His father had been an accountant; his father before him a bank teller. He used to look at photos of them and dream of the day when he too might have a job where he needed to wear a suit. In his job -- he was a backhoe operator -- he only wore jeans and tanks and occasionally t-shirts. But he always wanted to wear a suit. So one day, he drove to Atlanta and bought one. It was perhaps the most beautiful thing he'd ever owned: soft grey wool that caressed his skin. That night he treated himself to dinner in a fine restaurant, with a meal that cost an entire week's pay. But the way people looked at him, in his elegant grey wool suit, made it all worth it. In the morning, he took the suit to a dry cleaner, who returned it to him a short time later encased in plastic and paper and hanging on a brass and wood hanger. He gently laid it across the seat of his pick up and drove home, then hung it in the closet. People in his town didnt wear suits. When they did get dressed up, it was khakis and a golf shirt, sometimes just a clean pair of jeans and long sleeved flannel during the winter. But a suit? That would be... pretentious. Only politicians and used car dealers wore suits in his town, and he wasn’t — nor wanted to be — either. If he knew anything, he knew that. So he put the suit away and never wore it in public again. Some nights, when he felt sad or lonely, he'd take it out of the closet and put it on, then look in the mirror at the man he wished he'd been. Not a backhoe operator. Someone who got up in the morning and put on a suit. A suit meant... respectability. A true professional. One of those people he saw in the car commercials, driving expensive automobiles on busy, brightly-lit city streets, accompanied by beautiful women and warm friendships. Some years later, he died, peacefully, in his sleep. There was no one to make the final arrangements, so the undertaker took it upon himself to find something the man could wear for his eternal rest. To his surprise, the man owned a suit, and the undertaker decided to use that. There was a public viewing, and everyone noted how happy the man looked in the suit he never wore.