It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 82 Chapter VII (Cont'd) - Danny McKeen's Diaries

Coarse, Offensive, and Racist Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

10/29/75
—Got fired. Got paid and thought I would do okay just buying a little extra from Other Bob. A treat. But I used it all, Missed work for three days because I was out bad. Tried to go back and say I was sick but they did not believe me. Says go home because I was not wanted no more. So I am jobless. Again.

Ma does not know yet.

Feel like shit. Need to find another job soon. I cannot win ever. Just when I do I do not.

DM

11/10/75
—Bad really bad recently. All the savings is gone. Ma has not got her check recently. She is suspicious. I told her it got lost in the mail but that is not true. I had to use it. I had to! But I am hoping they send another. We do not have enough money for my stuff and groceries and going to Sammy for Ma. If I do not go to Sammy soon she will know. If I do not cook because we do not have food then she is definitely going to know. If I do not get my I do not know how bad it is gonna get but it will be bad! Tonight is the last of my stuff. Maybe Other Bob will loan me. I have been keeping good with him recently.

Nightmares have gotten worse. I keep dreaming of people. Big Bertha chased me around last night. And then I saw Dad and he was bitching about his truck not being up to shape like he used to keep it. And as I was saying to him how much I still take care of it Father Charles shows up and was telling my father that I was doing good and he is looking out over me. And I says that I am fine and I did not want that but Father Charles never listens. And he just kept coming closer and closer and closer and then I woke up and got sick all over my bed.

I gotta get to finding a new job. I do not want to give up the stuff. It helps. Stuff keeps me thinking clearly. No nightmares like that when I am on my stuff good.

DM

11/19/75
—Bobby got out a couple days ago. Finally! He should have been out sooner but he punched up a nigger in booking when they brought him in and that got him two extra months. He was happy. Says jail is not so bad. Says he met some friends. Then I found out that had been out not a couple days but a couple of weeks back! He just had not come home. He did not come to see me. That hurt me that he did not come home. I do not like being alone here. No one talks to me ever accept Bobby or Mrs. Fitz if she wants something. But he does not care. He has new friends now. By the sound of it they are dagos from East Boston. I dunno why Bobby wants to hang with dagos. I do not like those people too good. Bud and Vera are fine but any others I have ever met I do not like them. I hate their food. But so I was pissed real bad with Bobby. And I was kind of giving him the cold shoulder. But then I find out he has actually got some money. He starts showing me all this cash and I ask him where he got it all?

He says 'I gotta job!'

And I says 'yeah but doing what?'

'Not worrying about niggers no more.'

And I was getting even more pissed now because he was being weird about it but then he says to me 'you should come with me because they are looking for some more people.'

I says 'Yeah but for what?'

'This and that,' he says.

So now I have had enough and I start telling him all about how I got a job and shit but I do not tell him about Father Charles because we do not talk about nothing like that.

He was fine with me having a job but then got all weird again when I told him I lost it. 'You gotta stay clean,' he says like he is my parent and I says that I do not want to. Then I tell him about not affording nothing because I got fired which was not my fault really. I was sick. That was not a lie! And he got out his cash after that and gives me this big wad like I am charity. Tells me to use it for food. Like I need to be told how to spend money. Who does he think he is? I says then I did not want it because it hurt my feelings he thinks I am charity. He made me take it though but we have not talked since.