The Boy in the Black Suit

“But the way Mr. Ray was talking, hell paid pretty good.” 

Matt knows that a job at the Ray Funeral Home might be difficult, considering his raw grief. He contemplates the job, however, when Mr. Ray tells him he will pay Matt at least as much as a job at the Cluck Bucket. Accepting the job propels Matt on his journey of self-discovery and helps him cope with his grief.

“And from what I could tell, we were both already numb.” 

Matt recalls the night his mother died in the hospital. She asked that Matt’s father take her cards and one vase of flowers home when he and Matt left that day; Matt’s father sat up late reading the ironically worded get-well cards aloud and pouring shots of cognac. Matt cannot sleep, so he hears the phone when the hospital calls. He dresses for the first day without his mother before his father arrives to knock on his bedroom door. Matt feels numb; his father is numb from the cognac and the news. This quote shows the first phase of Matt and his father's grief.

“Maybe give it some kind of catchy, corny name like All Sauce. That could work.” 

When Matt and Chris sit to eat the bodega sandwiches on Matt’s stoop, Chris asks Matt to make a sauce Matt created. It contains ketchup, mustard, honey, brown sugar, and garlic powder. Matt’s mother included it in the recipe booklet she assembled for Matt, but it has no name. Matt tells Chris he doesn’t feel like making the sauce this day. Here, we learn that Matt is choosing to ignore tasks that conjure difficult feelings and cooking from his mother's recipe book becomes a milestone for Matt's recovery.

“It was like Tupac was singing—well, rapping—some kind of ghetto lullaby to me.” 

Matt listens to “Dear Mama,” a Tupac Shakur rap song, often at bedtime after his mother passes away. After his sandwich from the bodega, he falls asleep listening to it and dreams of his mother’s funeral. Here, Reynolds gives us a glimpse into Matt's grieving process. While he tries not to think of his mother in other moments (as when he refuses to cook from her booklet), he spends the night remembering her.

“Maybe misery really does love company.” 

Matt is eager to attend another funeral at his job with Mr. Ray, but he (Matt) doesn’t really understand why he wants to. This expression, one that his mother said, crosses his mind as a potential explanation. Seeing other people's grief makes him feel normal and helps him process his own grief.

“She barely had time to do anything. I thought about how, if I died, my obituary would only be a few sentences.” 

Matt serves as a pallbearer for the funeral of 19-year-old Nancy McKnight. He sees that her obituary in the program is brief, which spurs this thought in his interior monologue. Matt thinks the only things one could mention in his own obituary are his parents, his best friend Chris, and the fact that he does not date much. Nancy is not the only young person to die in the story, which contributes to the theme of the unpredictability of life.

“No, I wasn’t asking. I was telling you. He was drunk, Mr. Ray.” 

Mr. Ray arrives late at night to tell Matt about his father’s accident and to bring him to the hospital. Matt already knew that his father recently started hanging out with Cork and that his father bought liquor and beer for Cork earlier that morning. Additionally, Matt knows that his father was once addicted to alcohol before he met Matt’s mother and that his father started drinking cognac on the night she died. Mr. Ray tries to tell Matt that the accident details are unclear, but Matt tells him here that he knows his father’s drunken condition contributed to it. In this quote, Matt shows his disappointment in his father.

“I couldn’t stop staring at my dad lying there, stiff, broken.” 

The morning after the cab hits Matt’s father, Matt visits the hospital to see his father. Just out of surgery, his father is heavily sedated; his legs are in casts in traction and his face is swollen and bruised. Matt gets emotional for the first time since the funeral of his mother. He is not sure if he feels gratitude that his father will live or anger that he got into an accident after drinking. Mr. Ray goes to the hall with the doctor and Matt sits alone with his father.

“Clearly, Mr. Ray was a man made of steel, and I had had no idea.” 

Matt knew that Mr. Ray was a successful local businessman and that he beat cancer twice, but Matt did not know Mr. Ray’s early life history. When Matt learns about Mr. Ray’s brilliant basketball skills that ended in injury and his tragic loss of his young wife Ella, Matt’s esteem for Mr. Ray increases. Mr. Ray tells Matt that he wanted to share his “pain room” with someone who might understand. This fortitude that Matt admires reoccurs in other characters and symbols throughout the novel, like Love, who is strong in her grief, and the Sempervivum plant, which survives all environments.

“And sometimes […] I can lose and lose and lose and I don’t know why. But there’s nothing I can do but just keep flipping the cards. Eventually, I’ll win again. As long as you got cards to keep turning, you’re fine.” 

Mr. Ray tells Matt in his “pain room” vault in his basement that the card game I DEE-clare War is much more like life than chess. A player can win chess by strategizing and outsmarting opponents, but real life is not like that; Mr. Ray knows this from his experiences of losing his basketball career and his young wife and fighting cancer twice. War is more about playing through the hand fate deals you and continuing forward until luck and success come back around.

“Just because you won’t see me for a while, doesn’t mean I won’t be there.”

At the funeral for Ms. Gwendolyn Brown, granddaughter Love reads these words from the letter her grandmother wrote before she died. Love's reaction in this moment strikes Matt, as she is calm and articulate when others would be "exploding." This is the first moment Matt realizes there's another way to grieve.

“So, for that reason, I had to listen to him when it came to understanding girls.” 

Matt credits Chris with more experience and success with dating than he possesses himself. This quote helps characterize the relationship between Chris and Matt; Matt sees Chris as more socially experienced and worldly and appreciates his advice.

“A date. Matty Miller, the boy in the black suit…had a date. Hope you’re watching, Mom.”

Love asks Matt via text message to join her for Thanksgiving dinner so that they can eat the leftover chicken from her grandmother’s funeral together. Matt accepts and is happy that he has an actual date with Love, whom he finds increasingly attractive. When he arrives at Love’s house, he is surprised to realize that she intended their “date” to happen at the homeless shelter her grandmother ran, but he goes along and appreciates the experience. The italicized thought from Matt shows that his mother is not far from his thoughts and that he wants to share his good news with her.

“Yep. I’d let go of all the glitz and glamour of chicken grease to help people.” 

Love surprises Matt on Thanksgiving Day with plans to take him to the homeless shelter where she always volunteers on holidays. Her deceased grandmother, Gwendolyn Brown, worked to improve the conditions there, and put lots of love and time into making the homeless shelter a welcoming and kind environment. Love says she enjoys helping others and would happily give up her job at the Cluck Bucket if she could earn a salary at the shelter. This quote characterizes her as philanthropic and kind.

“This was my shot. I wasn’t sure what I would be able to do, but I knew exactly how to do this one thing.” 

Matt sees an opportunity to help set up the serving line at the homeless shelter on Thanksgiving Day when no one else knows how to open and light the portable heating canisters for the food trays. He is eager to find his place in the environment; he also wants to look good in front of Love. Love watches him as he expertly lights the cans to keep the food warm.

“’Cause she special. Her grandma special, her mama was special, and she special.” 

On Thanksgiving Day at the homeless shelter, Matt meets Candy Man, who beats him quickly at chess before inviting Matt to talk. Candy Man is protective of Love and comments on her toughness as a little girl, showing that he lived at the shelter for years, especially with the reference to knowing Love’s mother, who died when Love was seven. Candy Man functions both to support the theme that life is unpredictable and to give Matt background on his romantic interest.

“I don’t do Valentine’s Day.” 

After a good Thanksgiving Day with Love, Matt walks her back to her apartment. His mood is uplifted, and he is happy to be with her. At the door, he asks about other holidays at the shelter, and Love tells him that they have enjoyable celebrations at Christmas and New Year’s. When he asks about Valentine’s Day, however, she turns snappish, telling him to go home. He is mystified, and his good mood disappears.

“Loose lips sink ships, my mom used to say, and I went to school every day on the Titanic, so I got it. But still, I wanted to know.” 

When Matt tells Mr. Ray about Love’s emotional reaction to his mention of Valentine’s Day, Mr. Ray behaves as if he understands the context. Matt asks to know more, but Mr. Ray says it isn’t his place to explain. Here, Matt show that he understands the effect of talking about others and spreading information when it isn’t one’s place to do so, referencing his school as a ship sunk by the rumor mill. Though he is not upset with Mr. Ray’s refusal to explain, Matt is eager to learn what upset Love so much.

“I’m old, Matt. And when you old, certain things you just know. This is one of those things.” 

Mr. Ray offers this wisdom to Matt the day after Thanksgiving as they sit on Mr. Ray’s stoop in the sunshine. Love texted Matt and Matt’s excitement at hearing from her is obvious, even when he tries to play cool about it, and Mr. Ray explains how he can see Matt’s true feelings with this quote. His words are ironic in that just a few a few beats before, Matt cannot tell Mr. Ray’s mood about recognizing Martin Gandrey the night before; Matt’s youth and inexperience here are juxtaposed against Mr. Ray’s age and intuitiveness.

“I glared at the photo as if it were toxic. Because it was dragging me back to ten years ago. Building 516. I shook my head. Can’t be true. It just can’t be. Valentine’s Day.” 

Matt reacts to the story Love tells of how she lost her mother. He is in disbelief at the coincidence and recognizes the truth in waves of realization: he and Chris witnessed the gunshot that killed Love’s mother when they opened the door on the night of their sleepover when they were seven. The acceptance of this truth and the weight of telling Love make Matt shaky. This moment connects the gunshot to the present narrative; until this quote, it was a dangling thread

“I guess that’s what made her so strong—being able to just face reality straight up. I don’t know if I would’ve wanted to hear anymore.”

“I guess that’s what made her so strong—being able to just face reality straight up. I don’t know if I would’ve wanted to hear anymore.”

“It was pretty cool for a plant. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it was.” 

At the Botanic Garden on a date, Love shows Matt how she likes to take Polaroid photos of flowers she finds especially beautiful. She challenges Matt to borrow the camera and do the same, but at first, he can find no flowers he thinks are special. Later, Love introduces him to the survivor flower, Sempervivum. Matt is impressed enough with its appearance and qualities that he takes a photo. The plant is symbolic of the "survivors" in the story: Matt, Love, and Mr. Ray.

“And I realized that it’s not that death is bad. It’s not. It’s just that life is so good. So damn good that you just wanna hold on to it, and everybody in it. But we can’t. But what we can do, is appreciate it more. Y’know, smell the flowers.” 

After his Botanic Garden date with Love, Matt asks Mr. Ray what he learned today. Mr. Ray tells Matt what he thinks about as he watches passersby. This instructive comment from Mr. Ray is indicative of his Mentor qualities; the “smell the flowers” detail connects with the flowers motif throughout the book.