above the body.
It was nadsats milking and coking and fillying around
(nadsats were what we used to call the teens), but there were a
few of the more starry ones, vecks and cheenas alike (but not
of the bourgeois, never them) laughing and govoreeting at the
bar. You could tell them from their barberings and loose platties
(big stringy sweaters mostly) that they'd been on rehearsals at
the TV studios around the corner. The devotchkas among them
had these very lively litsos and wide big rots, very red, show-
ing a lot of teeth, and smecking away and not caring about
the wicked world one whit. And then the disc on the stereo
twanged off and out (it was Johnny Zhivago, a Russky
koshka, singing 'Only Every Other Day'), and in the like inter-
val, the short silence before the next one came on, one of
these devotchkas - very fair and with a big smiling red rot and
in her late thirties I'd say - suddenly came with a burst of
singing, only a bar and a half and as though she was like giving
an example of something they'd all been govoreeting about,
and it was like for a moment, O my brothers, some great bird
had flown into the milkbar, and I felt all the little malenky
hairs on my plott standing endwise and the shivers crawling
up like slow malenky lizards and then down again. Because I
knew what she sang. It was from an opera by Friedrich Gitter-
fenster called 'Das Bettzeug', and it was the bit where she's
snuffing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are 'Better like
this maybe'. Anyway, I shivered.
But old Dim, as soon as he'd slooshied this dollop of song
like a lomtick of redhot meat plonked on your plate, let off
one of his vulgarities, which in this case was a lip-trump fol-
lowed by a dog-howl followed by two fingers pronging twice
at the air followed by a clowny guffaw. I felt myself all of a
fever and like drowning in redhot blood, slooshying and
viddying Dim's vulgarity, and I said: "Bastard. Filthy drooling
mannerless bastard." Then I leaned across Georgie, who was
between me and horrible Dim, and fisted Dim skorry on the
rot. Dim looked very surprised, his rot open, wiping the
krovvy off of his goober with his rook and in turn looking
surprised at the red flowing krovvy and at me. "What for did
you do that for?" he said in his ignorant way. Not many
viddied what I'd done, and those that viddied cared not. The
stereo was on again and was playing a very sick electronic
guitar veshch. I said:
"For being a bastard with no manners and not the dook of
an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my
brother."
Dim put on a hound-and-horny look of evil, saying: "I
don't like you should do what you done then. And I'm not
your brother no more and wouldn't want to be." He'd taken a
big snotty tashtook from his pocket and was mopping the red
flow puzzled, keeping on looking at it frowning as if he
thought that blood was for other vecks and not for him. It
was like he was singing blood to make up for his vulgarity
when that devotchka was singing music. But that devotchka
was smecking away ha ha ha now with her droogs at the bar,
her red rot working and her zoobies ashine, not having no-
ticed Dim's filthy vulgarity. It was me really Dim had done
wrong to. I said:
"if you don't like this and you wouldn't want that, then you
know what to do, little brother." Georgie said, in a sharp way
that made me look:
"All right. Let's not be starting."
"That's clean up to Dim," I said. "Dim can't go on all his
jeezny being as a little child." And I looked sharp at Georgie.
Dim said, and the red krovvy was easing its flow now:
"What natural right does he have to think he can give the
orders and tolchock me whenever he likes? Yarbles is what I
say to him, and I'd chain his glazzies out as soon as look."
"Watch that," I said, as quiet as I could with the stereo
bouncing all over the walls and ceiling and the in-the-land
veck beyond Dim getting loud now with his "Spark nearer,
ultoptimate", I said: "Do watch that, O Dim, if to continue to
be on live thou dost wish."
"Yarbles," said Dim, sneering, "great bolshy yarblockos to
you. What you done then you had no right. I'll meet you with
chain or nozh or britva any time, not having you aiming tol-
chocks at me reasonless, it stands to reason I won't have
it."
"A nozh scrap any time you say," I snarled back. Pete said:
"Oh now, don't, both of you malchicks. Droogs, aren't we?
It isn't right droogs should behave thiswise. See, there are
some loose-lipped malchicks over there smecking at us, leer-
ing like. We mustn't let ourselves down."
"Dim," I said, "has got to learn his place. Right?"
"Wait," said Georgie. "What is all this about place? This is the
first I ever hear about lewdies learning their place."
Pete said: "If the truth is known, Alex, you shouldn't have
given old Dim that uncalled-for tolchock. I'll say it once and
no more. I say it with all respect, but if it had been me you'd
given it to you'd have to answer. I say no more." And he
drowned his litso in his milk-glass.
I could feel myself getting all razdraz inside, but I tried to
cover it, saying calm: "There has to be a leader. Discipline
there has to be. Right?" None of them skazatted a word or
nodded even. I got more razdraz inside, calmer out. "I," I said,
"have been in charge long now. We are all droogs, but some-
body has to be in charge. Right? Right?" They all like nodded,
wary like. Dim was osooshing the last of the krovvy off. It
was Dim who said now:
"Right, right. Doobidoob. A bit tired, maybe, everybody is.
Best not to say more." I was surprised and just that malenky
bit poogly to sloosh Dim govoreeting that wise. Dim said:
"Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways. Right?" I
was very surprised. The other two nodded, going right right
right. I said:
"You understand about that tolchock on the rot, Dim.
It was the music, see. I get all bezoomny when any veck
interferes with a ptitsa singing, as it might be. Like that
then."
"Best we go off homeways and get a bit of spatchka," said
Dim. "A long night for growing malchicks. Right?" Right right
nodded the other two. I said:
"I think it best we go home now. Dim has made a real
horrorshow suggestion. If we don't meet day-wise, O my
brothers, well then - same time same place tomorrow?"
"Oh yes," said Georgie. "I think that can be arranged."
"I might," said Dim, "be just that malenky bit late. But same
place and near same time tomorrow surely." He was still
wiping at his goober, though no krovvy flowed any longer
now. "And," he said, "it is to be hoped there won't be no more
of them singing ptitsas in here." Then he gave his old Dim guff,
a clowny big hohohohoho. It seemed like he was too dim to
take much offence.
So off we went our several ways, me belching arrrrgh on
the cold coke I'd peeted. I had my cut-throat britva handy in
case any of Billyboy's droogs should be around near the flat-
block waiting, or for that matter any of the other bandas or
gruppas or shaikas that from time to time were at war with
one. Where I lived was with my dadda and mum in the flats of
Municipal Flatblock 18A, between Kingsley Avenue and Wil-
sonsway. I got to the big main door with no trouble, though I
did pass one young malchick sprawling and creeching and
moaning in the gutter, all cut about lovely, and saw in the
lamplight also streaks of blood here and there like signatures,
my brothers, of the night's fillying. And too I saw just by 18A
a pair of devotchka's neezhnies doubtless rudely wrenched off
in the heat of the moment, O my brothers. And so in. In the
hallway was the good old municipal painting on the walls -
vecks and ptitsas very well developed, stern in the dignity of
labour, at workbench and machine with not one stitch of
platties on their well-developed plotts. But of course some of
the malchicks living in 18A had, as was to be expected, em-
bellished and decorated the said big painting with handy
pencil and ballpoint, adding hair and stiff rods and dirty bal-
looning slovos out of the dignified rots of these nagoy (bare,
that is) cheenas and vecks. I went to the lift, but there was no
need to press the electric knopka to see if it was working or
not, because it had been tolchocked real horrorshow this
night, the metal doors all buckled, some feat of rare strength
indeed, so I had to walk the ten floors up. I cursed and panted
climbing, being tired in plott if not so much in brain. I wanted
music very bad this evening, that singing devotchka in the
Korova having perhaps started me off. I wanted like a big feast
of it before getting my passport stamped, my brothers, at
sleep's frontier and the stripy shest lifted to let me through.
I opened the door of 10-8 with my own little klootch, and
inside our malenky quarters all was quiet, the pee and em both
being in sleepland, and mum had laid out on the table on
malenky bit of supper - a couple of lomticks of tinned sponge-
meat with a shive or so of kleb and butter, a glass of the old
cold moloko. Hohoho, the old moloko, with no knives or
synthemesc or drencrom in it. How wicked, my brothers,
innocent milk must always seem to me now. Still I drank and
ate growling, being more hungry than I thought at first, and I
got fruit-pie from the larder and tore chunks off it to stuff
into my greedy rot. Then I tooth-cleaned and clicked, cleaning
out the old rot with my yahzick or tongue, then I went into
my own little room or den, easing off my platties as I did so.
Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of my jeezny, and my
discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the wall,
these being like remembrances of my corrective school life
since I was eleven, O my brothers, each one shining and blaz-
oned with name or number: SOUTH 4; METRO COR-
SKOL BLUE DIVISION; THE BOYS OF ALPHA.
The little speakers of my stereo were all arranged round the
room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying
the music, I was like netted and meshed in the orchestra. Now
what I fancied first tonight was this new violin concerto by
the American Geoffrey Plautus, played by Odysseus Choerilos
with the Macon (Georgia) Philharmonic, so I slid it from
where it was neatly filed and switched on and waited.
Then, brothers, it came. Oh, bliss, bliss and heaven. I lay all
nagoy to the ceiling, my gulliver on my rookers on the pillow,
glazzies closed, rot open in bliss, slooshying the sluice of
lovely sounds. Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made
flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and
behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and
there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out
again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of
wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or
like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense
now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and
those strings were like a cage of silk around my bed. Then flute
and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick
thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.
Pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to
knock on the wall with complaints of what they called noise.
I had taught them. Now they would take sleep-pills. Perhaps,
knowing the joy I had in my night music, they had already
taken them. As I slooshied, my glazzies tight shut to shut in
the bliss that was better than any synthemesc Bog or God, I
knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks and ptitsas, both
young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for mercy,
and I was smecking all over my rot and grinding my boot in
their litsos. And there were devotchkas ripped and creeching
against walls and I plunging like a shlaga into them, and
indeed when the music, which was one movement only, rose
to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying there on my
bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I
broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it.
And so the lovely music glided to its glowing close.
After that I had lovely Mozart, the Jupiter, and there were
new pictures of different litsos to be ground and splashed, and
it was after this that I thought I would have just one last disc
only before crossing the border, and I wanted something
starry and strong and very firm, so it was J. S. Bach I had, the
Brandenburg Concerto just for middle and lower strings. And,
slooshying with different bliss than before, I viddied again this
name on the paper I'd razrezzed that night, a long time ago it
seemed, in that cottage called HOME. The name was about a
clockwork orange. Listening to the J. S. Bach, I began to pony
better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away
to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German master, that
I would like to have tolchecked them both harder and ripped
them to ribbons on their own floor.
4
The next morning I woke up at oh eight oh oh hours, my
brothers, and as I still felt shagged and fagged and fashed and
bashed and my glazzies were stuck together real horrorshow
with sleepglue, I thought I would not go to school. I thought
how I would have a malenky bit longer in the bed, an hour or
two say, and then get dressed nice and easy, perhaps even
having a splosh about in the bath, make toast for myself and
slooshy the radio or read the gazetta, all on my oddy knocky.
