by Rashad Salim
He smiled. “But aren’t you glad that I did?”
I laughed. “Fuck yeah, I’m glad.” Whatever nerves I had on edge while waiting for him were miraculously relaxed now. It honestly felt like the old days. “I thought I was gonna get my head kicked in by his henchmen in front of all these people.”
Sajid shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that. Doesn’t have the balls.”
“Neither does his friend after what you just did.”
20
Sajid and I sat in his car on Binford Lane and watched the crowds of customers moving around doing their shopping. We were actually parked right near Mr Kumar’s cash and carry store.
I had pointed out to Sajid that it might be unwise to be there so soon after he had just assaulted one of Mr Kumar’s employees and threatened his son Anil. Sajid said he didn’t give a shit.
He wasn’t afraid of anyone. It was one of the reasons why I often ended up being around him so much.
I was drinking Coke while he smoked a cigarette. We had been sitting there in his car and catching up after leaving the chicken shop and now the sun was setting.
“...I was fucking Seema when we were in school.”
Sajid had been blowing smoke out of his driver seat window but when I spoke he turned to face me.
I avoided his gaze and stared straight ahead at the crowds of shoppers.
“I knew that,” he said.
“How?”
He laughed. “‘cause you always denied it.”
“I had to protect her, man. I knew she wouldn’t have wanted others to know.”
“Protecting her honour, were you? She already had a rep by the time you came along.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You wanna know what I think?”
“What?”
“You weren’t protecting her. You were protecting yourself. Yeah, maybe you didn’t mind me knowing but you didn’t want anyone else to know because you didn’t want your precious reputation to get all dirty.”
I raised my finger to protest. “I never made out like I was religious and shit.”
“Maybe not but it weren’t a religious image you were going for. You always wanted people to think you were always so straight. Not a lowlife. ...like me.”
I had to admit there was some truth in that.
“It was the same with Chantelle too,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t want anyone to know about you and her ‘cause she was black.”
“Fuck you, man. I loved her.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The fact is you kept her a secret too just like you kept Seema a secret. You were ashamed of Seema’s rep and you were scared Chantelle would give you a rep too.”
“When did you become Sigmund Freud? I forgot how much you chat shit,” I said, but knew he was telling the truth – something I had been lying to myself about for years.
He took another drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke out of his window.
I thought I had upset him. I reminded myself I was trying to patch up whatever resentments and tension there might have been left between us. Not make them worse. “Look, man,” I said. “I’m sorry, okay?”
He said nothing and continued staring out of his window.
“You were right about Seema and Chantelle,” I said. “I was looking out for myself first. ...I was chicken shit about a lot of things back then anyway so fuck it.”
He looked at me. “You weren’t chicken shit about Elroy though, were you?”
That caught me off guard and I felt my mouth fall open but I recovered quickly.
He grinned.
“Bruv, you know I owe you for that.” I put my hand on his shoulder to reinforce the sentiment.
“It’s alright,” he said and waved it off with his hand. “Ancient shit anyway.”
I decided to change the subject. “It’s Mark’s funeral tomorrow.”
Sajid nodded. “Oh, yeah, your boy Mark.”
“I better make a move now. It’s getting late.”
“Alright, bro,” he said. “You want a lift to the station?”
I told him I’d walk instead. I felt like walking to help digest the burger meal. I got out of the car and walked in the direction of the train station. As I walked down Binford Lane, I passed the Bestco store. It was still boarded up and isolated.
I took in the night air and told myself that Mark’s killers would be caught soon – that they would slip up and maybe someone would inevitably rat them out.
I turned around a corner to walk down a side road off Binford Lane. I was halfway down the road when I heard a noise behind me. Before I could turn around I heard someone say “Now!” and I was seized from behind while a sack came over my head.
It all happened so fast that I didn’t have any time to react. First my arms were pinned, and then the sack came over my head so everything went dark and then I was being dragged away.
The ambush took me by such surprise that it didn’t even occur to me to scream for help. I was too occupied with trying to understand what was happening.
I heard a van door open and felt my left leg hit something solid. I then heard the van door slide shut while I was lying face down on the floor, which began to move. I knew I was being driven away somewhere but had no idea who had abducted me.
“Hello? ...Hello!”
There was no answer.
“What do you want?”
I tried to remain calm but I was shaking. I could feel hands holding me down from my shoulders and legs. My wrists were taped together a couple of times behind my back.
“Shut up and don’t move!” I heard a man’s voice say.
I wondered who it could be and if I knew the identity of my abductors. Was I a random target? Or had I been targeted by someone I knew?
“Who are you?”
“Shut the fuck up and don’t move!”
I was trying to concentrate on the voice when I was suddenly kicked in the chest.
“Do as you’re told!”
I could easily tell just by the tone of a man’s voice what ethnicity he was and I recognised my attacker’s as being Asian.
British Asian.
This was someone local who knew me.
Although the voice didn’t match, my instincts told me Anil was behind my abduction and I scolded myself for putting myself in this situation.
I tried to remain calm but wondered if I was going to live to attend Mark’s funeral or if I was going to have one of my own soon.
21
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since I had been abducted before the vehicle I was in came to a standstill. I had kept quiet during this time. Not so much as to follow the instructions I was forcibly given but to help me think of a way out of this situation, although I did not come to any solutions.
“Get him out,” I heard someone else say.
I was lifted from the floor and dragged out of the vehicle. I was trying to stay on my feet as I was being led away to some unknown place. I could hear the sound of passing vehicles and the wind in the night but had no clue where I had been taken. I had only walked possibly ten to fifteen feet before I was forced on my knees and held there by my shoulders. The ground didn’t feel like concrete. It was too soft. It felt more like grass and I wondered where I had been taken.
“Take off the hood,” I heard the same voice say.
“You sure?” my attacker in the van said.
The sack over my head was pulled off and I saw who had abducted me.
Three men stood in front of me. Both the men on the left and right side wore handkerchiefs to conceal their faces whereas the man in the middle wore no mask.
It was Bilal.
Looking around I recognised the location. It was a local field that had been abandoned in recent years. There was no one around and the sound of the vehicles passing by came from the bridge in front of me now.
I looked at the men. The man on the right held a baseball
bat while the man on the left held a steel pole. Bilal was unarmed.
My life was over. This was it. I knew it.
I was about to be murdered and it wasn’t going to be painless.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked Bilal.
He remained silent.
All three men remained silent, as were the two other men holding me down.
“You boys gonna behead me now?”
Bilal smiled but said nothing.
“You chicken shit,” I said, surprising myself. “Had to get all your boys together to finally get your revenge, eh?”
I had managed to stay calm somehow even though I was scared and I think it might have had something to do with not being afraid of Bilal. I had never been afraid of him but I was sure his accomplices were about to pounce on me at any moment. I felt I might as well say whatever I had to say before they attacked.
“I wanted to teach you a lesson after you assaulted me back in the day,” he said. “But this isn’t about that.”
It had been over six years since I had broken his nose in a rage.
He had been distributing anti-Semitic and homophobic propaganda alongside his fellow Defenders of Islam members when I had confronted him about it.
Sajid had been with me then. Although the propaganda never meant anything to him he wanted to back me up when I confronted Bilal.
“Well, I’m sorry about that anyway,” I said, which was true. He might have deserved it but I shouldn’t have lost control.
I wanted to keep him talking in an effort to delay whatever punishment they were going to hand out to me. “If this ain’t about what happened back in the day, what the hell do you want?”
“You’ve been sniffing around, haven’t you Ali?” came a voice from behind. The same voice that was giving Bilal orders. Now that I knew Bilal and Defenders of Islam had abducted me, I recognised the voice too and didn’t bother trying to look over my shoulder to check.
It was Farooq. He walked around until he was beside Bilal and the others. There had to have been at least six of them all together.
I looked Farooq in the eye. “What do you mean?”
“Come on now,” he said. “Don’t play innocent.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “All I’ve done is visit my parents and-”
“And cause trouble at one of our protests?”
I didn’t respond to that.
“...Well, you’ve brought us to the attention of the police now,” he said, looking away.
I wondered what the police wanted with Defenders of Islam and if they had been involved with the Bestco arson too.
Farooq reached out with one hand to the Defenders of Islam member holding the metal pole.
I took a deep breath as he took the metal pole in his hands. I held my breath and couldn’t take my eyes off the pole. I imagined it connecting with my skull and the injuries it would cause.
“What makes you think that’s got anything to do with me?”
“Our problems only started after you came along,” he said, pointing the pole at me less than ten feet away. “We never had to worry about the infidel law and it’s enforcers for a long time.” He came closer. “You changed all that.”
“Yeah,” Bilal said. “You had to challenge us. You had to defend your Zionist paymasters. But no more.”
“Farooq, this is all a mistake,” I said, my eyes on the weapon.
“The mistake was yours,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Did you attack the Bestco store?”
He didn’t answer.
“Is that what this is all about?” I asked Bilal. “You people attacked the store and you’re blaming me because the police are closing in on you and you’re about to be caught any day now, is that it?”
Bilal shook his head at me and snorted.
“You might as well tell me now...” Now that you’re gonna kill me.
“Shut the fuck up!” Bilal said and kicked me in the head.
I saw the kick coming a split second early and managed to turn my face an inch or two away before his trainers connected against my left cheekbone and temple. My eyes shut on impact and I fell to my side on the grass. My face went numb but I could feel the pain. I tried to move but was too dazed. I felt hands on my jacket pulling me up. When I opened my eyes I was back on my knees and I couldn’t remember the last time my face hurt that much.
I waited for a confession. I was desperate for one. A confession would be worth the price I would no doubt pay anyway.
“...We didn’t attack the store,” Farooq said. “But what does that matter to the police? They will use any excuse to arrest innocent Muslims.”
“But they don’t have any proof, do they?”
Neither Farooq nor Bilal responded to that and there was an awkward silence where nobody moved. I was still on my knees and they were still armed.
“...They don’t need proof,” Bilal said. “They can pin it on us, the corrupt pigs.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What?” Bilal leaned in closer to me.
I was breathing heavily and waited a few seconds to catch my breath. “I said I’m sorry,” and then louder, “I’m sorry I broke your fucking nose, okay?”
Bilal touched his nose with one hand. “Thanks for reminding me,” he said. He reached out to his accomplice with the baseball bat and I felt my life was about to end.
Once again, the mistakes of my past had returned to make me suffer. I probably could have walked away from this situation unscathed if I hadn’t broken the nose of my killer years earlier.
Bilal swung the baseball bat around in the air.
“I’m sorry for what I did but if you let me go now I won’t say anything to anyone. Let me make it up to you.” It even sounded pathetic to my own ears but it was all I could say to stop them.
“Fuck you,” Bilal growled, holding the bat tight with both hands now.
“Wait!” Farooq called out.
Bilal froze and looked at Farooq in shock.
“Let him go,” Farooq said.
“What?” Bilal said and he let go of the bat with one hand until it dangled by his side.
I felt a little relief but my heart was still racing.
“We can’t let him go!” Bilal said. “It’s too late!”
“Let him go,” Farooq said to the two men who held me down but they remained still. His voice was lower now. “Cut him free.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Bilal said, flapping his arms around with the bat still in his hand.
Farooq walked up to Bilal and took the bat from him. “We’re letting him go.”
“Why?” Bilal asked. He was still wild eyed and his anger showed no sign of fading. “You falling for his shit? You think he won’t tell on us?”
“Maybe,” Farooq said, looking at me.
“Don’t be a fool,” I said to Bilal. He looked at me and for a second there I thought he was going to kick me in the head again. “You can’t kill me with all these witnesses.”
“We’re mujahedeen,” he said. “Warriors. We can’t be divided by the kuffar.”
“You’d never have got away with killing me. But don’t worry,” I said. “I’m gonna keep my word. I meant it when I said I was sorry. I am. And to prove it to you, I’m not gonna tell anyone about it.”
He looked at me like he was thinking it through.
“...Just like you never told anyone that it was really me who fucked you up.”
“Fuck you!” he said and stormed off.
One of Farooq’s henchmen pulled out a knife and cut through the tape binding my wrists. When my hands were freed I staggered to my feet and faced Farooq. He gestured to the others to leave us and they followed in Bilal’s direction.
We were alone now and stood in the middle of the field while the others crowded outside their van thirty feet away.
I rubbed my face. It hurt really badly and the left side of my face was still numb. I knew it was goin
g to be sore later and dreaded it.
Farooq looked around carefully. “You know why we’re letting you go?”
I managed a shrug. “Mercy? Forgiveness?”
He smiled. “I want you to know we had nothing to do with burning down the shop. We have nothing to hide regarding that incident.”
I couldn’t wait for him and his crew to leave but he still lingered and it made me nervous because I wondered what else he wanted from me.
“...We’re letting you go, knowing full well you could go straight to the police.” he said. “But giving you a second chance is a chance we’re offering. Don’t make the mistake of crossing us or the next time we take you, you won’t live to regret it.”
He turned his back on me and walked away. I waited until his whole crew got inside the van and drove away before I ran as fast as I could out of the field and out of the shadows.
I felt like calling the police. I knew I was meant to call the police. But I didn’t.
There was no way I could run home to my parents’ house and tell my mum what had happened.
I thought about calling up Sajid but then changed my mind.
I thought about Chantelle. She lived nearby. I could’ve gone to her house and told her what had happened but instantly thought against it. Telling her about my abduction would only worry her and I was still working on getting back together with her. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that.
I just wanted to go home to my bed and sleep and pretend everything that had happened on this night was a nightmare – that when I woke up in the morning all of this would have been a dream – and life was back to how it had been before the arson.
I knew all this was bullshit but I was willing to make believe that the hell I was in wasn’t actually happening. It was childish but I didn’t care. I just wanted to crawl into my bed and wish the world away.
In the end, I fled back to my West London flat and played the night’s events all over again in my head during the train ride home. I hopelessly tried to make sense of it all.
I had thought it was bad luck being abducted and threatened by Defenders of Islam but I felt like I had been lucky to survive.
When I got home I saw my reflection in the bathroom mirror and was stunned at my appearance.
