THE BLUE SUIT
Private conversations between the Blue Suit – the mayor’s blue suit, that is – and Josh Resnek. Any resemblance to the alleged truth of what they discuss is purely coincidental.
We met on New Year’s Day just outside of Woodlawn Cemetery. The Blue Suit had just taken a New Year’s Day walk. He was alone in his thoughts, quite at peace with himself, I thought.
The Blue Suit keeps a lot inside. He finds it hard to express himself. At times, telling the truth about himself is an impossibility not because the Blue Suit is a liar – hardly – but because he finds inner peace in not talking about himself.
His relationship with the mayor makes his life extremely difficult. He claims the mayor can be a very difficult person. Can you imagine that?
He claims the mayor threatens him from time to time.
“What kind of threats are you talking about? Come clean. You can tell me,” I said to the Blue Suit.
“Right, Josh,” he replied. “With friends like you I don’t need enemies!” he answered with a full throated chuckle.
It drive the mayor crazy that I talk with you, that we eat together, that we share secrets, that we have a friendship. Those are all danger zones for him,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“So go on. Tell me how the mayor threatens you,” I asked.
“Sometime he says things like…I’m never going to have you cleaned again. Other times he calls me a rag. Once he threatened to squirt Heinz Ketchup all over me and then bundle me into a ball and toss me into a corner of his closet. That really freaked me out,” he recalled.
“Another time he said he was going to sew my pockets shut. Do you know what it’s like to be a pair of pants without pockets!”
“Yeah. I think I know how you feel.”
“No you don’t, Josh.”
“You think you can write about the mayor and the relationship he and I have without causing him to feel outraged every time. Well guess what, Josh? He’s outraged every time. The guy has feelings whether you know it or not,” he added.
“Oh really. The mayor has feelings? Just what might those feelings be?” I asked.
“Come on, Josh. The mayor is human.”
“Really,” I said. “Funny how I’ve not thought of him that way. He seems to me to be in a world of his own making, answering to no one, controlling everything his hands touch and on and on. The mayor may in fact be human as you say but he seems to me to be super human if you want to know the truth. Things that affect us mortals are like water off a duck’s back for him. He’s an untouchable. He could end up being the mayor forever,” I said to the Blue Suit.
“You know he’s running again,” the Blue Suit said to me.
“Of course he is. What else can he do but be the mayor of Everett?” I asked.
“Can he win again?” I continued.
“Of course he can. Who’s going to beat him, Josh?”
“You think if Fred Capone runs again he will beat Carlo?” “That’s a loaded question,” I answered.
“If Fred runs against Carlo again I think he’s got a good chance of beating him.”
“You know what I’m hearing?” I asked the Blue Suit.
‘I’m hearing that Stephanie Smith is going to run for mayor. She’d make for a very attractive, assertive, articulate candidate. My only question is this: would she take on Carlo? I think she would, but only if she believed to the core of her being she could beat him. Could she beat him? I don’t honestly know. Carlo is a proven survivor. Some of his closest buddies have said he will be the mayor forever, and maybe he will,” I said.
“Isn’t Carlo tired of being the mayor of Everett after all these years?” I asked the Blue Suit.
“I don’t think so, Josh. It means more to him than anything at this point. It is all he has, when you come right down to it. How could he give up all he has? He can’t. He won’t. He’s running again, you can bet on it.”
“And what about you, my friend. What is in store for you in 2023?”
The Blue Suit tugged at his belt.
“I feel a big year of eating like a horse,” he said to me. “I think I’m going to let it all out. You know how I go up and down with my weight,” he said to me.
“I’m just going to let it go in 2023.”
“And you know what, Josh?”
“Yes. I know. You’re hungry, aren’t you? What do you feel like. Let’s start the year off the right way.”
He thought for a moment.
“I want a large Italian sub with everything, a vanilla frappe and two honey dipped donuts to start. The I’ll get down to the business of eating up a storm,” he said with a smile.
We high fived like the good friends we are.
We headed up Ferry Street to the Cold Cut Factory. The subs there are like atomic bombs in size, taste and quality.
Inside the Cold Cut Factory the Blue Suit was mobbed by admirers, including the rehabilitated Anthony DiPierro.
Everyone was charged up seeing the Blue Suit. So the story goes in Everett.