like cal colour, and the number sewn on the groody part just
above the old tick-tocker and on the back as well, so that
going and coming I was 6655321 and not your little droog
Alex not no longer.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
It had not been like edifying, indeed it had not, being in this
grahzny hellhole and like human zoo for two years, being
kicked and tolchocked by brutal bully warders and meeting
vonny leering like criminals, some of them real perverts and
ready to dribble all over a luscious young malchick like your
story-teller. And there was having to rabbit in the workshop
at making matchboxes and itty round and round and round
the yard for like exercise, and in the evenings sometimes some
starry prof type veck would give a talk on beetles or the Milky
Way or the Glorious Wonders of the Snowflake, and I had a
good smeck at this last one, because it reminded me of that
time of the tolchocking and Sheer Vandalism with that ded
coming from the public biblio on a winter's night when my
droogs were stil not traitors and I was like happy and free. Of
those droogs I had slooshied but one thing, and that was one
day when my pee and em came to visit and I was told that
Georgie was dead. Yes, dead, my brothers. Dead as a bit of
dog-cal on the road. Georgie had led the other two into a like
very rich chelloveck's house, and there they had kicked and
tolchocked the owner on the floor, and then Georgie had
started to razrez the cushions and curtains, and then old Dim
had cracked at some very precious ornaments, like statues
and so on, and this rich beat-up chelloveck had raged like real
bezoomny and gone for them all with a very heavy iron bar.
His being all razdraz had given him some gigantic strength,
and Dim and Pete had got out through the window, but Georgie
had tripped on the carpet and then brought this terrible
swinging iron bar crack and splodge on the gulliver, and that
was the end of traitorous Georgie. The starry murderer had
got off with Self Defence, as was really right and proper.
Georgie being killed, though it was more than one year after me
being caught by the millicents, it all seemed right and proper
and like Fate.
"What's it going to be then, eh?"
I was in the Wing Chapel, it being Sunday morning, and the
prison charlie was govoreeting the Word of the Lord. It was
my rabbit to play the starry stereo, putting on solemn music
before and after and in the middle too when hymns were sung.
I was at the back of the Wing Chapel (there were four along
here in Staja 84F) near where the warders or chassos were
standing with their rifles and their dirty bolshy blue brutal
jowls, and I could viddy all the plennies sitting down slooshy-
ing the Slovo of the Lord in their horrible cal-coloured
prison platties, and a sort of filthy von rose from them, not
like real unwashed, not grazzy, but like a special real stinking
von which you only got with the criminal types, my brothers,
a like dusty, greasy, hopeless sort of a von. And I was thinking
that perhaps I had this von too, having become a real plenny
myself, though still very young. So it was important to
me, O my brothers, to get out of this stinking grahzny zoo as
soon as I could. And, as you will viddy if you keep reading on,
it was not long before I did.
"What's it going to be then, eh?" said the prison charlie for
the third raz. "Is it going to be in and out and in and out of
institutions, like this, though more in than out for most of
you, or are you going to attend to the Divine Word and
realize the punishments that await the unrepentant sinner in
the next world, as well as in this? A lot of blasted idiots you
are, most of you, selling your birthright for a saucer of cold por-
ridge. The thrill of theft, or violence, the urge to live easy - is
it worth it when we have undeniable proof, yes yes, incon-
trovertible evidence that hell exists? I know, I know, my
friends, I have been informed in visions that there is a place,
darker than any prison, hotter than any flame of human fire,
where souls of unrepentant criminal sinners like yourselves -
and don't leer at me, damn you, don't laugh - like yourselves,
I say, scream in endless and intolerable agony, their noses
choked with the smell of filth, their mouths crammed with
burning ordure, their skin peeling and rotting, a fireball spin-
ning in their screaming guts. Yes, yes, yes, I know"
At this point, brothers, a plenny somewhere or other near
the back row let out a shoom of lip-music - 'Prrrrrp' - and
then the brutal chassos were on the job right away, rushing
real skorry to what they thought was the scene of the
schoom, then hitting out nasty and delivering tolchocks, left
and right. Then they picked out one poor trembling plenny,
very thin and malenky and starry too, and dragged him off,
but all the time he kept creeching: "It wasn't me, it was him,
see," but that made no difference. He was tolchocked real
nasty and then dragged out of the Wing Chapel creeching his
gulliver off.
"Now," said the prison charlie, "listen to the Word of the
Lord." Then he picked up the big book and flipped over the
pages, keeping on wetting his fingers to do this by licking
them splurge splurge. He was a bolshy great burly bastard
with a very red litso, but he was very fond of myself, me being
young and also now very interested in the big book. It had
been arranged as part of my like further education to read in
the book and even have music on the chapel stereo while I
was reading, O my brothers. And that was real horrorshow.
They would like lock me in and let me slooshy holy music by
J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel, and I would read of these starry
yahoodies tolchocking each other and then peeting their
Hebrew vino and getting on to the bed with their wives' like
hand-maidens, real horrorshow. That kept me going,
brothers. I didn't so much kopat the later part of the book,
which is more like all preachy govoreeting than fighting and
the old in-out. But one day the charles said to me, squeezing
me like tight with his bolshy beefy rooker: "Ah, 6655321,
think on the divine suffering. Meditate on that, my boy." And
all the time he had this rich manny von of Scotch on him, and
then he went off to his little cantora to peet some more. So I
read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns
and then the cross veshch and all that cal, and I viddied better
that there was something in it. While the stereo played bits of
lovely Bach I closed my glazzies and viddied myself helping in
and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in,
being dressed in a like toga that was the heighth of Roman
fashion. So being in Staja 84F was not all that wasted, and the
Governor himself was very pleased to hear that I had taken to
like Religion, and that was where I had my hopes.
This Sunday morning the charlie read out from the book
about chellovecks who slooshied the slovo and didn't take a
blind bit being like a domy built upon sand, and then the rain
came splash and the old boomaboom cracked the sky and
that was the end of that domy. But I thought that only a very
dim veck would have built his domy upon sand, and a right lot of
real sneering droogs and nasty neighbours a veck like that
would have, them not telling him how dim he was doing that
sort of building. Then the charles creeched: "Right, you lot.
We'll end with Hymn Number 435 in the Prisoners' Hymnal."
Then there was a crash and plop and a whish whish while the
plennies picked up and dropped and lickturned the pages of
their grazzy malenky hymnbooks, and the bully fierce warders
creeched: "Stop talking there, bastards. I'm watching you,
920537." Of course I had the disc ready on the stereo, and
then I let the simple music for organ only come belting out
with a growwwwowwwwowwww. Then the plennies started
to sing real horrible:
Weak tea are we, new brewed
But stirring make all strong.
We eat no angel's food,
Our times of trial are long.
They sort of howled and wept these stupid slovos with the
charlie like whipping them on with "Louder, damn you, sing
up," and the warders creeching: "Just you wait, 7749222", and
"One on the turnip coming up for you, filth." Then it was all
over and the charlie said: "May the Holy Trinity keep you
always and make you good, amen," and the shamble out began
to a nice choice bit of Symphony No. 2 by Adrian Schweigsel-
ber, chosen by your Humble Narrator, O my brothers. What a
lot they were, I thought, as I stood there by the starry chapel
stereo, viddying them all shuffle out going marrrrre and
baaaaaa like animals and up-your-piping with their grahzny
fingers at me, because it looked like I was very special
favoured. When the last one had slouched out, his rookers
hanging like an ape and the one warder left giving him a fair
loud tolchock on the back of the gulliver, and when I had
turned off the stereo, the charlie came up to me, puffing away
at a cancer, still in his starry bogman's platties, all lacy and
white like a devotchka's. He said:
"Thank you as always, little 6655321. And what news have
you got for me today?" The idea was, I knew, that this charlie
was after becoming a very great holy chelloveck in the world
of Prison Religion, and he wanted a real horrorshow tes-
timonial from the Governor, so he would go and govoreet
quietly to the Governor now and then about what dark plots
were brewing among the plennies, and he would get a lot of
this cal from me. A lot of it would be all like made up, but
some of it would be true, like for instance the time it had
come through to our cell on the waterpipes knock knock
knockiknockiknock knockiknock that big Harriman was
going to break. He was going to tolchock the warder at
slop-time and get out in the warder's platties. Then there was
going to be a big throwing about of the horrible pishcha we
got in the dining-hall, and I knew about that and told. Then
the charlie passed it on and was complimented like by the
Governor for his Public Spirit and Keen Ear. So this time I
said, and this was not true:
"Well, sir, it has come through on the pipes that a con-
signment of cocaine has arrived by irregular means and that a
cell somewhere along Tier 5 is to be the centre of dis-
tribution." I made all that up as I went along, like I made
up so many of these stories, but the prison charlie was very
grateful, saying: "Good, good, good. I shall pass that on
to Himself," this being what he called the Governor. Then I
said:
"Sir, I have done my best, have I not?" I always used my very
polite gentleman's goloss govoreeting with those at the top.
"I've tried, sir, haven't I?"
"I think," said the charlie, "that on the whole you have,
6655321. You've been very helpful and, I consider, shown a
genuine desire to reform. You will, if you continue in this
manner, earn your remission with no trouble at all."
"But sir," I said, "how about this new thing they're talking
about? How about this new like treatment that gets you out
of prison in no time at all and makes sure that you never get
back in again?"
"Oh," he said, very like wary. "Where did you hear this?
Who's been telling you these things?"
"These things get around, sir," I said. "Two warders talk, as it
might be, and somebody can't help hearing what they say. And
then somebody picks up a scrap of newspaper in the work-
shops and the newspaper says all about it. How about you
putting me in for this thing, sir, if I may make so bold as to
make the suggestion?"
You could viddy him thinking about that while he puffed
away at his cancer, wondering how much to say to me about
what he knew about this veshch I'd mentioned. Then he said:
"I take it you're referring to Ludovico's Technique." He was
still very wary.
"I don't know what it's called, sir," I said. "All I know is that
it gets you out quickly and makes sure that you don't get in
again."
"That is so," he said, his eyebrows like all beetling while he
looked down at me. "That is quite so, 6655321. Of course, it's
only in the experimental stage at the moment. It's very simple
but very drastic."
"But it's being used here, isn't it, sir?" I said. "Those new like
white buildings by the South wall, sir. We've watched those
being built, sir, when we've been doing our exercise."
"It's not been used yet," he said, "not in this prison,
6655321. Himself has grave doubts about it. I must confess I
share those doubts. The question is whether such a technique
can really make a man good. Goodness comes from within,
6655321. Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot
choose he ceases to be a man." He would have gone on with a
lot more of this cal, but we could slooshy the next lot of
plennies marching clank clank down the iron stairs to come
for their bit of Religion. He said: "We'll have a little chat
about this some other time. Now you'd better start the vol-
untary." So I went over to the starry stereo and put on
J. S. Bach's 'Wachet Auf' Choral Prelude and in these grahzny
vonny bastard criminals and perverts came shambling like a
lot of broke-down apes, the warders or chassos like barking
at them and lashing them. And soon the prison charlie was
asking them: "What's it going to be then, eh?" And that's
where you came in.
We had four of these lomticks of like Prison Religion that
morning, but the charles said no more to me about this Lu-
