The Blue Suit muses
By JOSH RESNEK
The Blue Suit and I were eating breakfast at the Sunrise Restaurant on Main Street Tuesday morning when he looked at me and he blurted out: “I think I’m gay.”
I put a forkful of pancake and maple syrup into my mouth, took a sip through a straw of ice-cold Hood’s milk out of the plastic bottle, swished it around a bit inside my mouth, and swallowed. Wow! Is there anything better than great pancakes cooked from a rich batter with maple syrup washed down by a flush of ice-cold white milk? Not really.
“Well. Are you going to say anything?” the Blue Suit asked me after telling me he thinks he’s gay.
“What do you want me to say? Am I supposed to be shocked? Do you think I’m going to hate you like Carlo would if you told him the same thing?” I asked.
The Blue Suit concentrated on his egg sandwich with cheese and bacon on toast – a nice tight little treat which he tends to love. He bit into the sandwich. He raised his coffee cup to his lips. He sipped took a sip of the hot coffee.
“Boy, that’s good,” he said to me.
We talked.
“So what’s this about you being gay? How do you know you’re gay?” I asked.
“I just know,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Take it from me, I know,” he said.
I thought about this for a moment.
OK. So you think you’re gay. Now what? Can we still be friends? Do you need to come out of the closet to Carlo? Will he wear you anymore if he knows you’re gay?”
That’s the first time the Blue Suit smiled during breakfast.
“If I told Carlo, I was gay he’d refuse to wear me. He hates gays. Well, I should say, he hates gay men. He doesn’t mind gay women. In fact, he looks at gay women as if they are heterosexual if you know what I mean. Gay or straight, a sexual object is a sexual object to Carlo,” the Blue Suit said.
“I have to admit,” he continued, “telling Carlo I’m gay might be the end of him wearing me. That would be SOOO good, not be worn and abused by him anymore,” the Blue Suit said to me.
Early morning diners came in and out of the Sunrise. In one corner of the restaurant, a group of about 6 DPW employees were talking and eating their breakfast. They were reading the Leader Herald.
“Look,” I implored the Blue Suit. “I don’t care if you are straight or gay or transsexual. It doesn’t matter to me. You are my friend. Your sexuality does not matter to me.”
After another sip of coffee the Blue Suit said “I wish Carlo could be that way. He hates gays. He hates transsexuals. He hates Blacks, and gay Blacks and gay Black women,” the Blue Suit admitted to me.
“You want to know something strange?” he asked me. “Yes, of course,” I answered the Blue Suit.
“Carlo likes Black women. I mean he really likes Black women. That’s so strange to me because I know how much he doesn’t care for Blacks in general. You want to know what else?” he asked me.
“Of course,” I repeated.
“He likes tattooed women. He loves the inked ladies. I heard him tell Jerry that. I don’t like him and Jerry together when I’m being worn by Carlo. Those two are homophobes. The things they say about gays can’t be repeated. Believe me when I tell you that,” the Blue Suit added.
I poured more maple syrup onto my pancakes. The owner of the Sunrise keeps a special bottle of the real stuff for me there.
I can’t eat the fake maple syrup – not with such great batter pancakes as are served at the Sunrise.
“You know what the psychiatrists say about men who hate gays,” I asked the Blue Suit.
“No. What do they say,” he replied.
I took another sip of milk.
“They say that men who complain vociferously about gays are a bit gay themselves,” I said to the Blue Suit.
“No!!!” he said to me.
“Yes!!!!” I replied.
“Are you saying Carlo is gay?” the Blue Suit asked me. “Of course not,” I replied. “I think he’s a lot of things, but I don’t believe for a second that he’s gay.”
The Blue Suit looked relieved.
“You remember when Carlo raised the gay flag at city hall?” he asked me.
“Of course,” I replied.
“That got me really uptight. Then hypocrisy of it all was excruciating to me,” the Blue Suit said thoughtfully.
“Can I tell you something else?” the Blue Suit asked me. “What is it?” I asked.
“Carlo hates white gays as much as he hates Black gays,” he revealed to me.
“How do you know this?” I asked again.
“Him and Jerry. They’re always telling gay jokes and making fun of gays and Blacks, Jews and Haitians, Puerto Ricans and Spanish speaking, and on and on. Who they make fun of has no boundaries. Funny thing, when they’re making fun of gays, you’d think they were watching Dave Chapelle…you know…the Black comedian who makes fun of transgender people.”
As most of my readers probably know, Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner the Olympic decathlon champion is running for governor in California.
“What does the mayor think about Caitlyn?” I asked.
“He thinks she’s really sexy!” the Blue Suit said to me. “Carlo told Jerry if he wasn’t married, he’d go out with Caitlyn. He said he thought she’d be a really good time.”
“Are you serious!” I exclaimed.
The Blue Suit hesitated.
“Of course not,” he replied.
“Don’t get me wrong, Josh. Carlo is bad about the gays.
He’s really bad about all the minorities. The things he says about them would make you wonder what world he is living in. How could someone professing to be the mayor forever be such a hater of people?” the Blue Suit wondered.
I tried to switch the subject.
“You don’t really think you’re gay, do you?” I asked him. He gave me that Carlo look like when he’s lying to someone’s face, except in this instance, the Blue Suit was serious. “Of course I’m not gay nor do I think I’m gay. I’m straight, just like Carlo,” he said.
“That’s a relief,” I said. “Being the mayor’s Blue Suit is hard enough without being gay.”
“You’ve got that straight, Josh.”
We left the Sunrise.
“See you, next week buddy,” I said to the Blue Suit.
He gave me a thumbs-up as he stepped into an Uber ride on Main Street.
“See you, Josh. Enjoy,” he said to me.