The rise and fall of a boy called Rave part 17

My first.

I didn’t know the man I had attacked, he was just some junky walking down the wrong street at the wrong time when I hit ground level. He didn’t even try and fight back, he was too used to being beaten, I am pretty sure he would have tried if I had gone through his pockets for his drugs. I really hated these smack heads by now, I left them alone most of the time, but I hated them and I took it out on one. I have to say that it did make me feel better but I was still in a very black mood by the time I made it back home. The sun had set and my dad’s car was parked up outside.

I had to walk passed Faye’s old flat to get to ours, the council had been around to board up the door but other than that it was untouched. Normally the council would ever find a new tenant, which was getting harder and harder on the estate, or it would become a squat. I gave a bitter laugh at the thought it was unlikely that it would become a squat, I don’t care how desperate the person, addict or otherwise, they would not want to live next door to an animal like me.

I walked through the door and sat down on the couch, staring at the blank TV, tried not to cry because it was weak. It gets me a bit even now to think that I was so scared about showing any weakness even in my own home. My dad walked in a sat next to me.

“She is gone then” he said

“Aye, they came and took her earlier da” I said

“How you doing ar’kid”

“I am better than I thought I would be da, it was the right thing to do, I don’t get to do the right thing very often.” I said “You loved my mother didn’t you da?”

“What?”

“I mean I always thought you just didn’t care enough to try and stop her going, you did care to go after her, you just let her go. But you did care, you cared a lot didn’t you. You let her go because you loved her, you knew the life you where on, you knew this place and you let her go find something better. And you stayed here to look after me, you gave it all up and took a shit job to look after me.” I took a long slow breath “I am not sure I ever thanked you for that but if you ever get the chance to get out of here again you run as fast as you can old man”

“Aye, you to ar’kid” he said “now which one of us is going to cook tea?”

That night was hard, I had been sleeping in the same bed as Faye for more than a year, it wasn’t the sex I missed or even the feel of her body next to mine, it was the sound of her slow steady breathing when I woke up and to put it simply I was cold without her next to me. I miss her a lot, and I kept being drawn back to her each time I noticed something that she did around the flat that wasn’t being done, she had just slowly taken up more and more of the house work and now it wasn’t being done. And I missed her cooking, I still do, I could cook now but it was not hers. She was part of me and she was gone and I missed her so much.

I could have slipped back into the black, self-destructive, depression of earlier that year but I didn’t, I don’t know why it just didn’t come back I think I had fallen too far for that then. If the world had been better I would have move quickly from Faye leaving to going out properly with Amy, I love Amy too if differently, but that was not to be. Tazz needed the cover of a girlfriend more than I needed to step out with her and even if I had been willing to it would have meant admitting that I was stronger than him, putting me up in rank, which I didn’t want. I still fooled around with Amy but less often without Faye pushing it and even so it wasn’t the same, we didn’t spend the night together. I would soon need to put myself out there or Eddy would start passing rumours against me.

Even as heartbroken as I was the gang life didn’t stop and the next afternoon I was back working my corner. My crew was dependent on me, I couldn’t stop, never mind the fact that fast Eddy was watching for a sign of weakness he could move against me with. It wasn’t just that he disliked me, he was locked in a power struggle with Mark now, and my corner was a valuable playing piece in their game. My loyalty to Bob, to Mark, kept me working and kept the depression away.

I blame most of the shift in my personality then on the loss of Faye but truth be told there was another massive event in my young life that had a much greater effect on who I was then I like to admit. It happened about two weeks after Faye left, I really don’t remember the day that well and I don’t blame myself for that, it was a big day. It was the day I got my first kill.

I killed seven people in my childhood, I have seven bodies on my soul, seven, I am not going to tell you I don’t regret some of them. I regret the ones I was paid for, most of them where not for good reasons, the ones I wasn’t I don’t regret so much, they all deserved it. It was the world I lived in, it was who I was and to be blunt they were all scum and the world was no worse without them in it. But my first, well you never forget you first now do you.

It was cold enough to freeze hell but that didn’t stop business on the corner, a smack head needs his fix no matter how cold it is, I had just got a new coat. It was a long, black great coat and really looked the part of a thug but it was completely ineffective at keeping the wearer warm. But I found wearing a hoodie underneath it made me look better and helped keep me warm.

I was quietly cursing PayDay for taking the afternoon off, he had other things to do, but still it could be him freezing his nadds off not me. That was one of the things I was growing to like about being a crew chief, when it was raining I didn’t have to work the corner, I only had to really show up at closing time and make sure my people where doing their jobs. I still stood my time more often than not because it was good for moral but the point was I didn’t have too.

Still PayDay not being there caused some problems when Cain came around the corner in a car with Bob, Disco and Littler. “We got work, come on!” he yelled at me.

Now Aaron was the next highest ranking member of the gang and the corner should fall to him but he really didn’t have the brains to walk and talk at the same time let alone run a corner. Joel had the brains to run the corner, I was using him to keep count, but didn’t have the balls. I would have like to put Lexi in charge but while a girl working a corner was ok taking orders from one was not going to happen for a while.

“Prophet the corner is yours, Lexi make sure he doesn’t get robbed blind, and if I hear of any of you taking the mick the will be pain, got it.” I shouted.