“I had a dream” – The Blue Suit
By JOSH RESNEK
The mayor’s Blue Suit let out his deepest thoughts to me this week when he told me: “I had a dream.”
“Tell me about the dream,” I asked him.
“You know dreams are all about our conscious lives, in part. That’s how Freud puts it in his famous study about our dream sequences,” I added.
“What do you mean?” the Blue Suit asked me.
I’ve read a lot of Freud although I don’t claim to be an expert.
I answered the Blue Suit.
“The things we do, the people we see, the places we go, the hassles we have, the triumphs we enjoy in our awake hours often become the subjects of our dreams. In other words, in our awake hours, our brain is absorbing everything about our lives – the weather, our homes, relationships with friends, discussions with parents. When we go to sleep, our dreams are caused by impulses in our brains related to what we did while awake,” I told the Blue Suit.
“Josh, I don’t need cheap psychotherapy from you.”
“I get it,” I responded.
“Tell me your dream.”
“I think it comes from me hearing the mayor talking with Anthony DiPierro, the mayor’s personal sign man in the rep race. Anthony held the same position for the mayor when McLaughlin ran against the mayor’s best friend last time out and lost,” the Blue Suit recalled.
The Blue Suit said the mayor was saying things to Anthony like…” can you put up more signs? We need more signs. McLaughlin is a dangerous candidate. I don’t want you to lose the rep race for me like you blew the council race that McLaughlin won.”
The Blue Suit said he couldn’t hear everything the mayor was saying to Anthony but on the next call he got from Jerry the Paper Boy – that’s Jerry Navarro – that the mayor’s message was obtuse but nevertheless, clear to him.
“The mayor said the equivalent of ‘do you think some of McLaughlin’s signs might disappear in the next few days?’”
The Paper Boy laughed heartily.
“How is that going to happen?” he asked the mayor, again laughing, coughing, slapping his knees and almost gasping for air.
“The mayor didn’t think the Paper Boy was being very funny,” the Blue Suit told me.
“Get serious, Jerry,” the mayor said to the Paper Boy. “Your name isn’t on the line. My name is on the line for the rep in this election. I don’t want to lose this one. How long do you think you’ll be working for the city if I don’t get re-elected?” he asked the Paper Boy.
“Are you threatening me?” the Paper boy replied, the Blue Suit told me.
“Don’t start with me, Jerry. Just do as you’re told and be grateful for once in your life. I know you laugh behind my back. I don’t like you joking about me. You’re the joke, Jerry and don’t ever forget it.”
The Blue Suit told me there was a long pause after that between the mayor and Jerry.
“Jerry, are you still there? Did you hear me?” the mayor asked.
“Do you want to lose your job right now or are you going to say you’re sorry? Let me know. I’m going to count to five,” the mayor said.
“One. Two. Three. Four…” the mayor counted, then Jerry chimed in.
“I’m sorry.”
“Good, Jerry. I’m glad for you that you’re sorry. I know a lot of people who would pay to have your job big time.”
The Blue Suit said that ended the discussion.
‘So, tell me,” I asked. “What came into your mind while you were asleep? Try to remember everything.”
The Blue Suit sighed. I could sense by his hesitancy the dream had made a strong impact on him.
“I had a dream that I was in a mailbox on Elm Street with hundreds of mailed in votes. I started opening them. I opened hundreds of ballots,” he said.
“So?”
“Out of every four ballots, three were for McLaughlin.”
“I dreamt the rep lost to McLaughlin.”
“It was more than that, however. The dream was a powerful and joyful interlude while I hung in the closet in the mayor’s bedroom in his mansion.”
“What else did the dream tell you?” I asked him.
“The mayor…he was so down in my dream, that all he could do was eat stale honey dip donuts from the shop he closed down in Revere. Funny how that works, isn’t it?” the Blue Suit said to me. “The mayor never cared for his own product.”
‘Anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s hard for me to repeat this or to say it aloud but in the dream Anthony and Jerry laughed so hard that the rep lost that they were ultimately taken away in a Cataldo ambulance because they were having problems catching their breath.”
“What would Freud say about that, Josh?” the Blue Suit asked me.
“He’d probably say you are not only losing your mind but that your psychic life is deranging what you dream about.”
“But the dream about McLaughlin winning and the rep being swept out of office was so clear, so true, so seemingly real that I continue to think about it today. It was so real, like in Technicolor. I thought the dream was reality…I was inside a mailbox on Elm Street…until I awakened in a cold sweat.”
“Boy was I happy to be awake.”
“Next week I will know the dream was true because I believe McLaughlin is going to win.
“I’ve got a secret for you,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“The mayor believes McLaughlin is going to win…and the mayor isn’t dreaming!”