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thetimetravellinggaybar · 7 years

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Chapter Two: New Arrivals

“This isn't the Royal Academy!” bellowed Oscar Wilde, bursting through the double doors of the bar. Baffled, he stood stock-still in the entrance. He held his chin high, eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you high?” A voice behind him asked.

“Sir? I fear your meaning is rather like an eel: difficult to grasp, and most likely quite vile.”

A whole host of voices now rose to protest. “Sod off, I'm trying to get out.” “Of course this isn't the bloody Royal Academy.” “You’re standing in the door.” “Maybe you've had enough for the night,” they called.

“I'm not drunk, what kind of a barbarian arrives drunk to his own reading? Now, if I don’t find the hall soon, I'm going to be late! Would someone be so kind as to direct me to – ”

“The Royal Academy? It’s over there,” someone sneered, gesturing towards the men's room. The man proceeded to elbow his way past Wilde, swearing as he tripped over his walking-stick.

“My goodness,” the poet gasped, before setting off, coattails flying, in the direction which the kind (albeit somewhat lacking in decorum) stranger had indicated.

He burst through the door, a genial smile on his face, “Good evening everyone, so sorry I'm late, I got a little – ”

He stopped in his tracks.

The room was small and grubby; something stank. A single man stood at one of the urinals, looking more than a little shocked.

“Oh… oh. I see.” Wilde turned on his heels and left in disgust, leaving the poor man to wonder.

He finally took the time to analyse his surroundings. There was music – of a sort – yet there was no orchestra. There were tables strewn haphazardly across the room, and a little further off an area over which multicoloured fires gleamed: they seemed to be electric lights, of incomparable force. They were in the shape of cannons, and projected their otherworldly glow from the bare beams on the ceiling. As for what the people were wearing – he had never imagined that one could wear so little in such bad taste.

They all seemed to be studiously pretending they weren't staring at him.

Ending his observations abruptly, Oscar sighed dramatically, rolled his eyes, and gave in: “Alright, alright, you got me! Who are you, where are you? Cyril? Did Bosie set you up to this? You know, it is quite extraordinary how you've set this up, but – ”

At this point, the crowd began to turn uncomfortably. There were hushed whispers. They seemed to be making a point of ignoring him.

“There are limits, and you are fast approaching them! You are testing my patience, whoever did this!… If this carries on any longer, I may miss my reading entirely. Miss Ambrose Green and her fiance will be there, I must be there to greet them… Where am I, what is this foul prank... and will someone please direct me to the Royal Academy!”

Wilde overheard a man whispering to another man. “I think he's serious. How many has he had? I thought he just walked in.” Outraged, Wilde glowered at the two. “Who do you think you are?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” the first man retorted.

“I am Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, winner of the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek Studies, Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize for Poetry, and the Rooney Prize for Literature, no less!”

Dead silence, followed by fits of laughter from all sides. Then all the bar's occupants returned to their drinks – all, except for one man. His attire, though too bland for Wilde's taste, was almost acceptable, with a bit of a preference for tweed; he approached Wilde, amazed.

“I don't believe we've been introduced, but your performance was breathtaking, an absolute marvel. You must be a big name in acting. In fact – I do think I recognise you. Your name is?”

“Acting, sir? Why, I haven't taken to the stage since my second year at Trinity. You must be mistaken.”

The man only chuckled. “Alright then. Admirable strength of – well, character, if a pun may be permitted.” He stuck out his hand. “Wystan Hugh Auden. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Enchanté.”

“A conversation with Oscar Wilde. God, will I have something to tell Erika about when I get home. On that note...” Auden hesitated. “At the risk of appearing, shall we say, a bit odd, I was wondering if you could tell me where we are?”

“I'm afraid I'm as lost as you are. Were you on your way to the reading as well?”

Auden glanced at Wilde, surprised at the tenaciousness of his ‘act’, but in no measure hesitant to play along. “I'm afraid I wasn't, but I’d have loved to go. Forever at the service of the great Oscar Wilde.”

Oscar's eyebrows shot up. “Well,” he began, “since I don't suppose I'll be getting to the Royal Academy anytime soon...”

“Are you serious?”

“Poetry is always serious.”

“You are incredible.”

Oscar flushed slightly. “Flattered. Shall we?”

But before he could so much as begin, a gasp was heard from nearby, followed by a yell:

“Oscar! My word, is that you? What on Earth are you doing here?”

“Oh, who's that?” Wilde turned in search of the voice – familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. His glance fell upon a face he knew well. “Walt! Walt Whitman! No, it couldn't possibly be! Why, I thought you were in New Jersey!”

“Well, so did I, until recently,” the American smiled. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where we are?”

“Not the faintest. No matter, though. Have you seen these lights? How marvellous!” Oscar waved broadly with his walking-stick, narrowly missing a tall girl with bright blue hair.

“Watch it!”

“So sorry. So many people, so little room,” the poet apologized; but the girl was already halfway across the bar. Oscar watched as she made her way onto the lighted arena, on which people seemed to be moving in tune with the music, in something akin to dancing – a form of it looking like a daring, though perhaps ill-considered, new invention of some sort of avant-garde.

He noted her fantastically high-heeled, glittering red shoes (an interesting statement for further consideration) as well as her absurdly short, skin-tight skirt (perhaps she had forgotten to put on her dress, and everyone had simply avoided mention of it out of tact?). Her hair baffled him; he wondered how they made such wigs. It looked so delicate, so full!

As he watched, she walked up to another girl, whose long, wavy dark hair almost concealed the sparse garments she had on underneath it: her attire was no less indecent than her friend's. The girl with the blue hair put an arm around her friend’s waist and kissed her on the lips.

Oscar turned away. He was beginning to have his doubts about the reputability of this establishment, although certainly it was like no brothel he had ever seen.“What an odd little place, don’t you think?” He remarked.

But the other two – Walt and this Auden fellow – were already deep in conversation.

“...and his Sphinx is brilliant, don’t you find?” Whitman was saying.

Oscar raised an eyebrow. Whose Sphinx? Could it be his own?

Auden was nodding, smiling. “Brilliant, of course… and so chilling. Such visceral detail… the understanding he has of the human condition, as it were - ”

“Oh, it isn’t a human poem! Certainly not!” Oscar broke in, only to be cut off again at the very offset of his diatribe. “The entire aesthetic of the mystical being wholly detached - ”

“The cholera epidemic in New York? Mystical?” It was Auden’s turn to look skeptical. Then he chuckled: “Or were you thinking of something else?”

Oscar stopped dead, reddening. “Oh, ah, yes. In fact I was. One of my earlier works went by the same name,” he mumbled after a moment. “May I inquire, then, as to which Sphinx you were referring to? Besides the Egyptian, of course...”

“Poe’s. During the dread reign of the Cholera, et cetera, et cetera. Have you read it?” Wystan was smiling now.

“Oh, Poe! Brilliant man! Although I prefer his poetic work - I’m afraid the value of the Sphinx as a political stylism is lost on me,” Wilde sighed. “Its terror has always been more spiritual than physical to me, if you understand.”

“I thought it was a grand metaphor myself,” laughed Wystan, “but to each their own.”

Oscar was becoming furious. He was the most influential literary critic of his century, if not his millennium. Nobody dared to disagree with him - much less to laugh at him.

Walt broke in before Oscar could come up with an appropriate reply. “This is rather abrupt, but are you familiar with the poetry of Richard Barnfield? He is a personal favourite of mine.”

“How incredible. I thought I was the last man on Earth who still read Barnfield.” Auden was easily distracted.

“Oh, I adore him.”

“Oh yes. A few of his especially - you have read Cynthia, I hope?” Auden’s eyes gleamed; his smile was wide. Both were emphatic, enthusiastic.

“Naturally.” Walt winked when he said this, a gesture Oscar couldn’t help but notice. Racking his brains, the Irishman managed to piece together a memory of this Cynthia: ‘the love of a shepherd to a boy’, he recalled. What treachery! What innuendo! Walt, pursuing this stranger - this infiltrator - before his very eyes…

Oscar decided to take matters into his own hands.

“And Marlowe, what of him? On the subject of the Bard’s neglected contemporaries,” he began, in his most pompous tone. “Edward the Second in particular has similar themes.”

“I never particularly enjoyed that one,” frowned Wystan. “I see what you mean, but it never really spoke to me.”

Oscar’s face drooped. This, truly, was ultimate rejection: the final proof that he had made a fool of himself in front of this most handsome, most articulate gentleman! He wanted desperately to make an impression. The compliments he had received for what Wystan had thought was acting had lit sparks in his soul, and he was unwilling to let them die. And yet everything he tried seemed to backfire, and he was at a loss for words: him! Wit of the nation! Pinnacle of eloquence! He had not felt such despair in decades!

Wystan, pitying the now visibly distressed Wilde, tried to make amends. “Obviously, it is still perfectly respectable in some interpretations... with many beautiful aspects... it’s just not really the kind of style I’m after,” he added. Oscar smiled weakly.

Whitman broke in. “I completely agree with you. Edward the Second is hardly a literary symbol. Even within Marlowe’s canon, it’s rarely recognized, and with good reason as well. To involve such themes in the tragic… it is barely a poem, never mind a love poem.”

“Don’t mind my wondering, but I didn’t know you read such things, my dear Walter,” Oscar commented, his manners crisp, his voice like a dagger coated in honey.

Walt shot Oscar a piercing stare. No words were exchanged, but both parties knew what this meant: “Back off, this one is mine!”

“Poetry is all about different interpretations. Neither of you is to say the other is wrong.” Wystan spread his palms, as in a plea for diplomacy.

The second Wystan had his back turned, Oscar bit his thumb at Walt.

“DO YOU BITE YOUR THUMB AT ME, SIR?”

“NO, I DO NOT BITE MY THUMB AT YOU, BUT I DO BITE MY THUMB!”

Wystan turned back, stared at both of them in turn, then nearly fell to the floor laughing. As the other two stared at him in horror, he slowly regained his composure, and looked at them, as if trying to decipher their intentions. Partly in jest and partly out of curiosity - still certain it was all an act - he lifted his hand to his mouth, and bit his own thumb at them both.

Complete silence. Then: Wilde punched Auden. Auden punched him back.

Wilde crumpled, doubled over, and sank to the floor, clutching his cheek.

It didn’t take long for Walt Whitman to decide where his allegiances lay. He grabbed Auden by his lapels.

“HOW DARE YOU! YOU, IN YOUR IGNORANCE AND YOUR CALLOUSNESS, HAVE INSULTED TWO MEN’S HONOUR IN AS MANY MINUTES; AND WHAT’S MORE, YOU HAVE INJURED A MAN. NO, WORSE STILL: YOU HAVE INJURED A BEAUTY. A MAN SO BEAUTIFUL AS OSCAR FALLS INTO THE REALM OF THE SAINTLY; IT IS A SIN TO TOUCH HIM,” he bellowed, enraged beyond measure.

Auden looked down at his opponent. Slowly, reality began to dawn on him. This was no act. Wherever he was, it wasn’t 1953. “I just punched… Oscar Wilde… in the face…”

Oscar stared at him, his face showing both confusion and anger. “What an absolutely fascinating observation. Are you quite certain of it?”

Oscar’s voice was cracking. His anger was fast dissolving, giving way to heartbreak. He really liked Wystan but couldn’t understand the sudden betrayal. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Auden, repentant, crouched down and sat next to his new friend, who had been lying on the floor since the blow. He kissed his forehead.

“Oh no, oh my god… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d take offense. I just couldn’t believe you were real. I’m not from the same era as you are… do you understand?”

“I may as well say yes.” Oscar got up, dusted off his suit, then stretched out a kid-gloved hand to help Auden up.

In his relief, Oscar didn’t even notice Whitman staring at them, looking miffed. He refused to let go of Auden’s hand, and the two walked up to the bar.

“Do you know where we could find a place to stay for the night?” Auden asked the barman.

The barman gave them a knowing grin. “Sure! Step outside, turn to your right. Go straight down a couple of blocks, there should be a motel just on the left. They’re pretty decent.”

The two walked towards the door. As they left, Oscar whispered into Wystan’s ear, “What… is a motel?”

“Like a hotel, only cheaper. Perhaps not up to your standards, but it’ll have to do,” Wystan smiled.

Walt stared at them as they walked out, not quite crying but definitely not far from it.

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