inside of the shop behind the curtain, this being old Dim and
Slouse sort of locked in a death struggle. Then you could
slooshy panting and snoring and kicking behind the curtain
and veshches falling over and swearing and then glass going
smash smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of
froze behind the counter. We could tell she would creech
murder given one chance, so I was round that counter very
skorry and had a hold of her, and a horrorshow big lump she
was too, all nuking of scent and with flipflop big bobbing
groodies on her. I'd got my rooker round her rot to stop her
belting out death and destruction to the four winds of
heaven, but this lady doggie gave me a large foul big bite on it
and it was me that did the creeching, and then she opened up
beautiful with a flip yell for the millicents. Well, then she had
to be tolchocked proper with one of the weights for the
scales, and then a fair tap with a crowbar they had for opening
cases, and that brought the red out like an old friend. So we
had her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for fun and
a gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. And, viddying
her lying there with her groodies on show, I wondered should
I or not, but that was for later on in the evening. Then we
cleaned the till, and there was flip horrorshow takings that
nochy, and we had a few packs of the very best top cancers
apiece, then off we went, my brothers.
"A real big heavy great bastard he was," Dim kept saying. I
didn't like the look of Dim: he looked dirty and untidy, like a
veck who'd been in a fight, which he had been, of course, but
you should never look as though you have been. His cravat
was like someone had trampled on it, his maskie had been
pulled off and he had floor-dirt on his litso, so we got him in
an alleyway and tidied him up a malenky bit, soaking our
tashtooks in spit to cheest the dirt off. The things we did for
old Dim. We were back in the Duke of New York very skorry
and I reckoned by my watch we hadn't been more than ten
minutes away. The starry old baboochkas were still there on
the black and suds and Scotchmen we'd bought them, and we
said: "Hallo there, girlies, what's it going to be?" They started
on the old "Very kind, lads, God bless you, boys," and so we
rang the collocol and brought a different waiter in this time
and we ordered beers with rum in, being sore athirst, my
brothers, and whatever the old ptitsas wanted. Then I said to
the old baboochkas: "We haven't been out of here, have we?
Been here all the time, haven't we?" They all caught on real
skorry and said:
"That's right, lads. Not been out of our sight, you haven't.
God bless you, boys," drinking.
Not that it mattered much, really. About half an hour went
by before there was any sign of life among the millicents, and
then it was only two very young rozzes that came in, very
pink under their big copper's shlemmies. One said:
"You lot know anything about the happenings at Slouse's
shop this night?"
"Us?" I said, innocent. "Why, what happened?"
"Stealing and roughing. Two hospitalizations. Where've
you lot been this evening?"
"I don't go for that nasty tone," I said. "I don't care much
for these nasty insinuations. A very suspicious nature all this
betokeneth, my little brothers."
"They've been in here all night, lads," the old sharps started
to creech out. "God bless them, there's no better lot of boys
living for kindness and generosity. Been here all the time they
have. Not seen them move we haven't."
"We're only asking," said the other young millicent. "We've
got our job to do like anyone else." But they gave us the nasty
warning look before they went out. As they were going out
we handed them a bit of lip-music: brrrrzzzzrrrr. But, myself, I
couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as they were
those days. Nothing to fight against really. Everything as easy
as kiss-my-sharries. Still, the night was still very young.
2
When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied by
the main bar's long lighted window, a burbling old pyahnitsa
or drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and
going blerp blerp in between as though it might be a filthy old
orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. One veshch I could never
stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge all filthy
and rolling and burping and drunk, whatever his age might be,
but more especially when he was real starry like this one was.
He was sort of flattened to the wall and his platties were a
disgrace, all creased and untidy and covered in cal and mud
and filth and stuff. So we got hold of him and cracked him
with a few good horrorshow tolchocks, but he still went on
singing. The song went:
And I will go back to my darling, my darling,
When you, my darling, are gone.
But when Dim fisted him a few times on his filthy drunkard's
rot he shut up singing and started to creech: "Go on, do me in,
you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a
stinking world like this one." I told Dim to lay off a bit then,
because it used to interest me sometimes to slooshy what
some of these starry decreps had to say about life and the
world. I said: "Oh. And what's stinking about it?"
He cried out: "It's a stinking world because it lets the young
get on to the old like you done, and there's no law nor order
no more." He was creeching out loud and waving his rookers
and making real horrorshow with the slovos, only the odd
blurp blurp coming from his keeshkas, like something was
orbiting within, or like some very rude interrupting sort of a
moodge making a shoom, so that this old veck kept sort of
threatening it with his fists, shouting: "It's no world for any
old man any longer, and that means that I'm not one bit
scared of you, my boyos, because I'm too drunk to feel the
pain if you hit me, and if you kill me I'll be glad to be dead."
We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he
said: "What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and
men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a
lamp, and there's not more attention paid to earthly law nor
order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy cow-
ardly hooligans." Then he gave us some lip-music -
"Prrrrzzzzrrrr" - like we'd done to those young millicents, and
then he started singing again:
Oh dear dear land, I fought for thee
And brought thee peace and victory -
So we cracked into him lovely, grinning all over our litsos,
but he still went on singing. Then we tripped him so he laid
down flat and heavy and a bucketload of beer-vomit came
whooshing out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot,
one go each, and then it was blood, not song nor vomit, that
came out of his filthy old rot. Then we went on our way.
It was round by the Municipal Power Plant that we came
across Billyboy and his five droogs. Now in those days, my
brothers, the teaming up was mostly by fours or fives, these
being like auto-teams, four being a comfy number for an
auto, and six being the outside limit for gang-size. Sometimes
gangs would gang up so as to make like malenky armies for
big night-war, but mostly it was best to roam in these like
small numbers. Billyboy was something that made me want to
sick just to viddy his fat grinning litso, and he always had this
von of very stale oil that's been used for frying over and over,
even when he was dressed in his best platties, like now. They
viddied us just as we viddied them, and there was like a very
quit kind of watching each other now. This would be real,
this would be proper, this would be the nozh, the oozy, the
britva, not just fisties and boots. Billyboy and his droogs
stopped what they were doing, which was just getting ready
to perform something on a weepy young devotchka they had
there, not more than ten, she creeching away but with her
platties still on. Billyboy holding her by one rooker and his
number-one, Leo, holding the other. They'd probably just
been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before getting down
to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. When they viddied us a-
coming they let go of this boo-hooing little ptitsa, there
being plenty more where she came from, and she ran with her
thin white legs flashing through the dark, still going "Oh oh
oh". I said, smiling very wide and droogie: "Well, if it isn't fat
stinking billygoat Billyboy in poison. How art thou, thou
globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in
the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou."
And then we started.
There were four of us to six of them, like I have already
indicated, but poor old Dim, for all his dimness, was worth
three of the others in sheer madness and dirty fighting. Dim
had a real horrorshow length of oozy or chain round his
waist, twice wound round, and he unwound this and began to
swing it beautiful in the eyes or glazzies. Pete and Georgie had
good sharp nozhes, but I for my own part had a fine starry
horrorshow cut-throat britva which, at that time, I could flash
and shine artistic. So there we were dratsing away in the dark,
the old Luna with men on it just coming up, the stars stabbing
away as it might be knives anxious to join in the dratsing.
With my britva I managed to slit right down the front of one
of Billyboy's droog's platties, very very neat and not even
touching the plott under the cloth. Then in the dratsing this
droog of Billyboy's suddenly found himself all opened up like
a peapod, with his belly bare and his poor old yarbles show-
ing, and then he got very razdraz, waving and screaming
and losing his guard and letting in old Dim with his chain
snaking whisssssshhhhhhhhh, so that old Dim chained him
right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's went totter-
ing off and howling his heart out. We were doing very hor-
rorshow, and soon we had Billyboy's number-one down
underfoot, blinded with old Dim's chain and crawling and
howling about like an animal, but with one fair boot on the
gulliver he was out and out and out.
Of the four of us Dim, as usual, came out the worst in point
of looks, that is to say his litso was all bloodied and his
platties a dirty mess, but the others of us were still cool and
whole. It was stinking fatty Billyboy I wanted now, and there I
was dancing about with my britva like I might be a barber on
board a ship on a very rough sea, trying to get in at him with a
few fair slashes on his unclean oily litso. Billyboy had a nozh,
a long flick-type, but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy
in his movements to vred anyone really bad. And, my
brothers, it was real satisfaction to me to waltz - left two
three, right two three - and carve left cheeky and right cheeky,
so that like two curtains of blood seemed to pour out at the
same time, one on either side of his fat filthy oily snout in the
winter starlight. Down this blood poured in like red curtains,
but you could viddy Billyboy felt not a thing, and he went
lumbering on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me with his
nozh.
Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were
coming with pooshkas pushing out of the police-auto-
windows at the ready. That weepy little devotchka had told
them, no doubt, there being a box for calling the rozzes not
too far behind the Muni Power Plant. "Get you soon, fear
not," I called, "stinking billygoat. I'll have your yarbles off
lovely." Then off they ran, slow and panting, except for
Number One Leo out snoring on the ground, away north
towards the river, and we went the other way. Just round the
next turning was an alley, dark and empty and open at both
ends, and we rested there, panting fast then slower, then
breathing like normal. It was like resting between the feet of
two terrific and very enormous mountains, these being the
flatblocks, and in the windows of all the flats you could
viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight
was what thy called a worldcast, meaning that the same pro-
gramme was being viddied by everybody in the world that
wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged middle-class
lewdies. There would be some big famous stupid comic
chelloveck or black singer, and it was all being bounced off
the special telly satellites in outer space, my brothers. We
waited panting, and we could slooshy the sirening millicents
going east, so we knew we were all right now. But poor old
Dim kept looking up at the stars and planets and the Luna
with his rot wide open like a kid who'd never viddied any such
things before, and he said:
"What's on them, I wonder. What would be up there on
things like that?"
I nudged him hard, saying: "Come, gloopy bastard as thou
art. Think thou not on them. There'll be life like down here
most likely, with some getting knifed and others doing the
knifing. And now, with the nochy still molodoy, let us be on
our way, O my brothers." The others smecked at this, but
poor old Dim looked at me serious, then up again at the stars
and the Luna. So we went on our way down the alley, with the
worldcast blueing on on either side. What we needed now was
an auto, so we turned left coming out of the alley, knowing
right away we were in Priestly Place as soon as we viddied the
big bronze statue of some starry poet with an apey upper lip
and a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot. Going north we came to
the filthy old Filmdrome, peeling and dropping to bits
through nobody going there much except malchicks like me
