THE BLUE SUIT
Private Conversations between the mayor’s favorite blue suit and Josh Resnek, Leader Herald Editor.
Let’s face it, I don’t anyone, no one, who talks to a blue cloth suit. May I ask you, the reader: Do you know of anyone living or dead who talked with a blue cloth suit?
The author of this column, me, Josh Resnek, editor of the Leader Herald, claims the Blue Suit and I share a close relationship, much like best friends or comrades in arms or brothers and alter egos. The Blue Suit because of his very close relationship with the mayor, allegedly tells me many things about the mayor. The Blue Suit insists everything he tells me is true in the weekly column. Such an affirmative assertion of the truth from a cloth suit is as fantastic as me writing about the resurrection of a human being after they had died and then writing about speaking at length with the resurrected party.
The Blue Suit does not like when I talk about the possibility he is not real. The Blue Suit and I have shared many discussions – and some of them difficult – about his paternity – and who his mother and father were, where they came from, what launderette they were cleaned at and where the Blue Suit grew up and on and on.
Suffice to say, the mayor’s Blue Suit and I know one another very well. We discuss matters great and small about Everett’s politics and the mayor’s manifest city hall machinations as if such a thing were possible.
My claims are the same with each Blue Suit column.
We speak with one another.
We eat with one another.
We laugh together.
We argue.
We endlessly speculate about our favorite topic – the mayor.
Does this make us bad people?
In some quarters this is true.
Bottom line, I like and respect the Blue Suit.
He gets really upset with me when I claim this column is fiction and that he doesn’t exist except for me bringing him to life as a newspaper character in an ongoing drama in the Leader Herald.
Tuesday, I picked up the Blue Suit on Elm Street, He had just come out of the Elm Street Bakery and was gobbling down cookies like a dog sucking up a bowl of food.
‘Gee whiz, man. Can’t you slow down? You look like you’re eating your last meal,” I joked to the Blue Suit.
The Blue Suit looked dumbfounded.
“Do you have a problem with my eating habits?” he asked. “Let’s not go there,” I said.
I recalled all the times I’ve eaten out with the Blue Suit – at Oliveira’s, at the New Bridge, at Panera’s and a half dozen other places in Everett. and how much money I’ve spent feeding him and he’s never reached into his own pocket to pay.
“I’m fighting an eating disorder,” the Blue Suit said to me as we drove around the city looking out at a magnificent day. The sun- light was brilliant and warm, cutting the chill just a bit.
He had just finished a bag of cookies.
“I’ve been going to therapy, if you’re interested,” he added.
“I had no idea,” I said to him.
“I didn’t think you were the therapy type,” I said.
“It’s a big deal for me because I can’t control my desire to eat…and other desires,” he said.
“Let’s keep to the eating disorder for now. OK. We can discuss your other problems at another time,” I suggested.
“OK,” the Blue Suit answered.
“I’m seeing a psychiatrist. It’s a woman. I kind of like her. She’s really sharp. I think she likes me,” the Blue Suit told me.
“Don’t get carried away with yourself,” I warned him. “She’s probably being polite. Remember, when you have a session with her it’s about your eating problem and maybe other problems you have.”
“You’re right about that, Josh. The other problems I’m trying to deal with are…” and I stopped the Blue Suit.
“I told you I’m not interested right now in your other problems,” I said.
“But I want you to know what’s getting me down.”
“OK.OK,” I said.
‘What other problems do you have?” I asked.
“I have trouble controlling myself,” he said to me.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I have almost no self-control. The psychiatrist, she says, I have low self esteem. She says that’s what causes me to eat so much. She claims I need intensive therapy. She says I need a cyclone bomb type therapy schedule so I can get my head on straight.”
“What do you think of that?”
“I tend to agree,” the Blue Suit answered.
“Have you told the boss about this?” I asked the Blue Suit.
“No. He wouldn’t understand where I’m coming from. Besides, you’re about the only one to show any interest in my personal life.”
A moment of quiet ensued.
“The psychiatrist said I might benefit from a relationship – you know – me getting it together with a woman. So I’ve been trying that out,” he said to me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed.
“How the hell would you meet a woman?”
“I go on Tinder, you know, the hook up site on line. You have no idea how many women I’ve met on Tinder.”
“I can only imagine,” I added with growing interest.