CHAPTER 7 - Drunk Shakespeare

The first thing Dan noticed was William looked real.  Not the bust or painting real, but the blotchy skin, bad hair day kind of real that comes from spending most of the previous night in a tavern.

The second thing he noticed was the distinct lack of the ubiquitous Elizabethan collar.  Apparently when he wasn’t getting his portrait done, he dressed rather normally.

Freddie spoke.  “Mr. Shakespeare.”

He did not look up as he replied.  “Call me Bill.”

“I wanted to ask you a question about Francis Bacon.”

With that, Bill looked up from his writing, rather cross.  “Hell, him again?  If he sent you round here to pester me again, tell him to bugger off. I’m not interested in turning his thoughts about science and philosophy into performance.”

“No, no, he didn’t send us. . .  Wait, he what?”

“He wants me to write a play based on his ideas of science and nature.  Can you imagine anything so boring?  He even wrote a couple of dramas himself, horrible things, all talky and going nowhere.  I told him to burn them.  Stick to your damn essays, I told him, but no.  He’s got the theatre bug and can’t cast it off.”

“Unbelievable.”

“And this is a man they say is on track to direct our country.  I wouldn’t trust him to direct a revival of ‘Oedipus Rex.’”

Dan suddenly became concerned they had broken the creative flow of the greatest writer in history.  “Can we buy you a drink?”

Bill grunted.  “Someone should.”