Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (9 page)

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

the new way."

"New way?" I said.  "What's this about a new way?  There's

been some very large talk behind my sleeping back and no

error.  Let me slooshy more."  And I sort of folded my rookers

and leaned comfortable to listen against the broken banister-

rail, me being still higher than them, droogs as they called

themselves, on the third stair.

"No offence, Alex," said Pete, "but we wanted to have things

more democratic like.  Not like you like saying what to do and

what not all the time.  But no offence."

George said: "Offence is neither here nor elsewhere.  It's the

matter of who has ideas.  What ideas has he had?"  And he kept

his very bold glazzies turned full on me.  "It's all the small stuff,

malenky veshches like last night.  We're growing up, brothers."

"More," I said, not moving.  "Let me slooshy more."