The Boy in the Black Suit

Matt recalls his mother’s presence in their home and misses the smell of meals she cooked and the sound of music she liked. Matt’s mother moved to Harlem to attend acting school and met his father at the restaurant where they both worked. Matt’s father intended to pursue acting as well, but without any training. Matt’s mother practiced accents on customers. The house sounds and feels empty without her. Hungry, he tries to open “The Secret to Getting Girls, For Matty” recipe booklet that his mother wrote for him. He gets as far as “The OMG Omelet for Matty (Thanks for Teaching Me OMG)” (31) but then closes the cookbook in sadness and grief. Little food is in the house; Matt and his father mostly order takeout now. He decides to walk to the nearby bodega for a sandwich. He is one dollar short, but he thinks the owner, Jimmy, a rough Pakistani man in his forties who once scared away a shoplifter with a machete, will give Matt a sandwich anyway, knowing Matt will repay the debt.

Jimmy expresses sympathy for Matt’s loss and tells the sandwich-maker Mike to make a sandwich for not only Matt but for Matt’s father too: “Matty, you know you family, and I know you or your pops is good for it” (34). Matt’s friend Chris arrives and orders a sandwich for himself. Chris lives in an apartment building on the same block as Matt’s brownstone. “[A] a gang of dudes” whom others suspect of theft and drug deals frequents the entrance to Chris’s apartment building, so Matt and Chris take their sandwiches back to Matt’s brownstone building and sit on the stoop. Matt’s thoughts shift to how he has not seen other friends in the weeks since his mother went to hospice care in the hospital. She enjoyed the flowers people sent; Matt did not see the point of having cut flowers that wither and die. The day before she died, his mother gave away all the flowers to nurses and Matt’s father. That night, Matt’s father stayed up and drank cognac shots while reading the get-well cards. They received a call at 4 a.m. that Matt’s mother passed away. When his father knocked on his bedroom door to tell him, Matt was already dressed.

Chris and Matt talk about school. Matt tells Chris that others behave strangely to him now, and Chris claims no one wants to say the wrong thing to Matt. Matt asks Chris to treat him “normal.” Chris asks Matt to make sauce for his sandwich with a recipe Matt created. Nameless, the sauce is an entry in the recipe booklet Matt’s mother made him labeled “Blank Sauce.” Matt refuses. Chris tells Matt that he saw Matt’s father outside the liquor store on Albany with a known neighborhood drunk, Cork. Cork is Mr. Ray’s youngest brother who does occasional work at the funeral home.

Chris leaves before it gets dark. Matt reflects on his friendship with Chris and attributes how close they are to the time when Matt was seven and spent the night at Chris’s apartment because Matt’s parents wanted to go out for Valentine’s Day. Trying to sleep that night, Matt heard a violent domestic quarrel in the hall. Matt insisted on opening the door to see, even though it broke one of the three rules Chris’s mom had for visiting: “Just pretend like you don’t hear anything” (45), regarding noises in the street or hall. The other rules were keeping take-out containers in the fridge or microwave to avoid mice in the trash and waiting until morning to use the hot water. On the night of the hallway quarrel, Matt “washed up” in the evening; Chris’s feet smelled awful because he did not. The two peeked into the hall at the sound of the fight; then they heard a gunshot: “[…] the loudest sound I had ever heard in my entire life came rushing toward us” (46). Chris’s mother woke and sent the boys to bed. From there, Matt listened to the police, sirens, a girl’s screams, and a dog barking. In bed “head to foot,” Matt did not care about Chris’s foot odor anymore.

Matt falls asleep that night listening to rapper Tupac’s song “Dear Mama” on repeat. He dreams of his mother’s funeral service. In the dream, everyone is crying heavily except for Matt and his mother, who sit close together “in the pew smiling” (49). Matt awakens at four in the morning when his father stumbles in after being out drinking all night. Matt’s father drops a bagged bottle of cognac in the kitchen. It breaks, and he cut his hand. Matt helps him into a chair and gives him a towel to staunch the blood. The stink of liquor is heavy in the kitchen. Matt asks his father, “Better?” (49), even though his father’s hand is still bleeding. This reminds Matt of his father asking him if a bandage made his scraped knees better when Matt was smaller.

Lacking control and falling asleep, Matt’s father urinates while sitting in the chair. Matt recalls that his mother required his father to quit drinking before she would acquiesce to marry him, which he did. Matt feels as though he and his father play reversed roles: “And I looked at him like he was my kid—like we had switched places, and this was his first night getting wasted and I was suppose to yell or punish him or tell him how irresponsible he was” (52).

Matt decides to wear his suit to school the next day, so he’ll be dressed appropriately for work at the funeral home. He owns only one suit: the black one he wore to his mother’s funeral. Matt’s father seems well the next morning. He offers Matt breakfast and asks about Matt’s suit. Matt tells him about the job at Mr. Ray’s. Matt almost asks his father about the night before but changes his mind. The weather is dreary as Matt walks to the bus stop, but Chris, who has trouble closing an oversized umbrella when the bus arrives, cheers him up. At school, Matt realizes his suit might be a source of gossip among his peers: “But I didn’t really care because, like I said, high school seemed like nothing to me now” (56). His mind drifts in English class and he anticipates going to work and “sitting in on another funeral” (57).