Eye on Everett – Everett Leader Herald

— Eye on Everett —

The Blue Suit

“What’s he going to do if he loses? Yikes. I hate to think about that. He won’t take to losin’ kindly, i can assure you of that.”
– The mayor’s Blue Suit to josh Resnek

By JOSH RESNEK

“He better win. That’s all I can say about Carlo. I don’t want to be around him if he loses. What a bad scene that will be for everyone near him. Can you imagine me being worn by him on election night and him losing!! God,

I hate to think about it. I could end up completely trashed in the aftermath of a loss!”

That’s how the mayor’s Blue Suit, my good friend, put it to me Tuesday morning when we palled around Everett for a few hours just killing some time. We drove up and down some of my favorite Everett Streets in my red Honda, the corrosively ugly piece of aging junk I drive around in.

“Why do take so much pleasure in driving a piece of junk?” the Blue Suit asked me.

“You have to know Carlo would never be caught dead letting people see him in your car – let alone to be seen in it with you driving! Your type of car is way below his perceived class level. Only poor people drive cars like yours, Josh,” the Blue Suit added.

“Oh really,” I answered. “I don’t view my automobile as a function of my status in the world, if you don’t mind,” I said to the Blue Suit.

“Obviously you don’t do that, Josh. I might add you do a very good job of looking poor in that car.” He laughed. He reflected for a moment.

“Carlo’s been driving around the city in his father’s red truck. It is a pretty nice truck by comparison to your car. It’s a newer pickup in perfect condition.”

“What the hell is Carlo doing riding around in a red pickup truck?” I asked.

The Blue Suit raised his eyebrows.

— Eye on Everett —

The Blue Suit

A weekly discussion between the mayor’s Blue Suit and writer Josh Resnek

“The night is dark. The day is clear. The election is three weeks away.”
– Josh Resnek waxing eloquent to the Blue Suit

By JOSH RESNEK

“So you think the voters are going to get rid of Carlo as mayor, Josh? Is that what you think,” the Blue Suit asked me.

You know me well. I don’t count Carlo out. I certainly don’t want to count him in…until the outcome is known on Election Day,” I added.

The Blue Suit began coughing. I worried that he might be choking. The Blue caught his breath. He began breathing steadily again. “Wow. That was a trip. You can’t live if you can’t breathe,” the Blue Suit said.

“Are you OK? Do I need to call 911?” I asked him.

“I’m fine, thank you,” the Blue Suit replied. “Hey, Josh, thanks for looking out for me. The mayor doesn’t care if I live or die. Kind of depressing to work for a guy for so long and to be abused the way I’ve been abused by him, to matter not at all to him unless he wants to use me.”

A moment later, the Blue Suit reached into a pack of cigarettes. He lit up a Marlboro.

“How can you do that?” I asked. “One moment you can’t breathe. The next moment you’re smoking a cigarette. Are you nuts?” I asked.

The coughing began again after the first puff. His eyes teared. He slobbered a bit of spit on his pants. His chest heaved in and out. He was gagging.

He took in another puff.

— Eye on Everett —

“I wonder if Carlo gave any of his employees the pandemic aid he got from the federal government? He put in for something liek $160,000. No way he shared that money”
– The mayor’s Blue Suit to Josh Resnek

By JOSH RESNEK

For all our new readers, and for those joining us from week to week, please allow me to point out what this column is all about.

I have struck up a lasting relationship with the mayor’s Blue Suit. The Blue Suit has had to suffer through longer than a decade of abuse from the mayor wearing him day after day, tossing him often into a rag heap of dirty clothes and leaving him there until the Blue Suit is wrinkled and totally disheveled – if you can imagine a suit being out of sorts.

The Blue Suit knows everything about the mayor. Everything.

We discuss all of this all the time as we drive around the city in my beaten-up Red Honda Fit, circa 2006.

The Blue Suit confides in me.

I understand his suffering having to be worn repeatedly and abused by the Carlo.

The Blue Suit has suffered through everything with Carlo. FBI investigations. State Police investigations. Allegations of sexual harassment and violence against women. Court hearings. Lawsuits. Whatever the mayor has done during the past decade, the Blue Suit is witness to it.

The Blue Suit has also been forced to suffer through the results of the mayor’s large weight swings.

When he is much heavier, this is torture for the Blue Suit.

The Blue Suit has been torn, stretched, patched, ripped, spilled on, and other more directly human reactions to too much food, et cetera.

Then there are the hot days when the mayor is perspiring and chowing down a meatball sub and slobbering it all over the Blue Suit’s pants. There are trips to the bathroom – and fantastic stories about what goes in the bathroom sometimes!

The Blue Suit gets around rather nicely.

He attracts no attention except for being quoted in this column.

— Eye on Everett —

“The mayor is spooked. He reminds me a bit of a guy in a room with the walls and ceiling closing in on him.”
– The mayor’s Blue Suit talking with Josh Resnek

By JOSH RESNEK

The mayor scored his worst showing in 14 years last week. He knows it wasn’t a good showing. It worries him. On the other hand, he came in first, and that allowed him to sigh a big breath of relief.

I picked up the mayor’s Blue Suit Tuesday afternoon on Elm Street.

He stepped into my Honda Fit.

He was a bit jaunty and ebullient.

He was smiling and finishing off a Milky Way candy bar. He smacked his lips with the last bite.

“Boy, that was good,” he said.

“What’s got you going today? I can sense you’re feeling pretty good,” I asked him.

He started in on my car as usual.

“When are you going to get rid of this piece of aging junk?

Carlo drives a Mercedes. It isn’t his but at least it’s a Mercedes,” the Blue Suit said to me.

“I’m not Carlo,” I answered.

“That’s for sure,” the Blue Suit said to me.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” I asked the Blue Suit. “Just what I said. There’s only one Carlo,” he added emphatically.

— Eye on Everett —

“What a day it was. It was like the longest day”
– The mayor’s Blue Suit talking with Josh Resnek

By JOSH RESNEK

Tuesday was primary day.

The mayor’s Blue Suit and I drove all around to the polling places, checked out the various headquarters, and tried to feel the karma of the day.

In some primary elections, you are able to feel the energy and the vibrancy of local politics.

Yesterday, we tried to feel the day for what it was. Right from the beginning, it was hard to do.

First of all, there didn’t seem to be much energy around the city except for the politicians and their supporters.

That makes sense.

At this time in our national history, politics and primaries aren’t exactly what they used to be.

Participation has plunged. Numbers of voters coming out have taken a dive.

Primaries, and even some elections, have become things unto themselves.

“What does that mean, Josh?” the Blue Suit asked me.

“People just don’t care as much anymore. That’s what it means. Vote totals are lower than expected or slightly higher but with very little variation,” I answered.

We were driving around the city going from polling place to polling place.

“You see all those people holding DeMaria signs?” the Blue Suit asked.

Yes. So what?” I replied.

“Well, most of them are not from Everett. They were brought in by the mayor to hold signs on streets corners.”

In Everett Square, Capone signs dominated. They were all held by Capone supporters from Everett in an obvious sign of how different a grassroots campaign can be from the mayor’s campaign – which relied on money and city employees to do the horrible tasks of holding signs, going door to door, making contributions and on and on.