When we got outside of the Duke of New York we viddied an old pyahnitsa[108] or drunkie, singing the filthy songs of his fathers. One veshch I could never stand was that. I could never stand to see a moodge[109] all filthy 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[110] 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[111]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: “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, and there's not more attention paid to earthly law nor order no more. So you may do your worst, you filthy cowardly hooligans.” Then he gave us some lip-music – “Prrrrzzzzrrrr” – like we'd done to those young millicents, and then he started singing again:
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 beervomit came out. That was disgusting so we gave him the boot[113], 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. 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[114], and he always had this von[115] 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: this would be real, this would be proper, this would be the nozh[116], the oozy[117], the britva[118], 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 little ptitsa, 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[119] Billyboy. How art thou[120], thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip-oil[121]? Come and get one in the yarbles[122], 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[123], 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 cutthroat britva which, at that time, I could flash artistic. So there we were dratsing[124] away in the dark, the old Luna just coming up. 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[125] 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 showing, and then he got very razdraz[126], waving and screaming and losing his control, so that old Dim chained him right in the glazzies, and this droog of Billyboy's went tottering off and howling his heart out. We were doing very horrorshow, 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.
Of the four of us Dim, as usual, got the worst, 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 long nozh but he was a malenky bit too slow and heavy in his movements to vred[127] 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 twocurtains 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 on like a filthy fatty bear, poking at me with his nozh.
Then we slooshied the sirens and knew the millicents were coming with their pooshkas. 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[128]. I'll have your yarbles off lovely.” Then off they ran, except for Number One Leo 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[129], and in the windows of all the flats you could viddy like blue dancing light. This would be the telly. Tonight was what they called a worldcast, meaning that the same programme was being viddied by everybody in the world that wanted to, that being mostly the middle-aged middle-class lewdies. 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[130] 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[131] 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[132] 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[133] Place as soon as we viddied the big bronze statue of some starry poet with a pipe stuck in a droopy old rot. Going north we came to the filthy old Filmdrome, visited mostly by malchicks like me and my droogs. The autos parked by the sinny[134] weren't all that horrorshow, crappy starry veshches most of them, but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought might do[135]. Georgie had one of these polyclefs[136], as they called them, on his keyring, so we were soon aboard – Dim and Pete at the back, puffing away at their cancers – and I turned on the ignition and started her up real horrorshow.
Then we backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us take off. We went round what was called the backtown for a bit, scaring old vecks and cheenas that were crossing the roads. Then we took the road west. There wasn't much traffic about, so I kept pushing the old noga[137] through the floorboards, and the Durango 95 ate up the road like spaghetti. Soon it was winter trees and dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and at one place I ran over something big with a toothy rot in the headlamps, then it screamed under and old Dim at the back near laughed his gulliver off – “Ho ho ho” – at that. Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing[138] under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them both with a couple of tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went. What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick[139] and good for smecks of the ultra-violent. We came at last to a sort of village, and just outside this village was a small sort of a cottage on its own with a bit of garden. The Luna was well up now, and we could viddy this cottage fine and clear as I put the brake on, the other three giggling like bezoomny, and we could viddy the name on the gate of this cottage veshch was HOME, a funny sort of a name. I got out of the auto, ordering my droogs to stop their giggles and act like serious, and I opened this malenky gate and walked up to the front door. I knocked nice and gentle and nobody came, so I knocked a bit more and this time I could slooshy somebody coming, then a bolt drawn, then the door inched open an inch or so, then I could viddy this one glazz looking out at me and the door was on a chain. “Yes? Who is it?” It was a sharp's goloss, a youngish devotchka by her sound, so I said in a very refined manner of speech, a real gentleman's goloss:
“Pardon, madam, most sorry to disturb you, but my friend and me were out for a walk, and my friend has taken bad all of a sudden with a very troublesome turn, and he is out there on the road dead out and groaning. Would you have the goodness to let me use your telephone to telephone for an ambulance?”
“We haven't a telephone,” said this devotchka. “I'm sorry, but we haven't. You'll have to go somewhere else.” From inside this malenky cottage I could slooshy the clack-clackity-clackclack of some veck typing away, and then the typing stopped and there was this chelloveck's goloss calling: “What is it, dear?”
“Well,” I said, “could you of your goodness please let him have a cup of water? It's like a faint, you see. It seems as though he's passed out in a sort of a fainting fit.” The devotchka sort of hesitated and then said: “Wait.” Then she went off, and my three droogs had got out of the auto quiet, putting their maskies on now, then I put mine on, then it was only a matter of me putting in the old rooker and undoing the chain, me having softened up this devotchka with my gent's goloss, so that she hadn't shut the door like she should have done, us being strangers of the night. The four of us then went roaring in, old Dim playing the shoot[140] as usual with his jumping up and down and singing out dirty slovos, and it was a nice malenky cottage, I'll say that. We all went smecking into the room with a light on, and there was this devotchka sort of hiding, a young pretty bit of sharp with real horrorshow groodies on her, and with her was this chelloveck who was her moodge, youngish too with horn-rimmed otchkies[141]on him, and on a table was a typewriter and all papers scattered everywhere, but there was one little pile of paper like that must have been what he'd already typed, so here was another intelligent type bookman type like that we'd fillied with some hours back, but this one was a writer not a reader. Anyway, he said:
“What is this? Who are you? How dare you enter my house without permission?” And all the time his goloss was trembling and his rookers too.
Then Georgie and Pete went out to find the kitchen, while old Dim waited for orders, standing next to me with his rot wide open. “What is this, then?” I said, picking up the pile like of typing from off of the table, and the horn-rimmed moodge said, trembling:
“That's just what I want to know. What is this? What do you want? Get out at once before I throw you out.” So poor old Dim, masked like Peebee Shelley, had a good loud smeck[142] at that. “It's a book,” I said. “It's a book what you are writing.” I made the old goloss very coarse. “I have always had the strongest admiration for them as can write books.” Then I looked at its top sheet, and there was the name – A C L O C K W O R K O R A N G E – and I said: “That's a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?” Then I started to tear up the sheets and scatter the bits over the floor, and this writer moodge went sort of bezoomny and made for me with his zoobies clenched and his nails ready for me like claws. So that was old Dim's turn and he went grinning and going for this veck's trembling rot, crack crack[143], first left fistie then right, so that our dear old droog the red started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of this book that I was still ripping away at. All this time this devotchka, his loving and faithful wife,just stood like froze by the fireplace, and then she started letting out little malenky creeches, like in time to the like music of old Dim's fisty work. Then Georgie and Pete came in from the kitchen, both munching away, though with their maskies on. Georgie with like a cold leg of something in one rooker and half a loaf of kleb[144]with a big dollop of maslo on it in the other, and Pete with a bottle of beer and a horrorshow rookerful of like plum cake. They went haw haw haw[145], viddying old Dim dancing round and fisting the writer veck so that the writer veck started to platch[146] like his life's work was ruined, going boo hoo hoo[147] with a very bloody rot. I didn't like that, so I said: “Drop that mounch. I gave no permission. Grab hold of this veck here so he can viddy all and not get away.” So they put down their fatty pishcha[148] on the table among all the flying paper and they held the writer veck whose horn-rimmed otchkies were cracked but still hanging on, with old Dim still dancing round while he Allied with the author of 'A Clockwork Orange', making his litso all purple and dripping away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit. “All right, Dim,” I said. “Now for the other veshch, Bog help us all.” So he did the strong-man on the devotchka, who was still creech creech creeching away, locking her rookers from the back, while I ripped away at this and that and the other, the others going haw haw haw still, and real good horrorshow groodies[149] they were, O my brothers, while I got ready for the plunge. Plunging, I could slooshy cries of agony and this writer bleeding veck howling bezoomny with the filthiest of slovos that I already knew and others he was making up. Then after me it was right old Dim should have his turn, which he did in a beasty sort of a way with his Peebee Shelley maskie on, while I held on to her. Then there was a changeover, Dim and me grabbing the slobbering writer veck who was past struggling really, and Pete and Georgie had theirs. Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed – typewriter, lamp, chairs – and Dim, it was typical of old Dim, watered the fire out[150] and was going to dung on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said no. “Out out out out,” I howled. The writer veck and his zheena[151] were not really there, bloody and torn and making noises. But they'd live.
So we got into the waiting auto and I left it to Georgie to take the wheel, me feeling that malenky bit shagged, and we went back to town, running over odd squealing things on the way.
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