The Man in the Blue Suit

Man, do women look great at funerals, or what?

Babe City, USA is what I call it.

The outfits, the heels, the styles. Who’d have thought there were that many ways to wear black?

The details you’d know better than me. Fifty years on the planet, fifty years a male, thirty five years a grown man, thirty years a writer, and I still didn’t know how to describe women’s clothes.

And wouldn’t you think I’d know it after five wives…and counting?

No, ha, strike that last thought.

I’m done, Jenny’s a great gal.

Here I am at the back of church doing what I usually do at funerals, looking at rows and rows of great-looking women.

Now, as to why they look so fine, that’s another question. The subdued colors, the care given to makeup and hair and jewelry? Maybe. But that’s ground level. That's from the outside in.

What’s more interesting is what’s going on in their hearts. That universal life force comes shining through double strength in times of loss and death. Yes, maybe that’s it; I make a mental note. Like I said, I’m a writer, and if I can't get three solid paragraphs out of the eternal female spirit then it's time to turn in my big time writer’s pen.

Big time writer? Oh, not so big as that, but it’s how I’ve made my living, a solid streak of high-end feature stories for industry publications – “The Dry Facts –Water Scarcity and Pavement” or “Air Cargo, Back to the Future?” You catch these or the three thousand others, ha? It's a living.

Back to women; they’re not perfect, I’m not saying that, I’m surely not saying that, but – bless ‘em – give ‘em one of the great true emotions of life to feel, and by God they’ll feel it with all their hearts.

Full-hearted over this deceased guy in the blue suit these girls were, you could tell; no equivocating, no dodging, no weaving. They were in. Their money was on the table.

A lot better than men, by the way. Women I mean.

Well, case in point, take me. Here we are, some poor man has died, all I have eyes for are the women in attendance.

Story of my life, all five of those great gals will tell you. Oh, I did love each of them– still do – and just looking at the rows of females in front of me I had the thought I had pretty regularly from time to time, I’d just like to marry ‘em all! Just get it over with, just do it all at once, just go ahead and marry them all.

No, just kidding!

Here, catch this guy, third row? See him fiddling with his watch? Now look, he’s gonna adjust the strap like it just started bothering him, all the while….what he’s really doing, he’s checking out the time! That’s exactly what he’s doing. He’s thinking ‘man, how long before I can get out of here?’

Sheesh, the things you see when you don’t have your notebook along.

Speaking of, speaking of…where is my notebook? I never go anywhere without it –one black-inked pen for ideas, one red-inked pen for overheard conversations and hey, I’ll trade 25 genius ideas for every single true statement  omeone actually said, you can bet that red pen is scribbling then.

But you know what? I'm back to that notebook. I’d been forgetting all sorts of things lately, and big time.

I’ll tell you what, it goes a little further than that even. I’ve had these, well, spells is the only word, where I’ll find myself somewhere – it might be the grocery store or the gym – without a clue as to how I got there. And I mean without a clue. Quite the feeling, my friend, to look up and wonder what you're doing here.

Well, take this right here…what was I doing at church anyway?  I surely don't remember driving here. I look down at my clothes, hoping that I was dressed decently.

Funny business. Absolutely a funny business.

Oh, oh, oh, back to the women, look at them now, listening to the priest, their chins down, their eyes brimming. Hard to say exactly what he's saying, the usual stuff I suppose, dust to dust and all that. I can't hear at all way back here, everything is muffled somehow like after a big snowfall before anyone gets up and around the streets (but why not? I wonder, why not? Why can't I hear? I can see he's using a microphone.)  Well, hear him or not, I can tell from their reactions, the mix of tears and laughter, that we were dealing with one of those ‘characters’ here, one of those fellows who generate as much exasperation as love.

Tell you the truth, it’s something I’ve been thinking about in regards to myself, thinking about a lot.

Man, I don’t want to be one of those ‘embrace life’ guys that leave a trail of destruction everywhere he’s just been. Who wants that said of him at the end of the day?

You don’t think I’ve been that way, do you?

Well, anyway, these blackouts, they were coming closer and closer together, oh, we did the whole nine yards, Jenny and me, the brain scans, the cognitive tests, but never did get a final diagnosis or even a very clear idea of how to handle it. Tell you the truth, I only went through all those tests for Jenny.

She’s a good one, my Jen is.

You know what a writer’s occupational hazard is, don’t you?  It’s dismalness, flat dismalness, always noticing and dwelling on people’s faults, not their nobleness and valor and determination when the bad times come pouring in like a dam-burst high above a town.

They’re better than we give them credit for, people are, and just the thought – man, was this ever unlike me – just the thought brought tears to my eyes.

And you know, the world is so great, just so so great – I was in a state, I’ll tell you – I was thankful for gravity, and air, and the Periodic Table, and the smell of cut grass, and the sound of crickets in the night, and the sight of the corniest inflatable ape atop the crummiest auto dealership… and that was just the scenery, my friend, just the background to the real show, how about all those people, all those sad and damaged and wonderful people?

You know, I'm resolving right here and now to test out this new-found largeness of character; let me do my duty here and say goodbye to that fine gentleman in the coffin, and then I’ll be out of here.

But I find that it is harder and harder to, well…move, even to get from one place to the other.

Man, some sort of paralysis too? It rains, it pours, my friend.

But then, next thing I know – these blackouts! Whoa! – there I am…just a stride away from the man in blue himself. Man in blue? You see, I can't see his face, but I can see his shoulders and arms and I can tell he's wearing a blue suit, that's where I get the whole man in blue business.

Great suit, I want to tell him, and I know exactly where he got it, I have the exact same suit hanging in the closet at home. I can't exactly tell who's around me, but my goodness, the voices sound familiar, was that part of these blackouts, all of a sudden I think I knew everyone?

Tell you what, I have some sorting out to do. Big time, chum, big time!

But first things first, I need to say goodbye to this fine man. You know what? I'm gonna make a little joke to him as I walk by – not out loud for Pete's sake! No way! I’m not that wild and crazy! – and say something more like in my mind, ‘hey, nice suit, buddy; you and me, we both look like a million bucks in our blue suits!”

I just feel close to him is all, I want to let him know I'm on his side. And let him know that I plan on doing enough living and enough giving and enough appreciating for the both of us for some time to come. It'll be like a pact or something between us. And now, just as though her voice has come floating in via some signal to bless our pact I hear Jen's sweet voice, of all people, thanking people for coming. Why would she care if they came?

I move forward ever so slowly, in a moment I’ll be looking into his face, now in half a moment, now in a second or two, now I’m almost there.