“Kevin O’Donnell is calling all the shots. He’s the real mayor.” — The Blue Suit
By Josh Resnek
“You know you’re going to kill me with these interviews,” the mayor’s Blue Suit said to me recently.
“From the day he picked me up at the cleaners, the mayor has been outraged about me talking with you. He’s tossed me around. He’s thrown me on the floor. At one point, he grabbed a big pair of scissors and he screamed at me,” the Blue Suit said.
‘What did he scream?” I asked.
“I’m going to cut you to shreds you bum,” he threatened.
“He held the scissors tightly against my pant leg.”
“I’m going to cut off your leg unless you keep your big mouth shut,” he answered the Blue Suit told me. “I was petrified.”
“Then he tossed the scissors to the floor, called me a wrinkled piece of second grade cloth and design, and scrunched me into a ball before tossing me inside the car he was driving. Boy, what a bad experience that was. You have no idea,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“You know how jealous and greedy the mayor is,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Everyone who knows him knows that about him,” I answered. “You don’t know how nasty and underhanded he can be. I do. I know all his secrets,” the Blue Suit said.
“That’s not the first time he’s threatened to cut someone up, you know,” the Blue Suit said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He did it to an employee at his donut shop. He put a knife to her throat. I know. I was there. The Revere police came. They wrote up a five page report…and then it just seemed to disappear,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Let’s change the subject,” I asked the Blue Suit.
“What do you want to talk about,? The Blue Suit said to me.
“Let’s talk about Kevin O’Donnell.”
“You mean the real mayor,” the Blue Suit replied.
“Kevin is not the mayor,” I answered.
“Oh yes he is…or at least he was during the time the mayor was in Aruba. The mayor knew he shouldn’t go but he and Jerry Navarro aka The Paper Boy high fived and smoked a couple of cheap cigars after deciding Aruba is a good deal more attractive to them than Everett,” the Blue Suit said.
“If there is going to be an epidemic, what else are we to do except to get out of town and go to the beach in Aruba as soon as possible,” Jerry told the mayor, the Blue Suit told me.
“But who’s going to be in charge?” Jerry asked the mayor.
“What are you an idiot?” the mayor replied to Jerry.
“Please don’t call me names like that. With everything I’ve done for you, you should be grateful for my friendship – besides, I know all of your secrets so you should treat me nicely,” Jerry told the mayor, the Blue Suit told me.
“I was there. I heard everything before they left for Aruba.” the Blue Suit told me.
“Let Kevin handle the press releases. I can’t wait to get out of here. I pay Kevin big bucks. I own him. He does whatever I tell him to do. If he doesn’t, he knows he’s gone,” the mayor told Jerry, the Blue Suit told me.
“When the mayor returned from Aruba, the Paper Boy told him this: “Kevin thinks he’s the mayor now. I’m serious.”
“The mayor said things to Jerry about Kevin I cannot repeat in a community newspaper. His outrage about Kevin doing such a good job was hard for me to take. The mayor can be so unfair and so rotten to the people who constantly prop him up.”
“Is this true?” I asked the Blue Suit. “Does Kevin think he’s the mayor?”
“Yes he does,” the Blue Suit answered.
“Why not? He does the mayor’s job. Without Kevin, the mayor wouldn’t know what to do.”
“I’ve heard Kevin whispering to the Paper Boy.”
“What did Kevin say to the Paper Boy?” I asked.
“I didn’t sign up for this crap!” I heard him say, the Blue Suit told me. “He stomped his feet. He punched his chest. He pushed Jerry – and don’t think for a second that Kevin couldn’t take Jerry down with one hand tied behind his back. Kevin’s tough. He worked inside a prison for years.”
“After he pushed Jerry he shouted at him.”
“I do everything. He does nothing. I take all the heat. He gets all the applause. I shut the schools and the city hall, and you both are in Aruba and Carlo talks about it to the press as though he’s done something historic,” Kevin said to Jerry, the Blue Suit told me.
“You’re both in Aruba having a great old time. You left me here to deal with an epidemic, and then I have watch him take all the credit when he wasn’t here. You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kevin told Jerry, the Blue Suit said.
O’Donnell has received real kudos from those who know that he ran the city when the mayor was on the beach, the Blue Suit told me.
“And he’s got the gall to threaten me and my job. He says he owns me. We will see about that,” O’Donnell said to Jerry according to the mayor’s Blue Suit.
“I’m here more than the mayor. I take my job more seriously than the mayor. I am the point man for everything going on in the mayor’s absence, and he is absent nearly all of the time…and he’s going to threaten me? I don’t think so,” O’Donnell said to Jerry, the Blue Suit recalled to me.
“Enough of this, Josh. I could go on and on. The more I tell you, the more I put myself in danger with Carlo. I don’t want him coming after me. I don’t want him wearing me everyday, day after day, summer winter, spring and fall. You cannot imagine how bad that is for me. It is torture for me when he does that,” the Blue Suit told me.
“Is he that bad a person when no one is looking?” I asked.
“Yes,” the Blue Suit replied. “You have no idea.”
“Sometimes when he’s angry he grabs my pant leg and threatens to tear it off.”
“What kind of guy does that to a nice Blue Suit?” I asked.
“The kind of guy who runs away to a vacation in Aruba when an epidemic is about to shut down the city and who takes all the credit running the city when he wasn’t here ,” the Blue Suit said.