Actually, Mate, your Crowdfunder is Unlawful. So let’s talk about ME. ME ME ME!
Dr Bully XL
Keighley, West Yorkshire
‘As-salamu alaykum, brother Lawrence”
“Asssa, a- assaalama callum” is Lawrence’s stuttering response.
“No, brother Lawrence. You’re meant to say ‘wa-alaykumu salam’” Arshid gives Lawrence a stern look.
“Uh, uh, yeah, right…”
“And I thought I told you to grow a beard like a proper Muslim?”
“I-I-I’m trying-“
“You call that scraggly shit on your face a beard? Ya Allah!”
“I, I just don’t have a lot of testost-“
“You don’t want to go in the dog cage again, do you bro?”
“N-n-no, no Arshid.”
“Mashallah. So tell me, Lawrence, have you got that racist campaign down yet bro?”
“I’m trying my best.”
“Well try harder, or I’ll slash ya.”
As Arshid thunders out of the room, Lawrence thinks back to the series of events that led me to being imprisoned in a council estate flat in Keighley. The tic-tacs, the haribos. The first packet of wine gums on the pavement next to the taxi rank outside Nelson train station. It would be easy to blame the delirium of so many consecutive sugar rushes for his vulnerability, flattering perhaps, but the self-aware, analytical part Lawrence’s mind knew that he was natural prey. Meek, shy - one of life’s victims.
“Lawrence, bro, we’ve got a little job for you.” Arshid was a lot less menacing in the early days.
“You see Hussein, yeah?” Arshid gets up a picture on his phone. A young Pakistani man is weeping, huge chunks of flesh torn from his face.
“Oh, oh my goodness.”
“It’s these Bully XL dogs mate. Hussein went round to his girlfriend’s house yeah, and her dad is racist, said she was too young for him inni. Then set his dog on him, inni.” Arshid passes Lawrence a fruit pastille.
“Oh, that’s terrible.” Is Lawrence’s reply, as he take the pastille into his mouth, gratefully.
“Been happening to all the brothers, bro. They can’t carry knives or pepper spray, these white slags, but they can get these big scary dogs. Means we can’t have our fun, inni? Last time one chased me, me and the brothers had to do donuts in the car park of an Aldi in me three series to calm down, inni.”
“Heavens.”
“If the Kafir have to have dogs, would be better for us if they were a more manageable size. Can you help us, brother Lawrence?”
Lawrence gulps. Nervously.
“Lawrence, bro, if you do this for me, you can have all the sweets you want. Liquorice all-sorts, Rowntrees Randoms - drumsticks. Proper nice bro, inni. And we’ll put you on Deen. You can do your Shahada bro. Be one of the brothers.” Arshid unwraps a chupa-chup lollipop and hands it to Lawrence. He licks it.
“W-w-well, you’ve got, you’ve got the likes of X, poasting…I could tweet about it?”
Arshid gives Lawrence a puzzled look. “What exactly will that achieve, brother?”
“Well, I could be invited onto GB news to talk about it, as an example.”
“And all the Bully XLs will be destroyed?”
“Yeah, something like that. Well, I won’t be the first to bring it up. But i’ll be sure to claim credit for it.”
“Subhan Allah. I’ll let you have your mobile phone back then, brother.”
Arshid digs through his Nike Manbag and opens Lawrence’s surrendered Google Pixel. Before he passes it back, he takes a minute to methodically reply to WhatsApp inquiries from friends and family. “All ok, thanks, just on holiday!” He then passes the phone back with two chewits.
Lawrence’s trip down memory lane is interrupted by Arshid walking back into the room. He is holding a pair of scissors.
“So, brother Newport, what’s it going to be. Am I gonna circumcise you now? Inni”
“W-w-well, well I think I’ve got an idea, Arshid.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, what if I say, without any evidence at all, that I came up with the idea of releasing these transcripts first?”
“Go on…”
“Right, and then I declare that there may be some legal reason that they cannot be released, some technicality I find on ChatGPT. I’ll do this without crediting the person who started the campaign.”
“…”
“And then I start a campaign on making it even more legal to release the transcripts! And then it will all be about me. ME ME ME, and MY CAMPAIGN. ME!”
“Ya Shaytan. How exactly does this stop the inquiry?”
“Well, I think if I manage to put people off donating money to the transcripts case, by stating that it’s a lost cause, and then I make it all about ‘victims more broadly’, we can suck a lot of energy out of it. Most importantly of all, people will watch my videos.”
“The videos?”
“Yes. Just think about it. Instead of talking about the racial dynamic of the crimes it will be about ‘the courts’ more broadly. Then we can get onto talking about MY genius policy solutions, like having leaderboards and setting up TaskForces. We could film a teenager being left unattended outside a kebab shop in Rochdale.”
“I don’t really follow.”
“Listen, Arshid, it’s about wasting donor money with spurious nonsense while identifying culturally with Silicon Valley and start-up culture, before reverting to claims of ‘lawfulness’. That’s what it’s always been about. Let’s effing go!”
“Ya Rab. Sounds like a self-aggrandising waste of time. Perfect. Your foreskin will live to see another day, brother Lawrence.”
Lawrence smiles, smugly, and unwraps a Refreshers chew.