When we step outside, I cannot fathom how large the moon is tonight. I tell Alex about six or seven times as we start down the street.
"So, Sofia, love," says Alex, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "What does thou think of thy lovely Korova Milkbar? How art thou feeling?"
"I feel funky," I answer. "Everything's clearer now."
"It sharpens you up, it does!" he says, rubbing my shoulder. Then he says more softly into my ear, "Gets you ready for a bit of the ole ultra-violence."
"Ultraviolet?"
"Georgieboy! You govoreet so well of gold and jewels and like and other cal," Alex says, leaving my side and working his way towards his droogs. "Where does this starry ptitsa reside?"
"Just that away," Georgie answers, pointing down the street. "Just a few blocks down there, right on the edge of town. But it's a skorry walk, nothing too long like."
"We're going to the cat lady's house?" I ask Mick as we continue walking.
"Yeah. You remember that scene? It's the scene with that… giant… dildo," Mick whispers to me all immature like. I burst out into a fit of hysteric giggles as we try to catch up with Alex and his droogs.
It's not that I have trouble walking at all or anything – in fact, I can walk perfectly fine. If anything, I can probably go for a speed-walk right about now, or I can even run a marathon it feels like. My senses are on fire, everything is clear, and my mind is literally going faster than a Nascar race. You can't get any sharper than this, O my brothers.
"Anybody up for a little cancie wancie?" I hear Pete ask. He's removing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
"Don't mind if I do," says Mick.
"Me too!" I say, watching as Pete hands Mick the cigarette.
"Since when do you smoke?" Mick asks, looking at me funny.
"Never. But lemme try," I say, nearly pushing Mick out of my way aggressively to get to Pete. I never quite notice how cute and boyish looking Pete is until now. He's looking at me a bit shyly, seeming to still be a little shaken from the previous beating he'd witnessed by Alex. I try to remind myself that he's as bad as the others, but I can't really help it. I pity him in a way.
"Cheer up, cutie," I say, allowing him to light my cigarette. "You don't look so hot, huh?"
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"I got a sixth sense, ya know?" I say, continuing to walk beside him, inhaling the cigarette and just about wheezing my lungs out. "I can tell when people are out of it." That is a total lie, and definitely not something I'd say if I had a clear head. Then I lean in close to him so that I can whisper in his ear. "Don't mind, Alex, all right? Great bolshy yarblockos to him, eh?!"
"What's that I slooshy?" I hear Alex say, turning sharply towards Pete and I, Pete just about whimpering away so that I'm in the deadly spotlight of Alex's piercing glazzies.
"Baby, you heard wrong," is all I can say, still attempting to smoke and walk at the same time. "I govoreet nothing. Nothing I tell ya! I'm a good kid, I never do cal. Never, do I."
"Thou has quite the yazhick after a good ole pleet of moloko-plus, eh?" Alex asks, beginning to walk beside me now. He takes my cigarette from me, and I'm too afraid to protest as I watch him smoke it. He looks over at me and practically blows the smoke in my face. "We'll have to do this more often."
"Probably not too often," I say, kicking a rock in the street, my senses quite heightened but not really on the cautious side. "You got lucky tonight. I wasn't even going to try moloko-plus but somehow… somehow I did!" I cry, throwing my arms up and letting out a laugh.
"I viddy that. I viddy that nice and sparkling clear," Alex says. "And doest thou know what that govoreets my lovely mozg?"
"What?" I ask, not really having a clue.
"You've got such willpower when it comes to thy lovely consensual agreement we had so earlier on… but just like that moloko-plus, you'll be coming round quite soon, Sofia, love," he says, now wrapping his arm around my shoulders again and bringing me very close to him. His hand is giving my arm a good rub, and then stops at my shoulder and squeezes it. "Quite soon, I viddy," he says, taking another puff of the cigarette. I can feel the smoke burning my eyes.
I don't have the willpower to push him away. In fact, being touched even by such a creep like him comforts me in that bizarre state-of-mind I'm in, moloko-plus and marijuana just about causing me to pass out. He actually smells kind of nice, like clean laundry and maybe a hint of cologne. I can feel my head sort of snuggling into his shoulder, his hand just rubbing my arm, very comforting like it felt.
"In fact, you seem to be coming on real horrorshow right about now, eh?" he whispers into my ear, his nose rubbing into my hair.
I feel myself kind of murmur a soft "Mmmhmm."
"Atta girl," he answers.
"That domy there!" a voice says.
I nearly fall over when Alex leaves my side, unable to even realize what is happening and how uncomfortably close I'd been to Alex. But what is so strange about it is that it wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, falling asleep in his arms was the only thing that'd been on my mind at the time.
"We'll try the front door, brothers," says Alex, reaching for his mask and pulling it on, as do the others.
"Wait a sec," interrupts Mick. "You guys got masks."
"Yes, I can viddy that, brother," says Alex.
"We don't got maskies," says Mick, looking over at me. "Our identities will be right out there!"
"That is a problem," says Alex. He kind of stands there, thinking things over. I'm hypnotized and almost in love with him at this point, just seeing him standing there thinking with his mask on. It's really bizarre. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a white hanky, whipping it out and handing it to Mick. "Here."
"What am I suppose to do with it?" Mick asks.
"Wrap thy tashtook around thou litso, gloopy basterd thou art," laughs Alex. Nobody else really seems to laugh, and Mick just kind of lets off a grin as he wraps the hanky around the lower part of his face, cowboy style, just so his eyes are visible.
"Um… yeah, what about me?" I ask, raising my hand like some forgotten child.
"Here," says Pete, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a hanky of his own. There's a little patchwork of flowers in one corner of it. "Use mine."
"Thank you!" I cry generously, reacting as if he'd given me some pristine diamond instead of an adorable little hanky. "I like the flowers…"
The rest of the guys have already started up towards the house. Pete follows close behind them while Mick and I slack behind, attempting to tie the goddamn hankies around our faces. Once we get them on, we point at each other, laughing silly and starting to yell out "Yee-HAAW!"s and putting our hoods up. Someone is telling us to shut up, and I assume it's Alex, so we flat out start giggling and shushing each other, our hands over our tashtook covered mouths.
We follow them towards the front entrance, only once I'm nearly by Alex's side at the front door, I feel someone grab me and yank me behind a bush. It's Pete again, my new best friend!
"Hey, new best droog!" I cry. "You lent me a cancer and your tashy-tooky, you just gotta be the gooviest, droogiest person I ever met, you know?"
"Good Bog, shut up!" whispers Pete. "Alex is trying to govoreet to the starry ptitsa."
"Starry, starry night," I hear Mick begin to sing from behind another bush. Another "SHH!" breaks out, and Mick falls silent. I'm about ready to die at this point, squatting there besides Pete with my hands shoved over my tashtook covered mouth. There's all this banging coming from the front door as Alex lays it on the letter opener.
"Who's there?!"
"Excuse me, missus!" cries Alex in a very sad, acting like voice. "I'm sorry to bother you, but there's been a terrible accident! My friend's out lying in the middle of the road, bleeding to death! I was wondering if I might use a telephone to telephone for an ambulance?!"
I almost start to crack up just because Alex said telephone twice in that sentence, and I'm nearly dying again, suffocating myself as I attempt not to make any noise. Pete just squats beside me, shaking his head. I think I did make him laugh just for a second though.
"I'm very sorry," says this familiar voice, "but I never let strangers into the house at this time of night."
"But missus, this is an emergency!" Alex begs.
"There's a telephone just about a mile down the road, I suggest you use that one."
There's a slight pause, and I peer around the bush to see Alex kind of reacting in an impatient way.
"All right, missus, I understand. You cannot be blamed for being too cautious, what with all the scoundrels and rogues about in the night. I'll have to take my suffering friend elsewhere. I'm sorry if I've disturbed you. Have a good night!"
I'm still peering around the bush, and Alex quickly turns away from the door, walking off in a determined, somewhat pissed off way. His three droogs are already up on their feet, walking after him as they begin to round the house. I can barely stand up after squatting for so long, my legs practically killing me. I just about fall over, and Mick has to help me up.
"There, lads," says Alex, pointing up towards this window on the second or third story. "I'm gonna get through that window and then open the front door. Give us a noga up on the pletchoes, Dim."
Dim obeys silently, bending over and hauling Alex's ass upwards towards a drainpipe. Alex gets all handy and starts to spider-monkey up the wall, right for the open window.
"Can I go next?" I ask in a whisper.
"Sorry, darling. Only Alex goes in," Georgie tells me, his voice very low.
"That's not fair, is it?" I ask Mick. Mick just shakes his head in reply. "Listen, guys, we're gonna have a look around. We'll be on the lookout, okie dokie?"
"Sure," Georgie simply answers. I grab Mick by the arm and drag him with me back towards the front of the house.
"What are we doing?" Mick asks. "We'd better stick with the group, you know? We could get lost, and-"
"You act like we're little kids or something," I say. "Besides, you're the one who wanted to hang out with Alex DeLarge."
"What are you talking about? That's what we're doing right now," says Mick.
"That's what I mean. I'm saying we gotta get in there with him, you know? Get inside the house."
"What… are you talking about?" Mick asks me.
"We gotta help him out!"
"No."
"Yes, c'mon! See the light up there?" I ask him. I point up towards a window, the curtain drawn and light pooling out from the other side. "We're gonna try to get up there. I don't know why Alex went for the window over there. If he had any brains, he'd have gone for this one."
"Sofia, I don't think it's a good-"
"C'mon then!" I saw, practically climbing on top of Mick. "Give me a leg up!"
"Jesus, fine! Take it easy!" he says. He bends down and lets me climb up onto his knee, then sort of hoists me up higher as I reach for an upper ledge, heaving myself onto it, grunting and wheezing quite loudly.
"You got it?" Mick asks.
"Yeppers."
"Jesus, you're crazy."
"It's not me, I swear. It's the moloko," I say, giggling a little bit as I look towards the stars and see the Big Dipper. It was nice to see something familiar for once.
"Wait, what do you plan on doing next?" says Mick.
"I'm gonna get you up here!" I say.
"How?"
I lay flat on my stomach, my arm hanging over the ledge as I reach for Mick. Our fingers barely touch.
"Almost… there!" I cry, straining.
"Yeah, that's not gonna work," he says, not even attempting to try.
"All right. I'm gonna get inside, find the front door, and open it for you! Because we all know that that's the last thing that Alex is gonna do."
"So wait..." Mick contemplates. "Are you just gonna let Alex kill that cat lady then?"
"Excuse me?!" I exclaim, my voice going up an octave. "What the fuck do you mean, let him kill her?"
"Well, I mean, you were all concerned about F. Alexander and his wife. I figure you'd want to change it this time," he says.
"Yeah… I mean, she's not a terrible cat lady or anything. But… that's the whole point of 'A Clockwork Orange', isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess. So she is gonna die then?"
My brain is still in fast-forward, going so fast that it is just about ready to explode. I don't answer Mick as I run a hand through my hair, and suddenly I nearly jump out of my skin when I hear a sudden cry of surprise.
"Who the devil are you?! What the ruddy hell do you think you're doing in here?"
I practically bang heads with the window as I press my ear to the glass, realizing that the whole scene is just taking place beyond this window. My heart is hammering like crazy. I don't feel much like myself at all, and all I want to do is just burst in and have a dance party or something.
"Oh, shit!" I say, whispering down to Mick. "It's happening! It's happening!"
"Yeah, yeah, will you get the front door open for me so I can come in too?" he calls from below.
I ignore him as I sort of nudge at the window, wondering if it will budge. I become quite surprised though as I sort of press all my weight against it, only to realize that a simple finger flick could've done the job. The whole thing opens right up, and I fall smack onto a carpeted floor, just about somersaulting into the middle of the room.
"Bloody hell!" this voice cries. I look up, my head aching something awful, and realize that I'm staring face to face with the cat lady in her emerald green jumpsuit. Her eyes are nearly bugging out of her head, and for a second I'm completely convinced that I'm dreaming.
I'm staring at her sideways though, because I'm all scrunched up bizarrely from my fall. It's kind of hard to stand up though, because I realize that my clothes are soaked, only because I've fallen flat into several saucers of milk. All these cats are nearby, hissing and meowing up something awful, their ears flattening back against their heads. I've always been quite fond of cats…
All I can muster are a few moans and mumbles, and I adjust my hanky over my face and finally meet eyes with Alex, who's perched by the door across the room. I eye all the pornographic works of art on the walls, always curious as to why this old cat lady, who seems very good-natured, would have such disgusting, graphic things like that up for decoration. All I can think is it representing how perverted the world has become, how violent and tainted everything is now, how sex is literally now a work of art.
"Surprise, surprise!" Alex exclaims, merry-like. "Our malenky govoreet through the letter hole earlier on was not, shall we say, satisfactory, yes?"
"What the hell's going on?!" the Cat Lady cries, wild eyed as she looks back and forth from me to Alex. "Keep your distance, the both of you! You villainous young toads! I shall be forced to strike the both of you!"
For some reason I am on the brink of cracking up like no other, so I bite down so hard on my tongue that I'm sure I've pierced the skin. I'm sitting on my knees on the floor, one of my knees actually in a saucer of milk as I watch the scene before me. And that's when I see it – that giant, phallus sculpture sitting right beside Alex. He's surveying the room now, his head slowly glancing wayward until closer, closer… bam. His eyes land on the phallus sculpture. And that's when he goes, "Naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka!"
I cannot help but burst into outrageous giggles and practically double over on the carpet.
"Now listen here you little bastards! Turn around and go back the way you came!"
Alex's eyes cannot peel themselves away from the phallus sculpture, entranced by the thing. His hand reaches towards it.
"Don't touch it! It's a very important work of art!" the Cat Lady cries, very concerned over the sculpture. This just kills me, it nearly does.
Slowly he starts to reach out for it again, ignoring the Cat Lady's protests as he pokes it and watches it rock back and forth, back and forth, completely hypnotized.
"What is that you want?!" the Cat Lady cries impatiently.
"To be perfectly honest, madam," says Alex, finally breaking his gaze from the sculpture, "our school is have a competition as to who can sell the most magazines," Alex explains.
After that I honestly cannot stop laughing. I feel like I'm having a breakdown, no control whatsoever over my body.
"Cut the shit!" the Cat Lady cries.
And soon it's as if I'm not really there, but it's almost like I'm sitting in front of the TV, just watching the movie all over again. Soon the two of them are dancing around, this bizarre sort of edgy ballet, Alex balancing the phallus sculpture in front of him while the crazy Cat Lady moves round him with the Beethoven bust, failing at attempting to strike him.
The world can end and I won't notice. I'm doubled over now, my head in the carpet as I laugh and laugh and laugh. And then suddenly a peculiar pain sort of ignites in my arm, and I realize that it's one of the cats, and I've suddenly come back to earth. They've jumped right onto my arm, claws and jaws dug right into my skin, and my sudden reaction to them is all bezoomny like. I'm up on my feet, running around, trying to shake this cat off as if they were those crabs that have pinched your fingers. But they won't let go. And soon I'm stumbling into more saucers of milk, lying about on the floor, slipping and sliding and crashing into more cats. I hear wild hisses and cries and "Waaah!"s and I'm just about ready to actually hurt one of the cats –who've all pounced onto me, biting, and scratching – which is something I've never done in my life. Believe me, I'm a cat person. But these cats, so devotional to their mistress, have gone completely haywire on me. And I can barely see where I'm going. I'm just this floppy ragdoll, shaking about and running everywhere. And that's when I fall right behind the Cat Lady, her body tripping right over me as her feet go flying up and she falls backwards onto the floor. And while I'm crawling on all fours, Alex sort of climbs right on top of me, the phallus sculpture raised over his head, and he brings it crashing down right onto the Cat Lady.
Her scream nearly causes my heart to explode. I'm back. And I don't like what's happening. I can feel blood running across my skin from all the injuries from the damn cats.
And then this silence sort of fills the room. The cats all seem to scamper away from the scene, the death filling the room like a disease. Her body still rests against me from her fall, her leg kind of twitching in an abnormal way against my shoulder. My ears are so sharp that I can already hear the sirens approaching.
I slowly cock my head to the side in order to try and see Alex, but to also avoid the state of the Cat Lady. Alex is frozen for a moment, clutching the giant phallus sculpture, and then he suddenly stumbles backwards and into me. He seems to be in shock. I finally realize how to control my limbs again, and sort of grab him and drag us to the door, unable to breath with that hanky still covering my mouth. I can't really think, and I don't want to look back at the Cat Lady, and all I want to do is just get the hell out.
I've got Alex by the arm, crying "Go go go!"
Alex abandons the sculpture and doesn't fight me anymore as we both kind of charge out of the room. We find stairs that lead downwards and we take them four at a time. We come across the entrance hall, one that is familiar to me because of the film. Alex beats me to the front door, and just as he opens it, I realize something that I've completely forgotten.
He steps out on the front terrace before I can protest, though, and exclaims to his friends, "C'mon, let's go!"
"Not you, brother," says Dim. "You'll be staying." And that's when Dim belts the bottle of milk right at Alex's nose, this crash of glass and white liquid flying everywhere. "I should not like what you've done to me, brother!" I'm still taken off guard by the sight, nearly dying of a heart attack, still unable to breathe right even with the hanky removed from my face.
Alex collapses to the ground, sobbing and hollering like crazy as his so-called droogs take off. I'm standing there, wondering what to do, the sound of the sirens coming closer and closer.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" I cry. "Mick?!"
I realize that he's been standing there the whole time, staring at the two of us with wide eyes.
"What do we do?" I ask him. "W-we… we can't just leave him, can we?"
"But… that's how the story goes!" says Mick.
"But, I mean…" is all I can muster. The sirens are coming closer. I can't even think. "C'mon!" And before I know it, I'm grabbing one of Alex's arms and hoisting him over my shoulder.
"The rozzes are coming! Those grazhny basterds! I'm blind! Me glazzies! I'm blind!" Alex belts.
Mick kind of bends over awkwardly and grabs Alex's bowler hat and cane that have been abandoned on the ground, looking like some young, petrified child.
"Mick, help me! C'mon!"
And then Mick grabs Alex's other arm and heaves his other side, and together the three of us trek off as fast as we can, the red and blue lights coming into view.
And while we run off, my mind still on fast-forward and my body in a state of shock, I still cannot help but ask myself… What have I done?
First of all, I'm really sorry about the amount of time it took to post this chapter! To be honest, the reason I came back to it was because last night I had a dream about Alex! I was having a party or something, and he came to the door and when I opened it, I literally jumped in his arms and was like "Alex!" and he smiled at me and we were both so happy to see each other, as if we were old friends. It was so bizarre. But anyways, that got me thinking about this story again, and I'll admit that it has been hard to write, but I figured that I owed it to you all to post another chapter. And here it is! Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! - Plainsong30
