Book Summary
The Bad Boys—Cass, Kevin, Winston, Kurt, and Walid are five fatherless, mixed-race teenage boys. Each of them are victims of upbringing from a poor, mostly Moslem inner-city area. They were going their separate ways when Cass was abducted and forced into joining ISIL to fight in Turkey and Syria. After two years, he was sent to Malaysia to join an Islamic terror operation but managed to flee to Thailand.
In trying to bring Cass home and expose the deep and sinister criminality within the community, each of them, for the first time in their lives, met older men to whom they learned to trust and respect.
Written by a nineteen-year-old Kurt, who helped to find Cass in Thailand, this sensitive tale is about five intelligent young men finally finding the hope and inspiration that have been denied by their upbringing.
I didn’t know what was going through Cass’s mind, but he suddenly slumped to his knees, looked up at me, and for one shocking moment, I wondered if this really was Cass or some other poor guy.
If it wasn’t for his eyes, I didn’t think I’d have recognised him. For one thing, he’d always been so clean and tidy. Even his school tie would be tied tight to his neck, whereas my top buttons would be open and my tie would hang loose like I was pretending to be some dumb but cool black actor in a gangster movie.
Now he was thin and dirty and staring like some poor guy waiting to be shot by ISIL, which, I supposed, was what he was.
He didn’t speak but just looked at me as they clipped handcuffs on him like a criminal. Then his other sandal fell off, and I picked it up. What good could one shoe do, I didn’t know, but it seemed the right thing to do. And what then I would say to him?
“Get up, man. Don’t be such a mugoo. Jesus, man, you ain’t nothing like you used to be. Got some sprawl beard and fancy haircut. And where’d you get them shoes. Sandals ain’t cool, man.”
Why I spoke like that, I didn’t know, but somehow I felt it necessary to revert to the way I used to speak when I was fifteen or sixteen.
Jimmy strolled up then, as Cass crouched on the ground in a heap, and the two police did something inside the van.
“This ugly guy is Jimmy,” I said to Cass. “Don’t shake his hand. He’s dirtier than you are. He rolls a good spliff, but he’s piss poor with chiclets and blimps.”