old lady victim, you ghastly wretched scoundrel."
"It was all their fault," I creeched, blinking my smarting glaz-
zies. "The bastards will be peeting away in the Duke of New
York. Pick them up blast you, you vonny sods." And then
there was more smecking and another malenky tolchock, O
my brothers, on my poor smarting rot. And then we arrived at
the stinking rozz-shop and they helped me get out of the auto
with kicks and pulls and they tolchocked me up the steps and I
knew I was going to get nothing like fair play from these
stinky grahzny bratchnies, Bog blast them.
7
They dragged me into this very bright-lit whitewashed can-
tora, and it had a strong von that was a mixture of like sick
and lavatories and beery rots and disinfectant, all coming
from the barry places near by. You could hear some of the
plennies in their cells cursing and singing and I fancied I could
slooshy one belting out:
'And I will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone.'
But there were the golosses of millicents telling them to shut
it and you could even slooshy the zvook of like somebody
being tolchocked real horrorshow and going
owwwwwwwww, and it was like the goloss of a drunken
starry ptitsa, not a man. With me in this cantora were four
millicents, all having a good loud peet of chai, a big pot of it
being on the table and they sucking and belching away over
their dirty bolshy mugs. They didn't offer me any. All that they
gave me, my brothers, was a crappy starry mirror to look
into, and indeed I was not your handsome young Narrator
any longer but a real strack of a sight, my rot swollen and my
glazzies all red and my nose bumped a bit also. They all had a
real horrorshow smeck when they viddied my like dismay, and
one of them said: "Love's young nightmare like." And then a
top millicent came in with like stars on his pletchoes to show
he was high high high, and he viddied me and said: "Hm." So
then they started. I said:
"I won't say one single solitary slovo unless I have my
lawyer here. I know the law, you bastards." Of course they all
had a good gromky smeck at that and then the stellar top millicent
said:
"Righty right, boys, we'll start off by showing him that we
know the law, too, but that knowing the law isn't everything."
He had a like gentleman's goloss and spoke in a very weary
sort of a way, and he nodded with a like droogy smile at one
very big fat bastard. This big fat bastard took off his tunic and
you could viddy he had a real big starry pot on him, then he
came up to me not too skorry and I could get the von of the
milky chai he'd been peeting when he opened his rot in a like
very tired leery grin at me. He was not too well shaved for a
rozz and you could viddy like patches of dried sweat on his
shirt under the arms, and you could get this von of like
earwax from him as he came close. Then he clenched his stink-
ing red rooker and let me have it right in the belly, which was
unfair, and all the other millicents smecked their gullivers off
at that, except the top one and he kept on with this weary like
bored grin. I had to lean against the white-washed wall so
that all the white got on to my platties, trying to drag the old
breath back and in great agony, and then I wanted to sick up
the gluey pie I'd had before the start of the evening. But I
couldn't stand that sort of veshch, sicking all over the floor,
so I held it back. Then I saw that this fatty bruiseboy was
turning to his millicent droogs to have a real horrorshow
smeck at what he'd done, so I raised my right noga and before
they could creech at him to watch out I'd kicked him smart
and lovely on the shin. And he creeched murder, hopping
around.
But after that they all had a turn, bouncing me from one to
the other like some very weary bloody ball, O my brothers,
and fisting me in the yarbles and the rot and the belly and
dealing out kicks, and then at last I had to sick up on the floor
and, like some real bezoomny veck, I evan said: "Sorry,
brothers, that was not the right thing at all. Sorry sorry
sorry." But they handed me starry bits of gazetta and made me
wipe it, and then they made me make with the sawdust. And then
they said, almost like dear old droogs, that I was to sit down
and we'd all have a quiet like govoreet. And then P. R. Deltoid
came in to have a viddy, his office being in the same building,
looking very tired and grahzny, to say: "So it's happened, Alex
boy, yes? Just as I thought it would. Dear dear dear, yes."
Then he turned to the millicents to say: "Evening, inspector.
Evening, sergeant. Evening, evening, all. Well, this is the end of
the line for me, yes. Dear dear, this boy does look messy,
doesn't he? Just look at the state of him."
"Violence makes violence," said the top millicent in a very
holy type goloss. "He resisted his lawful arresters."
"End of the line, yes," said P. R. Deltoid again. He looked at
me with very cold glazzies like I had become a thing and was
no more a bleeding very tired battered chelloveck. "I suppose
I'll have to be in court tomorrow."
"It wasn't me, brother, sir," I said, a malenky bit weepy.
"Speak up for me, sir, for I'm not so bad. I was led on by the
treachery of the others,sir."
"Sings like a linnet," said the top rozz, sneery. "Sings the
roof off lovely, he does that."
"I'll speak," said cold P. R. Deltoid. "I'll be there tomorrow,
don't worry."
"If you'd like to give him a bash in the chops, sir," said the
top millicent, "don't mind us. We'll hold him down. He must
be another great disappointment to you."
P. R. Deltoid then did something I never thought any man
like him who was supposed to turn us baddiwads into real
horrorshow malchicks would do, especially with all those
rozzes around. He came a bit nearer and he spat. He spat. He
spat full in my litso and then wiped his wet spitty rot with the
back of his rooker. And I wiped and wiped and wiped my spat-
on litso with my bloody tashtook, saying "Thank you, sir,
thank you very much, sir, that was very kind of you, sir, thank
you." And then P. R. Deltoid walked out without another
slovo.
The millicents now got down to making this long state-
ment for me to sign, and I thought to myself, Hell and blast
you all, if all you bastards are on the side of the Good then
I'm glad I belong to the other shop. "All right," I said to them,
"you grahzny bratchnies as you are, you vonny sods. Take it,
take the lot. I'm not going to crawl around on my brooko
any more, you merzky gets. Where do you want it taking
from, you cally vonning animals? From my last corrective?
Horrorshow, horrorshow, here it is, then." So I gave it to
them, and I had this shorthand milicent, a very quiet and
scared type chelloveck, no real rozz at all, covering page after
page after page after. I gave them the ultra-violence, the crast-
ing, the dratsing, the old in-out-in-out, the lot, right up to
this night's veshch with the bugatty starry ptitsa with the
mewing kots and koshkas. And I made sure my so-called
droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah. When I'd got
through the lot the shorthand millicent looked a bit faint,
poor old veck. The top rozz said to him, in a kind type goloss:
"Right, son, you go off and get a nice cup of chai for your-
self and then type all that filth and rottenness out with a
clothes-peg on your nose, three copies. Then they can be
brought to our handsome young friend here for signature.
And you," he said to me, "can now be shown to your bridal
suite with running water and all conveniences. All right," in
this weary goloss to two of the real tough rozzes, "take him
away."
So I was kicked and punched and bullied off to the cells and
put in with about ten or twelve other plennies, a lot of them
drunk. There were real oozhassny animal type vecks among
them, one with his nose all ate away and his rot open like a
big black hole, one that was lying on the floor snoring away
and all like slime dribbling all the time out of his rot, and one
that had like done all cal in his pantalonies. Then there were
two like queer ones who both took a fancy to me, and one of
them made a jump onto my back, and I had a real nasty bit of
dratsing with him and the von on him, like of meth and cheap
scent, made me want to sick again, only my belly was empty
now, O my brothers. Then the other queer one started putting
his rookers on to me, and then there was a snarling bit of
dratsing between these two, both of them wanting to get at
my plott. The shoom became very loud, so that a couple of
millicents came along and cracked into these two with like
truncheons, so that both sat quiet then, looking like into
space, and there was the old krovvy going drip drip drip down
the litso of one of them. There were bunks in this cell, but all
filled. I climbed up to the top one of one tier of bunks, there
being four in a tier, and there was a starry drunken veck snor-
ing away, most probably heaved up there to the top by the
millicents. Anyway, I heaved him down again, him not being
all that heavy, and he collapsed on top of a fat drunk chello-
veck on the floor, and both woke and started creeching and
punching pathetic at each other. So I lay down on this vonny
bed, my brothers, and went to very tired and exhausted and
hurt sleep. But it was not really like sleep, it was like passing
out to another better world. And in this other better world, O
my brothers, I was in like a big field with all flowers and trees,
and there was a like goat with a man's litso playing away on a
like flute. And there rose like the sun Ludwig van himself
with thundery litso and cravat and wild windy voloss, and
then I heard the Ninth, last movement, with the slovos all a
bit mixed-up like they knew themselves they had to be mixed-
up, this being a dream:
Boy, thou uproarious shark of heaven,
Slaughter of Elysium,
Hearts on fire, aroused, enraptured,
We will tolchock you on the rot and kick
your grahzny vonny bum.
But the tune was right, as I knew when I was being woke up
two or ten minutes or twenty hours or days or years later, my
watch having been taken away. There was a millicent like miles
and miles down below and he was prodding at me with a long
stick with a spike on the end, saying:
"Wake up, son. Wake up, my beauty. Wake to real trouble."
I said:
"Why? Who? Where? What is it?" And the tune of the Joy
ode in the Ninth was singing away real lovely and horrorshow
within, The millicent said:
"Come down and find out. There's some real lovely news
for you, my son." So I scrambled down, very stiff and sore and
not like real awake, and this rozz, who had a strong von of
cheese and onions on him, pushed me out of the filthy snor-
ing cell, and then along corridors, and all the time the old
tune Joy Thou Glorious Spark Of Heaven was sparking away
within. Then we came to a very neat like cantora with type-
writers and flowers on the desks, and at the like chief desk the
top millicent was sitting, looking very serious and fixing a like
very cold glazzy on my sleepy litso. I said:
"Well well well. What makes, bratty. What gives, this fine
bright middle of the nochy?" He said:
"I'll give you just ten seconds to wipe that stupid grin off of
your face. Then I want you to listen."
"Well, what?" I said, smecking. "Are you not satisfied with
beating me near to death and having me spat upon and making
me confess to crimes for hours on end and then shoving me
among bezoomnies and vonny perverts in that grahzny cell?
Have you some new torture for me, you bratchny?"
"It'll be your own torture," he said, serious. "I hope to God
it'll torture you to madness."
And then, before he told me, I knew what it was. The old
ptitsa who had all the kots and koshkas had passed on to a
better world in one of the city hospitals. I'd cracked her a bit
too hard, like. Well, well, that was everything. I thought of all
those kots and koshkas mewling for moloko and getting
none, not any more from their starry forella of a mistress.
That was everything. I'd done the lot, now. and me still only
fifteen.
Part Two
1
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
I take it up now, and this is the real weepy and like tragic
part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends, in
Staja (State Jail, that is) Number 84F. You will have little
desire to slooshy all the cally and horrible raskazz of the
shock that sent my dad beating his bruised and krovvy rockers
against unfair like Bog in his Heaven, and my mum squaring
her rot for owwwww owwwww owwwww in her mother's grief
at her only child and son of her bosom like letting every-
body down real horrorshow. Then there was the starry very
grim magistrate in the lower court govoreeting some very
hard slovos against your Friend and Humble Narrator, after
all the cally and grahzny slander spat forth by P. R. Deltoid
and the rozzes, Bog blast them. Then there was being rem-
anded in filthy custody among vonny perverts and pre-
stoopnicks. Then there was the trial in the higher court with
judges and a jury, and some very very nasty slovos indeed
govoreeted in a very like solemn way, and then Guilty and my
mum boohoohooing when they said Fourteen Years, O my
brothers. So here I was now, two years just to the day of
being kicked and clanged into Staja 84F, dressed in the heighth
of prison fashion, which was a one-piece suit of a very filthy
