Chapter 147

He walked a few blocks, with his heart racing. He checked out the neon lights and the scattered street goings-on of Granville Street, the drug dealers and high school girls flirting, and the gangs of boys trying to get with them.
Nothing jumped out or attacked Rawle, and he felt a great sense of amazement at that. To be immersed in such close quarters with so many people, and yet no one wanted to kill him. It was a nice feeling.
He ducked up an alleyway to check out the rooftop access on one of the only single-story buildings on the street. He needed a place to hide for the night. To sleep in safety. A rooftop.
There was a blue dumpster at the back of the building. He climbed up with a clang sound, and the pebble roof of Willy’s XXX Book and Video came into view. It was perfect.
He grasped the tin edging of the rooftop and pulled himself up.
The roof was tar and pebble. He found a spot near the front of the building and laid out his metallic thermal blanket, then got down on his knees and looked over onto Granville Street below.
He wondered if Kurtis would come lurching along, like a killer in a horror movie.
Except Kurtis was the real deal.
Rawle realized that now.
Kurtis was mentally ill, past the point of no return.
He was a sick, incurable, creature.
He had molested a little girl, but he was too fucked-up to even admit it to himself. Kurtis had molested a girl and then created an elabourate shell, a delusion that the Gypsies Motorcycle Gang had done it and framed him for the crime to insure he would never turn informer.

Rawle, for the first time, wanted to kill Kurtis Missions.
He desired it.
Kurtis deserved to be murdered, one animal to another. To be put down, and to have his murder disappear into the scores of other violent nights in the Downtown Eastside. To become just another angry ghost down here, in the shitty buildings.
Rawle was not afraid to end this man’s life.
And Kurtis had killed Jack and Tee, not because he wanted revenge for the Darroll Missions story, but because he’s nuts. Because in his deluded mind, he thought Jack and Tee were hitmen, coming to kill him.
Rawle’s friends had died for nothing, for bullshit reasons.
Rawle wanted to take back what Kurtis had stolen.
He wanted to break Kurtis’ head open and steal his spirit. And free the spirits of the people he’d murdered and violated.
That was justice.
There was garbage scattered all around on the rooftop, but nothing Rawle saw that he could use as a weapon.
He looked down the alleyway. There was a painter’s scaffolding set up against one of the buildings, and below it a plank of wood, held up by two concrete cinder blocks. He stepped down onto the trash bin and ran to the scaffold. He hoisted one of the heavy gray cinder blocks up onto his hip and climbed with it back onto the rooftop.
He took it over to the front edge, resting the weight on his hip.
He was looking down at the neon-lit street. If Kurtis comes, I will defend myself. I will drop this fucking boulder…
Then suddenly, there he was.
It was as if God wanted to test Rawle on his thought.
The square face and bald skull of Kurtis Missions appeared in the crowd, walking strong on his tall, teenager’s body.
Rawle blinked, to make sure it was really him.
It was.
He looked less cocky, slightly alone-looking, wary of his surroundings. He moved different than everyone else on the street. Everyone else was walking down a city sidewalk. Kurtis Missions was walking a stretch of earth, a wilderness. He moved like a panther.
Rawle crouched at the edge.
Kurtis was hugging tightly to the stone building and front window, inching along.
Watching out for me. Hunting me.
Rawle felt a prickling, peeling feeling in his chest. His mind cleared of thoughts. He felt like an animal, crouching in the silent jungle.
He was alone in the world.
He raised the cinder block, high overhead. It felt as light as a basketball. Kurtis passed right underneath him, 15 feet below. His bald head had a sickly yellow tint from the light above Willy’s XXX Book and Video.
In one fluid motion, Rawle hurled the cinder block straight down at Kurtis’ forehead. He felt like a god, or an ogre, hurling a boulder at his tormentors.
The concrete block shot down like a meteorite, striking Kurtis directly on the right-side top of his head.
Wunk!
Rawle felt an explosion of excitement drill up into in his belly, the moment the block connected.
Oh!
Kurtis collapsed onto the back of his knees and his head lolled forward, then backward on a rubbery neck.
Holy shit…Oh my God!
The cinder block rolled, end over end, out into the middle of the street. A couple of cars screeched to a stop, and one hit the block with a bang sound and ran over it.
Kurtis collapsed onto his back, splashing into a slick of blood or rain water.
People on the street became instantly hushed. They froze in place and began to say “Oh God” to eachother, over and over.
Some people kept right on walking, turning back and stopping and holding their hands over their mouths, unsure of what to do.
A few women looked up and buried their heads in their fingers and screamed. They looked right at Rawle and pointed at him.
Others turned away from the disgusting sight of Kurtis’ exposed brain. His brain was glinting wet and red in the harsh light of traffic and store windows. It looked like a slippery, light red jellyfish.
Some guy finally rushed over to the body, but he did not know what to do with it. There was so much blood everywhere. Kurtis’ body had begun to shudder. The street was virtually silent. The person tried to pick up Kurtis’ head and look him in the eyes.
The street seemed to have fallen deathly quiet. Rawle crouched on the rooftop, watching. His mind was blank, and he felt calm all over.
The people down below were all babbling, crying and trembling and deciding what to do next.
Rawle felt great pleasure, there was no denying that. His muscles, every muscle, all over his body, was rigid with pleasure, and adrenaline, shooting through his tissues and sinews, like heroin.
He felt a warm, drunken, adrenaline feeling in his heart, like he had a buzz from the neck down, but his mind was crystal clear.
Get away.
He stood up, slowly and hopped off the back side of the porn store roof, down onto the dumpster, then the pavement.
As soon as his feet hit the pavement, he ran balls-out down the alleyway.
No one tried to stop him.