The Blue Suit has been at the pinnacle of power in Everett for over a decade. He has been to the mountaintop, so to speak. No one knows Everett better than he does. No one tells stories the way he does about this city. No one before him and very likely after him will ever accomplish what he has accomplished.
Readers of this column must always keep in mind that the Blue Suit is a cloth blue suit, an off the rack cheaper model machine made American blue suit. His father, as noted last week, was a Hickey Freeman hand stitched suit made of fine wool and sold from the Andover Shop in Harvard Square many years ago for about $2,000.
Also, the Blue Suit has revealed to me, Josh Resnek, editor of the Leaders Herald and a very close friend, that his mother was an aristocrat like his father. She was a Gucci lady’s dress made of the finest silk garments and fabric, stitched carefully by hand, and sold from Saks Fifth Avenue for $2,500.
He has revealed to me that both his parents have been gone for so long, he has difficulty recalling many details from his childhood except that his parents were bought by people from Wellesley who had tons of money and a huge home and prestige until they lost it all to the recession in the early 1990’s.
The Blue Suit came along when his parents were without substantial owners and being worn by people who bought them at a discount store, who treated them like paupers instead of the higher class garments that they had been for so many years. Inevitably, the Blue Suit came along but he got the rude end of the stick. He ended up being bought off the rack at Men’s Warehouse on Route 1.
As the Blue Suit put it to me last week while describing his youth, “I was born into poverty as a young man. She’s made a wonderful bride.”
Yes, he has a bit of a literary streak in him. He is not your average off the rack blue cloth suit.
The Blue Suit told me he worries about his future as he is over a decade old and has been so often worn that the material he was created with is becoming thinner and more delicate and that the slightest tear can lead to a much larger wound that could destroy one of his sleeves, a lapel or a pant leg.
“I am distraught about my future,” he told me last week as we drove around the city checking out all the detours and road work that is going on. We traversed the city, somewhat in awe of the work in Glendale Square, along Elm Street, down Ferry Street and on and on.
”The detours are amazing. Just going from one square to an- other can take 20 minutes at times,” the Blue Suit said he no- ticed.
“How do you think I feel when me and my staff are doing deliveries?” I asked him.
“I know how you feel, Josh. You don’t like being held up by anyone or anything. But like everyone else in this city, you have to put up with it or you can’t get your job done,” he added.
The Blue Suit said he marveled at all the work being done – not just the many new buildings going up everywhere along the Parkway, but all over the city.
“It is like a new city going up all around me and frankly, at times, I don’t recognize the place it’s changed so much since I got here so many years ago,” he added.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“It’s a story I’d rather not tell,” he said to me. We were passing by Mike’s Roast Beef, right at the place where of a terrible motorcycle accident over the weekend.
“A young guy died right there,” he said, pointing to the place police cordoned off on lower Broadway Friday night after the accident.
“Can you imagine riding on your motorcycle carefree as can be in one moment and dying almost instantly the next moment?” he asked me.
“No, not really,” I answered.
We drove into the McDonald’s drive through.
The Blue Suit leaned over me and shouted into the speaker after the attendant asked for his order.
“That will be three Big Mac’s, two large fries, two vanilla frappes and a large Coke.”
“Will that be all, sir?” the attendant asked.
The Blue Suit laughed. I laughed with him.
“Yes, that will be fine for now,” he said.
I paid as I always pay for the Blue Suit.
When we got to the window, the girl handing me the bag of food caught a glimpse of the Blue Suit.
“Can I have your autograph, sir?” she asked the Blue Suit. He obliged in a nano second, signing a McDonald’s napkin and handing it back to her.
She turned to her fellow McDonald’s employees, about a dozen of them, and showed them the autograph.
Several of them clamored around the window and they all shouted a hearty hello to the Blue Suit. All of them walked away from the window smiling and high-fiving one another.
As we pulled away from the McDonald’s, the Blue Suit was already devouring a Big Mac. Watching him eat a Big Mac is an incredible experience very few people have ever been witness to.
Blue cloth suits don’t tend to eat, to digest, to breath, to think, to speak, to act, to triumph in their lives.
Everett’s Blue Suit is a one of kind. He lives at the top of the social strata in this city, residing in a spacious closet, in a nice home, on a quiet street, and he hopes, above all hopes, that this situation never changes.
“Nothing lasts forever,” I said to him.
“Absolutely nothing,” I added.