BB Grey–musings

---

Maybe it’s the telling that makes them live: passed on, embellished, misremembered, or lost.

bb grey

The old guy had stories to tell and an audience to listen. I was twelve, jumpy, and loud inside from being quiet too long—pressing a pillow over thoughts that didn’t belong.

I loved stories. They were television in my head. The pictures came fast; sometimes I lingered too long on a scene and had to catch up, filling the gap with whatever I could imagine. Sometimes my version was better.

My dad told stories. We ate at the table—no excuses—and he always had one to match the moment. He was like those old folks who can recite a war year but forget why they came to the store. Still, when he talked, every eye stuck to him. I watched faces: eyebrows lift, lips purse, mouths silently shape his last words, like they were lip-syncing a backup tape so the story wouldn’t erase. He’d pause and say, “I don’t remember what happened after that. You don’t want to hear it from an old guy.” Then the chorus: “Come on, Gunter…”—and he’d grin. “Oh… alright. Here it goes.”

There was the one about Jim Jackson and the nail gun. Jim, the framer, came back to find Paul, the flooring guy—so fat he laid flooring on his stomach—using Jim’s framing lumber for a makeshift table complete with saw horses. Jim needed that material to finish and get paid. Christmas was that weekend. He vowed to crucify Paul on his own tree.

Paul tried to roll upright and couldn’t. Jim grabbed the gun. Air hissed at the fitting; the compressor coughed awake, rattling the studs, feeding a hundred feet of line toward the gun Jim meant to use. My dad—Gunter—hit Jim at a sprint, all “motherfuckers” and mercy, taking him down as softly as possible. The gun popped. Paul clutched his chest and screamed, “I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot!” Serious turned to concern as all ran to his aid.

Then he broke. Laughter spilled out of him. “Got you!” he wheezed, which only made Jim madder until everyone saw Paul—beached on vinyl stick-ons, make believe nail in his mitt against his chest—and started laughing. Crews drifted in and the retellings began, each version brighter than the last.

I marveled at how my dad could be loud and shameless and dead center. I was embarrassed and proud at once. Now I’m older than he was when he breathed his last. I tell stories—some good, some not—to a small circle or to myself, and I wonder how an ordinary life keeps handing us things we want to write down. Maybe it’s the telling that makes them live: passed on, embellished, misremembered, or lost.

What stays for me is this: the compressor’s cough, a vinyl tile stuck to someone’s knee, my dad’s half-smile before, “Oh… alright, here it goes.” Jim, Paul, and Gunter are gone. Alhambra’s heat has thinned to air. But when I tell it, the room fills again. The line finds the gun. The story finds breath.

---