove in the corner and it was warm, cozy, and smoky. He gave us
bottled root beer to drink and when we left, he sent Bluegrass CDs with
us.
As we were leaving, I hugged Lucky goodbye and wished him a Merry
Christmas. I sent a few things to him once after that, when I knew Dad
was going to go by his place: an
O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, food, cash. The other times we stopped by together, he wasn’t there. Always a mystery, that Lucky.
Always a mystery.
- Lucky and Ang at High School Graduation Party, June 1991
"Joseph Lucky Gribble, 64, of Fairfax, died on Saturday, March 24, 2012, in Fairfax.
He was born on November 9, 1947, a son of the late Franklin Silvester Gribble and Elsie Gray King Gribble. He was also preceded in death by a brother, Robert Harvey Gribble. Mr. Gribble is survived by a sister, Margaret Octavia Horseman of Ellicott City, Maryland; and a brother, Tennis Silvester Gribble. Funeral services will be held 2 p.m. Thursday, March 29, 2012, at Preddy Funeral Home Chapel in Madison."
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