The Blue Suit interview exclusive
By Josh Resnek
The mayor doesn’t like paying for his laundry to be done. He prefers free cleaning.
He also doesn’t like to pay for gasoline, and doesn’t have to. The mayor’s Blue Suit told me so.
That’s right.
I interviewed the mayor’s Blue Suit by accident when I ran into him at a dry cleaner in town where he was laying wrinkled and stained atop of the counter with other bits of clothing.
The mayor had apparently just dropped him off.
“God I am happy he is finally having me cleaned,” the mayor’s Blue Suit said to me.
“Do you know me?” the Blue Suit asked.
“Yes. I’ve seen you around a lot. I know how often he wears you. But we’ve never spoken,” I said.
“May I speak truthfully?” the mayor’s Blue Suit asked me.
“Of course,” I said.
“You know the mayor hates you. I can’t repeat the terrible things he says about you – and others. He despises you but in a strange way he is driven crazy by you.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because he knows you can’t be bought like some others.”
“Don’t forget,” the mayor’s Blue Suit said to me, “I was there inside your office when he came down there and told you ‘You’ll be out of business in four weeks…if you don’t do things my way.’”
“That was more than two years ago,” I recalled.
The mayor’s Blue Suit looked wrinkled and tired.
“He wears me so much I can’t stand it,” he said to me.
“When he’s uptight – and he’s uptight a lot – is when it is the worst.
He sweats when he gets nervous. He also eats more, stretching me out terribly until it is almost ripping me apart with buttons popping off like bullets shot from a gun due to the force of his weight. It is just terrible. You have no idea,” the mayor’s Blue Suit revealed.
“Do you know the things I’ve heard him say and do being his blue suit? I’ve listened to him making deals that would make the US Attorney shiver. If his attorney , that guy Pappalardo knew of his side deals, underdeals, overdeals, deal cutting and kickback schemes he’d refuse to represent him!”
“The mayor said he thought Pappalardo was way too expensive and that he really didn’t like him – and that he thought Pappalardo didn’t think very much of the mayor,” the Blue Suit said.
“’He’s not my kind of guy, the mayor told me about Pappalardo,’” the Blue Suit added.
“I heard him recently talking about his donut business. I know who he was talking to. He said he needed to get out of them or he might go under. One has already closed in Revere. The two others are teetering – at least that’s what I heard him say.”
The Blue Suit composed himself.
I shouldn’t be talking with you,” he said.
“Who cares?” asked. “Tell me, does he hate me? Does he think about me? I mean, isn’t hating me a bit ridiculous? After all, he’s the big guy, the mayor for life, the fellow doing nothing wrong but paying his criminal lawyer many thousands a month and telling everyone I’m the fraud – not him.”
The mayor’s Blue Suit sighed.
“Let me tell you about the day he signed the proffer.”
“I was there the day he signed the proffer. The FBI asked him.
Actually, they told him to sign it. That was not a pleasant afternoon. He was forced to sign or else. Believe me, I know. I was there. Last week, when his lawyer told the city council that signing proffers is good – a true mark of innocence – I almost split my pants! I didn’t know what was more comical, city councilors like Wayne Matewsky agreeing with him or Pappalardo thinking we’re all so stupid.”
“This I know. The mayor was out of his mind over it but he signed the proffer anyway. Him staying silent was a guarantee of a problem with the US Attorney’s office.
“Ratting on his friends and associates, talking on phones that were wire tapped, having secret conversations with FBI agents…he did it all. I know he did. He was being investigated top to bottom and they had him and I understand they still have him, that’s why Pappalardo is around,” the Blue Suit said to me.
He quieted down. The Blue Suit remained still. Then he started up again to me.
“You know he tells everyone he runs into not to do business with the Leader Herald. He threatens people not to do business with you,” added the Blue Suit. “He has his friends steal your newspapers from some places. Yet he’s the first person to read the Leader Herald week to week when it arrives. He reads it by himself usually behind a closed door or in a car so no one can see him. He reads everything you write about him.”
“Yes. I’ve known that for quite some time. That’s really quite a thing when you think about it,” I said.
“The mayor has told people he’d be real happy to see you evicted from the newspaper office. He said it would make his day,” said the Blue Suit.
“I think he knows that isn’t going to happen,” I told the Blue Suit.
“You’re right about that. He hates you but he doesn’t know how to wipe you out. He can’t believe you are still standing, that he can’t buy you like everyone else. He knows you won’t stop until you get him. Drives him crazy. Besides, you are so correct about him. He’s just a bully and a fraud, disloyal and rotten to the core caring about one thing – himself.”
“Tell me something else that’s good about him,” I joked to the Blue Suit.
“The mayor doesn’t really have a good sense of humor. The guy isn’t normal. I should know. I am glued to him almost on a daily basis. It is torture you cannot imagine,” said the Blue Suit.
“If he knew I was talking with you he’d go wild. As it is, he will punish me for this, as he likes to punish everyone who doesn’t follow his orders not to speak with you.”
“I know. I know,” I said to the Blue Suit.
“He knows a lot of people speak to you despite him warning everyone not to do so. That drives him crazy. Everything seems to drive him crazy these days now that I think of it.”
“He is tired of listening and playing the game that got him to the mayor’s office. I know. I’ve been there all the way with him – and this association has hurt me not only mentally but physically.”
“When he’s really really heavy it is death defying when he puts me on.
“It is worse when he takes me off and tosses me aside after a night of use,” said the Blue Suit.
“Maybe he’ll buy a new suit and give you your freedom,” I asked. “No chance. He likes me too much and besides, I almost fit.”
“I’m just like everyone else in his world. I’m his slave. He owns me the way he thinks he owns city employees.”
“Don’t you think he’ll just throw you under the bus like he does to nearly everyone else he’s one time or another shared a close relationship with?”
“Yes. This is possible. I think about it everyday. There is no loyalty with him” said the Blue Suit.
“I could end up at a Salvation Army Store or a second hand store in Cambridge if left to him.”
“And when he was done with me, he’d likely say: ‘the Blue Suit never served me well. He was always complaining. I’m glad to be rid of him.’” At that moment, the Blue Suit was swept off the countertop and loaded into a bag and sent to be cleaned at the dry cleaners. I never got to say good-by.
I’m sure we will be talking again.