Stash Kroh, The Mixers, Lay Quit Awhile With Ed And Id
Molotov, and all the rest of that cal). These two ptitsas
couldn't have been more than ten, and they too, like me, it
seemed, evidently, had decided to take the morning off from
the old skolliwoll. They saw themselves, you could see, as real
grown-up devotchkas already, what with the old hip-swing
when they saw your Faithful Narrator, brothers, and padded
groodies and red all ploshed on their goobers. I went up to
the counter, making with the polite zooby smile at old Andy
behind it (always polite himself, always helpful, a real hor-
rorshow type of a veck, though bald and very very thin). He
said:
"Aha. I know what you want, I think. Good news, good
news. It has arrived." And with like big conductor's rookers
beating time he went to get it. The two young ptitsas started
giggling, as they will at that age, and I gave them a like cold
glazzy. Andy was back real skorry, waving the great shiny
white sleeve of the Ninth, which had on it, brothers, the
frowning beetled like thunderbolted litso of Ludwig van him-
self. "Here," said Andy. "Shall we give it the trial spin?" But I
wanted it back home on my stereo to slooshy on my oddy
knocky, greedy as hell. I fumbled out the deng to pay and one
of the little ptitsas said:
"Who you getten, bratty? What biggy, what only?" These
young devotchkas had their own like way of govoreeting.
"The Heaven Seventeen? Luke Sterne? Goggly Gogol?" And
both giggled, rocking and hippy. Then an idea hit me and
made me near fall over with the anguish and ecstasy of it, O
my brothers, so I could not breathe for near ten seconds. I
recovered and made with my new-clean zoobies and said:
"What you got back home, little sisters, to play your fuzzy
warbles on?" Because I could viddy the discs they were buying
were these teeny pop veshches. "I bet you got little save tiny
portable like picnic spinners." And they sort of pushed their
lower lips out at that. "Come with uncle," I said, "and hear all
proper. Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are
invited." And I like bowed. They giggled again and one said:
"Oh, but we're so hungry. Oh, but we could so eat." The
other said: "Yah, she can say that, can't she just." So I said:
"Eat with uncle. Name your place."
Then they viddied themselves as real sophistoes, which was
like pathetic, and started talking in big-lady golosses about
the Ritz and the Bristol and the Hilton and Il Ristorante Gran-
turco. But I stopped that with "Follow uncle," and I led them
to the Pasta Parlour just round the corner and let them fill
their innocent young litsos on spaghetti and sausages and
cream-puffs and banana-splits and hot choc-sauce, till I near
sicked with the sight of it, I, brothers, lunching but frugally off
a cold ham-slice and a growling dollop of chilli. These two
young ptitsas were much alike, though not sisters. They had
the same ideas or lack of, and the same colour hair - a like
dyed strawy. Well, they would grow up real today. Today I
would make a day of it. No school this afterlunch, but edu-
cation certain, Alex as teacher. Their names, they said, were
Marty and Sonietta, bezoomny enough and in the heighth of
their childish fashion, so I said:
"Righty right, Marty and Sonietta. Time for the big spin.
Come." When we were outside on the cold street they
thought they would not go by autobus, oh no, but by taxi, so
I gave them the humour, though with a real horrorshow in-
grin, and I called a taxi from the rank near Center. The driver,
a starry whiskery veck in very stained platties, said:
"No tearing up, now. No nonsense with them seats. Just re-
upholstered they are." I quieted his gloopy fears and off we
spun to Municipal Flatblock 18A, these two bold little ptitsas
giggling and whispering. So, to cut all short, we arrived, O my
brothers, and I led the way up to 10-8, and they panted and
smecked away the way up, and then they were thirsty, they
said, so I unlocked the treasure-chest in my room and gave
these ten-year-young devotchkas a real horrorshow Scotch-
man apiece, though well filled with sneezy pins-and-needles
soda. They sat on my bed (yet unmade) and leg-swung, smeck-
ing and peeting their highballs, while I spun their like pathetic
malenky discs through my stereo. Like peeting some sweet
scented kid's drink, that was, in like very beautiful and lovely
and costly gold goblets. But they went oh oh oh and said,
"Swoony" and "Hilly" and other weird slovos that were the
heighth of fashion in that youth group. While I spun this cal
for them I encouraged them to drink and have another, and
they were nothing loath, O my brothers. So by the time their
pathetic pop-discs had been twice spun each (there were two:
'Honey Nose', sung by Ike Yard, and 'Night After Day After
Night', moaned by two horrible yarbleless like eunuchs whose
names I forget) they were getting near the pitch of like young
ptitsa's hysterics, what with jumping all over my bed and me in
the room with them.
What was actually done that afternoon there is no need to
describe, brothers, as you may easily guess all. Those two
were unplattied and smecking fit to crack in no time at all, and
they thought it the bolshiest fun to viddy old Uncle Alex
standing there all nagoy and pan-handled, squirting the hypo-
dermic like some bare doctor, then giving myself the old jab
of growling jungle-cat secretion in the rooker. Then I pulled
the lovely Ninth out of its sleeve, so that Ludwig van was now
nagoy too, and I set the needle hissing on to the last move-
ment, which was all bliss. There it was then, the bass strings
like govoreeting away from under my bed at the rest of the
orchestra, and then the male human goloss coming in and
telling them all to be joyful, and then the lovely blissful tune
all about Joy being a glorious spark like of heaven, and then I
felt the old tigers leap in me and then I leapt on these two
young ptitsas. This time they thought nothing fun and
stopped creeching with high mirth, and had to submit to the
strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large which, what
with the Ninth and the hypo jab, were choodessny and zam-
mechat and very demanding, O my brothers. But they were
both very very drunken and could hardly feel very much.
When the last movement had gone round for the second
time with all the banging and creeching about Joy Joy Joy
Joy, then these two young ptitsas were not acting the big lady
sophisto no more. They were like waking up to what was
being done to their malenky persons and saying that they
wanted to go home and like I was a wild beast. They looked
like they had been in some big bitva, as indeed they had, and
were all bruised and pouty. Well, if they would not go to
school they must stil have their education. And education
they had had. They were creeching and going ow ow ow as
they put their platties on, and they were like punchipunching
me with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty and nagoy and fair
shagged and fagged on the bed. This young Sonietta was cre-
eching: "Beast and hateful animal. Filthy horror." So I let them
get their things together and get out, which they did, talking
about how the rozzes should be got on to me and all that cal.
Then they were going down the stairs and I dropped off to
sleep, still with the old Joy Joy Joy Joy crashing and howling away.
5
What happened, though, was that I woke up late (near seven-
thirty by my watch) and, as it turned out, that was not so
clever. You can viddy that everything in this wicked world
counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another.
Right right right. My stereo was no longer on about Joy and I
Embrace Ye O Ye Millions, so some veck had dealt it the off,
and that would be either pee or em, both of them now being
quite clear to the slooshying in the living-room and, from the
clink clink of plates and slurp slurp of peeting tea from cups,
at their tired meal after the day's rabbiting in factory the one,
store the other. The poor old. The pitiable starry. I put on my
over-gown and looked out, in guise of loving only son, to
say:
"Hi hi hi, there. A lot better after the day's rest. Ready now
for evening work to earn that little bit." For that's what they
said they believed I did these days. "Yum, yum, mum. Any of
that for me?" It was like some frozen pie that she'd unfroze
and then warmed up and it looked not so very appetitish, but
I had to say what I said. Dad looked at me with a not-so-
pleased suspicious like look but said nothing, knowing he
dared not, and mum gave me a tired like little smeck, to thee
fruit of my womb my only son sort of. I danced to the bath-
room and had a real skorry cheest all over, feeling dirty and
gluey, then back to my den for the evening's platties. Then,
shining, combed, brushed and gorgeous, I sat to my lomtick
of pie. Papapa said:
"Not that I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it you go
to work of evenings?"
"Oh," I chewed, "it's mostly odd things, helping like. Here
and there, as it might be." I gave him a straight dirty glazzy, as
to say to mind his own and I'd mind mine. "I never ask for
money, do I? Not money for clothes or for pleasures? All
right, then, why ask?"
My dad was like humble mumble chumble. "Sorry, son," he
said. "But I get worried sometimes. Sometimes I have dreams.
You can laugh if you like, but there's a lot in dreams. Last
night I had this dream with you in it and I didn't like it one
bit."
"Oh?" He had gotten me interessovatted now, dreaming of
me like that. I had like a feeling I had had a dream, too, but I
could not remember proper what. "Yes?" I said, stopping
chewing my gluey pie.
"It was vivid," said my dad. "I saw you lying on the street and
you had been beaten by other boys. These boys were like the
boys you used to go around with before you were sent to
that last Corrective School."
"Oh?" I had an in-grin at that, papapa believing I had really
reformed or believing he believed. And then I remembered my
own dream, which was a dream of that morning, of Georgie
giving his general's orders and old Dim smecking around
toothless as he wielded the whip. But dreams go by opposites
I was once told. "Never worry about thine only son and heir,
O my father," I said. "Fear not. He canst taketh care of himself,
verily."
"And," said my dad, "you were like helpless in your blood
and you couldn't fight back." That was real opposites, so I had
another quiet malenky grin within and then I took all the deng
out of my carmans and tinkled it on the saucy table-cloth. I
said:
"Here, dad, it's not much. It's what I earned last night. But
perhaps for the odd peet of Scotchman in the snug some-
where for you and mum."
"Thanks, son," he said. "But we don't go out much now. We
daren't go out much, the streets being what they are. Young
hooligans and so on. Still, thanks. I'll bring her home a bottle
of something tomorrow." And he scooped this ill-gotten
pretty into his trouser carmans, mum being at the cheesting of
the dishes in the kitchen. And I went out with loving smiles all
round.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs of the flatblock I
was somewhat surprised. I was more than that. I opened my
rot like wide in the old stony gapes. They had come to meet
me. They were waiting by the all scrawled-over municipal
wall-painting of the nagoy dignity of labour, bare vecks and
cheenas stern at the wheels of industry, like I said, with all this
dirt pencilled from their rots by naughty malchicks. Dim had a
big thick stick of black greasepaint and was tracing filthy
slovos real big over our municipal painting and doing the old
Dim guff - wuh huh huh - while he did it. But he turned round
when Georgie and Pete gave me the well hello, showing their
shining droogy zoobies, and he horned out: "He are here, he
have arrived, hooray," and did a clumsy turnitoe bit of danc-
ing.
"We got worried," said Georgie. "There we were awaiting
and peeting away at the old knify moloko, and you might
have been like offended by some veshch or other, so round
we come to your abode. That's right, Pete, right?"
"Oh, yes, right," said Pete.
"Appy polly loggies," I said careful. "I had something of a pain
in the gulliver so had to sleep. I was not wakened when I gave
orders for wakening. Still, here we all are, ready for what
the old nochy offers, yes?" I seemed to have picked up that
yes? from P. R. Deltoid, my Post-Corrective Adviser. Very
strange.
"Sorry about the pain," said Georgie, like very concerned.
"Using the gulliver too much like, maybe. Giving orders and
discipline and such, perhaps. Sure the pain is gone? Sure you'll
not be happier going back to the bed?" And they all had a bit
of a malenky grin.
"Wait," I said. "Let's get things nice and sparkling clear. This
sarcasm, if I may call it such, does not become you, O my
little friends. Perhaps you have been having a bit of a quiet
govoreet behind my back, making your own little jokes and
such-like. As I am your droog and leader, surely I am entitled
to know what goes on, eh? Now then, Dim, what does that
great big horsy gape of a grin portend?" For Dim had his rot
open in a sort of bezoomny soundless smeck. Georgie got in
very skorry with:
"All right, no more picking on Dim, brother. That's part of
