Stanley Kubrick's A clockwork orange: based on the novel by Anthony Burgess (6 page)

him, which was one thing I had against old Dim.

We got out at Center and walked slow back to the

Korova Milkbar, all going yawwwww a malenky bit and exhi-

biting to moon and star and lamplight our back fillings, be-

cause we were still only growing malchicks and had school in

the daytime, and when we got into the Korova we found it

fuller than when we'd left earlier on.  But the chelloveck that

had been burbling away, in the land, on white and synthemesc

or whatever, was still on at it, going: "Urchins of deadcast in

the way-ho-hay glill platonic time weatherborn."  It was prob-

able that this was his third or fourth lot that evening, for he

had that pale inhuman look, like he'd become a 'thing', and like

his litso was really a piece of chalk carved.  Really, if he wanted

to spend so long in the land, he should have gone into one of

the private cubies at the back and not stayed in the big mesto,

because here some of the malchickies would filly about with

him a malenky bit, though not too much because there were

powerful bruiseboys hidden away in the old Korova who

could stop any riot.  Anyway, Dim squeezed in next to this

veck and, with his big clown's yawp that showed his hanging

grape, he stabbed this veck's foot with his own large filthy

sabog.  But the veck, my brothers, heard nought, being now all

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