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49 pages 1 hour read

Jason Reynolds

The Boy in the Black Suit

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015

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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary: “Nineteen”

Mr. Ray comments that Matt’s suit is an appropriate choice when Matt arrives at work that afternoon. He tells Matt it would be good if more boys his age dressed appropriately: “Pants so low, they gotta walk like cowboys” (59). Then Mr. Ray and Robbie ask Matt to be a pallbearer at that afternoon’s funeral. Robbie arrives and asks if Matt will do it; Mr. Ray and Robbie relied on Cork to help as pallbearer, but he did not arrive. Mr. Ray explains that a pallbearer’s job is to help carry the casket into and out of the church for a funeral service. Matt balks at first, but Mr. Ray says he needs Matt. Matt agrees but worries he will drop the casket.

Robbie and two men make comments on the apparent expense of the casket and wonder aloud the profession of the deceased. In the church, Matt and the other five pallbearers carry the heavy casket down the aisle. Mr. Ray opens the lid and tells Matt that the dead person was a 19-year-old girl who died of an asthma attack. Matt is in disbelief. The service proceeds. Many teenagers are in attendance. They process past the casket with expressions of surprise. A girl sings “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in a powerful voice.

The preacher reads the obituary aloud; Matt learns that Nancy McKnight, the deceased, was a good student and a strong track star. Matt feels sympathy for Mrs. McKnight and understands why, though she does not look wealthy, she spent so much on a casket. Nancy’s younger sister Alicia reads a poem in which she recalls memories of growing up with her sister. She places the folded poem in the casket and hugs her mother. Matt catches the eyes of Nancy’s mother and sister as he takes his place at the side of the casket and smiles at them. Nancy’s mother smiles back. Matt carries the casket out to the hearse as the cantor and attendees sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

Chapter 5 Summary: “When It Rains”

After Nancy’s funeral, Matt receives compensation from Mr. Ray—$60 for two days of work—and walks home. Thinking about the funeral of a young person and the discomfort of his recent experiences, he realizes he “liked being at the funeral” (74). These thoughts prompt him to text Chris nine times; consequently, Chris asks if Matt is okay when they meet. Matt reassures Chris that he is fine. Matt shows his cash and offers to buy food. Chris asks Matt if he is cooking yet, and Matt tells him no: “Y’know, that was something me and Mom used to do. Our thing” (75).

On the way to the Cluck Bucket, Matt stops at the bodega to pay Jimmy what he owes for the sandwiches, but Jimmy tells him that Matt’s father paid the debt when he earlier came in to buy beer and liquor for Cork Ray. Matt worries about this and mentions to Chris that his father was with Cork again.

Chris orders a large amount of food at the Cluck Bucket. Matt gets a smaller meal and saves half for his father. Matt is interested in Renee, the counter attendant, but he does not know how to talk with her. He shares with Chris that he might be interested in asking Renee out. Chris will only allow that Renee is “a’ight” (81). Matt wishes Chris thought of her as more than all right.

Back at home, Matt carefully lays out his suit jacket and pants for the next day. He flips channels but finds nothing to watch. A reality show about a girl’s birthday reminds him of a dinner out with his parents for his sixteenth birthday; they went to the restaurant where both worked when they met. His father noticed the lack of cleanliness of the dishes, and his mother used a French accent the whole night.

Matt goes to bed early and listens to “Dear Mama.” He dreams of his mother’s funeral again; this time, his father is pounding on the church door to get in. Matt wakes; the pounding is real. He answers the door in his underwear. It is Mr. Ray and Cork. Mr. Ray tells Matt that a car hit his father in the rain. On the way to the hospital, Mr. Ray tries to get Cork to tell Matt what happened, but Cork can only slur that Matt’s father was trying to get home before the rain “gah bad” (88). Mr. Ray elaborates that Matt’s father stumbled into the street and a “Gypsy cab got him" (89). Matt tells Mr. Ray he knows his father was drunk.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Broken and Bonded”

At the hospital, Mr. Ray tells the receptionist they are there to see Jackson Miller. Dr. Winston introduces himself; he tells Matt his father will live but that he has fractures in both legs and other serious injuries including a broken jaw. His spine and brain are fine, however. The doctor says Jackson will have surgery in the early morning and that Matt can return to visit then.

Matt can’t sleep well back at home. Matt is up by 6:30, dresses in his suit again, and leaves his backpack at home. Mr. Ray returns to collect him at 7 AM, bringing Matt coffee and a bagel from the bodega. Matt does not care for coffee but takes both at Mr. Ray’s insistence. Mr. Ray tells Matt that he, Mr. Ray, feels responsible in part for Matt’s situation because of his brother Cork’s behavior and that he intends to supervise Matt while Matt’s father “is getting himself together” (96).

At the hospital, Matt sees his father in bed with casts, wires, and tubes all over him. Matt cannot speak with him, as he is heavily sleeping on painkillers. The doctor says Matt’s father will walk again but that it will take a long time for healing and rehab. Mr. Ray takes the doctor to talk in the hall so that Matt can sit with his father alone. He cries for the first time since his mother’s funeral.

Matt does not attend school that day but goes with Mr. Ray to Mr. Ray’s home. The lock on the front door takes some time to work, and Matt notices the doorway is old. Inside, however, the furnishings and electronics in the living room are noticeably high quality; the kitchen is “all marble and stainless steel” (100).

Mr. Ray makes coffee and gives some to Matt with cream and sugar. Mr. Ray reiterates that he intends to look out for Matt while Matt’s father is recovering. He takes Matt through a locked door and down a dark hall, asking Matt if he knows what a vault is. Matt asks if money is in the vault. Mr. Ray explains his basement is like a vault; not even his brothers know about it. Photos and news articles cover the walls; they show that Mr. Ray was a phenomenal basketball player in high school and college. Matt shows genuine surprise and respect for Mr. Ray’s skills.

One article hangs alone, and Mr. Ray points it out to Matt; it describes how Mr. Ray’s broken knee ended his season, and Mr. Ray clarifies that it ended his career. He turned to the funeral home business instead of professional ball playing and felt that as long as he had his loving, beautiful wife, Ella, he was lucky and happy. Ella, however, died at 29 when she fell on ice and hit her head. Matt sees that Mr. Ray does not tear up talking about Ella. Mr. Ray explains that when he lost Ella, he turned his basement into this “pain room” (106), and that he wanted to show it to someone who might understand. Matt realizes that in addition to losing his career and his wife, Mr. Ray also battled his way through two bouts of cancer.

Mr. Ray asks if Matt plays chess. Matt knows how but is not very skilled. He recalls that Chris is an excellent chess player. Mr. Ray says chess is overrated and that I DEE-clare War is a much more valid game. He takes a set of old cards, mixes them, and deals them out. He explains that, unlike chess, War is more about the wins and losses dealt to you by fate, and if you keep playing, you will eventually win a hand. In that way, the game is a much closer parallel to life than chess.

Chapters 4-6 Analysis

Matt is strangely eager to attend another funeral as these chapters open, but he must overcome his initial dismay at Mr. Ray’s request that he serve as pallbearer to attend. He agrees to serve as pallbearer despite his fear that he might drop the casket. He follows the lead of Mr. Ray and the other pallbearers, and once he witnesses and listens to each of the speakers talk about Nancy McKnight—and especially after he sees the emotion in Nancy’s mother—he feels strengthened and reassured; consequently, he grips and carries the casket with more confidence on the way out of the church than he demonstrated on the way in.

Matt’s conflicts, internal and external, increase suddenly and dramatically with his father’s accident. Externally, before he hears from Dr. Winston, he faces the real possibility that he will lose both parents in a month’s time. Once he knows that his father will live, he faces the sight of casts, wires, tubes, and “both of his [father’s] legs strapped up in some weird contraption” (96). The doctor makes it clear that recovery will happen but will take a long time. Internally, Matt’s fear and worry, along with his inability to decide if anger at his father is warranted, brings out his most emotional response since his mother’s funeral: he sits and cries at his father’s bedside. The potential complications brought by his father’s accident weigh heavily on Matt but lessen when Mr. Ray insists twice that he can look out for Matt while Matt’s father recovers.

Mr. Ray begins to step into the mentor role when Matt takes the job at Ray’s Funeral Home, as Matt learns from Mr. Ray what to do in his first two days, participates in Nancy’s funeral at Mr. Ray’s encouragement, accepts Mr. Ray’s jacket to sit in on the first funeral, and heeds advice from Mr. Ray on staying away from the casket gossip of Robbie Ray and the others. Mr. Ray, however, moves more firmly into the mentor role in Chapters 5 and 6; he teaches Matt both directly (the card game versus chess metaphor) and indirectly (through the stories about his early life), and he volunteers his time to look out for Matt when Matt’s father cannot be there. He also mentors by serving as a responsible adult (taking some of the blame for Cork’s actions and irresponsibility) and demonstrating positivity years after tragedy. Each exchange Matt has with Mr. Ray shows instruction and encouragement; for example, Mr. Ray tells Matt that other boys look inappropriate with sagging pants but reassures Matt that he knows Matt does not hang out with them.

We also begin to see a subtle socioeconomic divide in this section that first appeared in the flashback from Chris's apartment building. Chris's living situation suggest that he comes from a different socioeconomic environment than Matt. Chris's parents have strict rules about hot water use as well as rules to protect the children from seeing the violence that takes place inside the apartment. We can only assume that Chris's parents are forced to live in this dangerous, restrictive environment because they can't afford to live elsewhere. Meanwhile, Matt and his family live in a coveted New York brownstone. Matt is impressed by Mr. Ray's updated new home, suggesting that Mr. Ray is even better-off than Matt's family. Here, we see three different rungs on the socioeconomic ladder, with Chris at the bottom, Matt in the middle, and Mr. Ray at the top.

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