Banging Denmark Read online

  JAKE: – That’s exactly what I said to do –

  WARHAMMERBOB: She totally called me in tears the next day to ask where I went. I got a boner just listening …!

  JAKE: I hope you put it to good use.

  WARHAMMERBOB: She came over to talk it out. And [beat] I fucked her.

  JAKE: And what are your feelings about her now?

  WARHAMMERBOB: Now that I’ve fucked her, I’m feeling I should get her best friend over later – ’cos I’d like to fuck her, too.

  JAKE: The studio switch is lighting up like a Christmas tree now for real, Bob. Your tribe is proud of you!

  WARHAMMERBOB: When it was done and she was curled up on the bed – she was shivering, kinda rocking back and forth, her face swollen and red with tears and regret … and I felt … Just so good about myself. I play a lot of heavy-melee online combat games, but nothing’s ever made me feel … this much of a man before. And I wanted to thank you for that.

  JAKE: No, thank you, Hammer-head –

  WARHAMMERBOB: Enjoy that boat of yours. Don’t rock it too much.

  JAKE: ‘If the boat’s rocking, don’t come knocking – wait your turn, I’ll be done with her soon.’

  He flicks to the next caller.

  JAKE: This is Santa Claus … Is Coming – and this is Guy DeWitt, we have … [Reads the screen of a computer] ‘MrTearsDry’. What’s wrong with you today, sailor?

  MRTEARSDRY: Are you really on a boat?

  By this point it should be light enough to show that ‘Guy’ is not on a boat. He’s in a dingy room, a spacious yet long-untended bachelor pad, and is dressed like a slob. He is wearing a headset, which lets him communicate with his callers and wander around, maybe pouring himself cereal or shitty instant coffee.

  JAKE: Coming at you live from the Open Hole, a sweet 2015 Bavaria cruiser I picked up last year – from one of the many deserving gentlemen I’ve spoken to on this show. Hear that? [He improvises a noise with what’s around him] That’s the sound of some ocean waves …

  MRTEARSDRY: I guess there’s some money to be made off lonely guys like me –

  JAKE: There’s money to be made, Mister, if a feminist … [he sets off an evil noise] … takes to Twitter to defame, in public, an honest gentleman – and to denigrate the business from which he makes a humble living … There’s money to made, if you take that bitch to court, and you win.

  ‘What happened to the feminist, Guy? Where is sad, old, angry Ishtar Madigan now?’

  He hits a button; the computer plays the following voice:

  EVIL COMPUTER: She … Was … Destroyed.

  JAKE: What was that last part, again?

  EVIL COMPUTER: … Destroyed.

  JAKE: This is a Seduction Community Announcement: when we stand up for ourselves, as men, that’s when we get to have nice things. [Back to MRTEARSDRY] But something tells me – Mr-Tears-Dry – you’re not having many nice things, or you wouldn’t be calling my live helpline –

  MRTEARSDRY: I … I – I’m a technical, science-type person – I’m not used to talking about my feelings, but – I didn’t know where else I could –

  JAKE: You’re in a ‘safe space’, Tears. We’re your brothers, and we’re here for you.

  MRTEARSDRY: I’ve been spending lots of time with this … girl.

  JAKE is in a state of Ready Response.

  JAKE: Tell us about her.

  MRTEARSDRY: – I’ve been with heaps of girls before, right – heaps –

  JAKE: Lots of them, right?

  MRTEARSDRY: Lots of heaps. Um – and all pretty and hot, uh, total babes and – and she’s like none of those girls. But the more that I’m around her, I just … want to understand what she thinks about things, and how she feels about the world.

  I think there’s something wrong with me.

  JAKE: You’re not alone, okay? / You are not –

  / JAKE notices ANNE in her different reality. He’s in it, too – at a desk, in a library. She moves a loose strand of hair. She has an old illustrated book and a pair of dust gloves. She will be going through the book, inspecting for damage.

  JAKE: [describing what ANNE is doing as he watches her do it, and to himself] Was she turning the pages of an old, precious book laid out on her desk at the library – ?

  MRTEARSDRY: Yes! Except, she was dropping coins into the coffee machine in the hallway of the postgrad lab –

  JAKE: … And you wish you could just become her gloves to touch her hands …

  ANNE turns the pages of her book.

  MRTEARSDRY: Can you even use a pickup opener on this chick?

  ANNE turns the pages of her book.

  JAKE: [Beat, to himself] Come on! You have a million openers – !

  MRTEARSDRY: [Beat] – You still there?

  JAKE: [Beat] What? [His attention is redrawn to the computer set up for a moment] Yeah – yeah, totally here – you should use an opener. Go your best game, always – [distracted by ANNE, speaking to himself] Your best, natural game. The easiest approach is an approach. ‘Hi’. ‘Hi.’ ‘Hi there.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘What’ch you doin’?’. ‘Hi, what’s your name?’

  ANNE: [suddenly, to JAKE] Excuse me?

  Beat.

  ANNE: Are you dynamically re-experiencing this encounter with me – or recording your podcast at home?

  JAKE: Sorry?!

  ANNE: Did you just ask my name?

  JAKE: My name – is Jake.

  ANNE: I don’t need to know your name.

  MRTEARSDRY: … Whenever she talks to me, my game totally falls apart.

  JAKE: Your name –

  ANNE: – is on my namebadge. Right in front of you. Here. Anne. [With a gesture.] ‘Anne’.

  JAKE: You’re from Europe some place?

  ANNE: Yes, but you pronounce it just the same. [Beat] ‘Anne’.

  [He says nothing]

  ANNE: ‘Annnnnnnnnnnne’.

  Beat.

  Can I help you?

  JAKE: Help me?

  ANNE: But I can only help you if you really want my help. If you don’t, I’ll get back to my book.

  JAKE: [To MRTEARSDRY and himself] You should try and slap her with a neg hit.

  MRTEARSDRY: Every time I slap, or hit, I crash. I burn.

  ANNE turns a page of her book.

  JAKE: [Regaining his composure, trying a line] It’s nice to meet a girl from Europe – but I’ve always thought European girls were kinda frosty.

  ANNE: Yes. Especially in the North. It’s very – very – cold.

  And she turns on her heel, with regal precision, and marches out …

  JAKE: [Watching her walk, to himself] Dude – !

  … And ANNE spills her books to the ground. She’s then in a flurry trying to scoop and gather them up.

  ANNE: Buckets of hell!

  JAKE, sensing an opportunity, goes to help her –

  ANNE: [To each gesture JAKE makes to help] No – no – nej – [pointing at him] nejjj! – Gå væk! [Points again – points and points] Væk!

  Scram!

  JAKE backs away. Powerless.

  JAKE: [Still half in the dream, but to MRTEARSDRY] And you can’t work how she’s stuck in your head. She’s barely even hot. Maybe a six – maximum seven –

  MRTEARSDRY: But I can’t stop thinking about her. Which was why I called the show.

  JAKE: Touching story, man.

  MRTEARSDRY: – You’ve got to help me –

  JAKE: Ok. [He’s back near his computer]

  Ok. First thing –

  He hits a button. The computer blares:

  COMPUTER CHORAL VOICE: STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING PUSSY.

  JAKE: Seriously, man – did you maybe really meet this chick at an abattoir? Did she rip out your motherfucking spine or just jam your dick in a mince-machine? I want you to do me a favour. I want you to reach into your pants and check your balls are still there. Both balls, and don’t tell me until you feel the weight of each one in your hand. Now I want you to say sorry. To your balls. ‘Sorry, Right. Sorry, Left.’

  MRTEARSDRY: – Fuck you –

  JAKE: Now, you know a different bitch does exactly that, and every night, which is why I’m the one kicking back on my yacht and you’re calling me. You want help with this girl – help yourself. Walk away.

  MRTEARSDRY: That’s your advice?

  JAKE: Walk away.

  MRTEARSDRY: Aren’t you supposed to be some pickup genius?

  JAKE: / Please – Pickup is over, dead. For chumps. I’m a holistic sexual solution service. And I’ll tell you for free what you already know: if you give your balls to a chick, she’s just gonna wear them as earrings. She’s sitting on the throne you put her on and unless you want her to stick her sceptre up your ass – and not in a fun way, not in a nice way – you have [beat] two choices left. The easy one is – walk.

  MRTEARSDRY: Tell me the hard one.

  JAKE: Well – Tears – that’s the one where you look in the mirror and remember that you – you – are a fucking man – and you live among men who built bridges and towers with their hands, who collected garbage and tamed buffalo with their grit and made thousands of inferior species on this earth dead. Totally dead. So you relocate your spine, build yourself a goddamn codpiece of titanium, and you remind this little lady just how unimportant she is to your limitless male biological destiny. You relearn your game … and you fuck the bitch.

  MRTEARSDRY: Just like that.

  JAKE: No, just like … [He cues the music] I explain in my simple, man-to-man, no bullshit, dating success programme: ‘Fuck Her Now, Fuck Her Then, Fuck Her Whenever’ – where you’ll learn five steps is all it takes to spread an unattainable queen like a scale map of Tsarist Russia …

  … but that’s all we have time for, I’m Guy DeWitt, this podcast is recorded live from the yacht – now I’m gonna enjoy the water – and get me some poon.

  The music blares. He switches some things so he doesn’t have to hear it. The echo of the noise in his dingy room. Things he doesn’t want to face.

  JAKE: [On his own, pointing to an invisible name badge] ‘Anne.’

  At the university, someone is knocking on an office door.

  JAKE: ‘Anne.’

  At the university, it’s DENYSE.

  DENYSE: Ishtar?

  JAKE: [He holds up to his mouth one of ANNE’s dust gloves, and moans into it] Annnnnnnnnnnne!

  DENYSE: Ish?! [Knocking] Ishtar?! Can you let me in?

  SCENE TWO

  In which ISHTAR MADIGAN – now living in her office – finds herself forced before her confidante DENYSE (and others) to truly reckon with the full extent and nature of her poverty.

  ISH: [Behind the door] Password!

  DENYSE: What?

  ISH appears at the office door, dressed not entirely dissimilarly to what JAKE was wearing in the previous scene. DENYSE is bearing a box full of groceries.

  ISH: Tell me the password!

  DENYSE: This box is heavy, Ishtar, Jesus Christ –

  ISH: [At the door, paranoid, looking around] NO, ‘the box is heavy’ is NOT the password, Denyse!

  DENYSE: Is it You’ve already opened the door?

  Is it I’m standing the fuck in front of you?

  ISH: Take my security just slightly seriously, if you / (could) – [seeing the box] / Is this … Food?!

  DENYSE: Yes, food [taunting her with it] – fresh as the eighteen layers of plastic it’s wrapped in – !

  [Denying her the box.]

  But I can’t come in. I don’t know the password.

  ISH: YOUR ALTERNATIVE IS DEATH, DENYSE.

  DENYSE: Great security system, Ishtar. Really subtle, under the radar –

  ISH bundles her inside.

  ISH: Can you not bellow my name in the hallway? I don’t want people to know that I’m in here.

  DENYSE: Your name is on the door.

  Like, it is actually written on the door.

  ISH: In an Arts building, this means nothing. Down the hall, there’s a name on the door for a lecturer who no one has seen since the nineties.

  DENYSE: Is he dead?

  ISH: He got a grant to edit a poetry journal. Then – vamoosh!

  I hope no one saw you come in here.

  DENYSE: [Indicating the box] Here are possibly the entire range of human meals that can be prepared with a jug of boiling water, there are wet wipes, deodorant AND – some fruit. Toby’s on his way, with a bulk supply of instant milk things.

  ISH peeks in the box. Seizes something.

  ISH: Oh my god.

  Carrot.

  She pummels the carrot into her mouth.

  DENYSE is stunned by this act of consumption.

  ISH: [Munching her carrot] While you were away, I worked out a way to shake the Malteser packets out of the snack machine and I usually manage during the day to borrow two bucks for a hot chocolate. Maltesers mixed into hot chocolate is technically a protein drink.

  Beat.

  You cannot believe how good that carrot was.

  Pass me the wet wipes.

  DENYSE does so. Over the course of the following conversation, ISH performs some kind of standing hand bath with the wet wipes.

  DENYSE: This can not go on.

  ISH: I’ll find a way to pay you for the groceries.

  DENYSE: It’s not about the groceries –

  ISH: Come on – you’ve barely got more money than I do –

  DENYSE: There are legless street beggars in Thailand who’ve more money than you do. There are wheels of cheese with more access to capital. Oh my god – you are living in your office!

  ISH: Technically, I’m living in a photocopier room – because I managed to get that adjoining door unlocked. I think admin must’ve forgotten that it’s there – but I just tuck myself behind the old Xerox to sleep. It’s obsolete, but very cosy.

  DENYSE: Don’t photocopiers release some kind of carcinogenic gas?

  ISH: [A little bit calmer for having eaten something] I really want another carrot, but if I’ve learned one thing through this experience it’s to ration my pleasure.

  DENYSE: I was hoping you’d learned that if you’re gonna name-and-shame internet trolls, you’ve really gotta nail the ‘name’ part, yeah? Promise me you have not touched social media.

  ISH: It’s just been me, the copier, and a half-written chapter on boobs in Sonic the Hedgehog since you went to Paris. Also: welcome back, give me a carrot, tell me how it went.

  DENYSE: [As ISH feasts upon the carrot] Two wonderful weeks thinking about nothing but monadic exploration through iterative design.

  Then it was a long haul flight completely preoccupied with everything I did not want to think about and this starvation nightmare photocopy-room scenario was pretty much it.

  I used to hero-worship you when you were my lecturer.

  I used to sit in your lectures dreaming up ways to download the contents of your dazzling mind into mine.

  And now –

  Jesus Christ, I was one of your first years, and I finished my PhD BEFORE YOU DID.

  ISH: But my thesis is so close to finished – since I’ve been banned from the internet, I’ve just got so much done. Wait ’til you see what I wrote about ‘Sexy Ghouls in Fallout 4’!

  DENYSE: A cup of melted Maltesers is not a protein drink!

  DENYSE removes a carrot from the box and offers it to ISH, the way one would to a shy horse.

  ISH demurs.

  ISH shoves the carrot into her face.

  DENYSE: No one would judge you if you dropped out.

  ISH: Are you saying the whole world isn’t waiting for my considered thoughts on tit-design in Mario Kart?

  DENYSE: I’m saying that eating food and sleeping in an actual bed is amazing, you should try it.

  ISH: [Shoving the carrot into her face] No fucking way. And not just because after the legal settlement it’s all I’ve got left. It’s a statement of defiance. HA HA to the doxxing, Denyse. HA HA HA to the letter bomb –

  DENYSE: We remember doxxing, and the letter bomb. We remember all the trolling. Toby and I have been here for you from the first internet pile-on, through the concerns notice to this. We are – god help us – your friennnnnnnnnds.

  Bringing carrots to uni on Saturday morning is not just a cool thing that young people do.

  ISH: And how are things going with Toby?

  DENYSE: He should be here any minute.

  ISH: That’s not what I mean.

  DENYSE: Toby and I are very good friends.

  ISH: Didn’t he pick you up from the airport?

  DENYSE: Toby has not asked me out.

  ISH: Picking someone up from the airport is totally asking them out.

  DENYSE: Because it’s just so sexy to watch a knapsack go round and round that carousel.

  ISH: If you’re not interested, you have to stop spending so much time together. He’s always doing things for you.

  DENYSE: I’m not going to just stop spending time with a talented colleague because –

  ISH: – it’s exploitative –

  DENYSE: It is not. Toby also happens to be a trusted and excellent – chum.

  ISH: ‘Chum?’

  DENYSE: Chum.

  ISH: Are you recolonising Rhodesia? ‘Chum.’

  DENYSE: We are good chums.

  ISH: So why won’t you go out with him?

  DENYSE: Because should he have … particular feelings for me – which he has not expressed, by the way – there are other factors to consider.

  ISH: Does he make you laugh?

  DENYSE: Of course.

  ISH: And he’s as smart as you are.

  DENYSE: Toby’s very smart. Can we stop?

  ISH: He owns a car … he’s in regular work … he’s … morally upstanding …

  DENYSE: I said stop.

  ISH: What’s the problem? His face?

  DENYSE: It has nothing at all to do with his face.

  [Beat] His face is – you know … It’s fine.

  ISH: [Beat] His face is ‘fine’.

  DENYSE: I know. [Beat] Even if it is – a bit – slightly … moonish.

  ISH: Moonish. Like – the actual moon.

  DENYSE: Not the actual moon, he is not a satellite made of rock.

  ISH: He just looks a bit like one.

  DENYSE: No. His face … just has a moon-like quality.

  ISH: Could it be the reflected glow of the sun? Or are you suggesting Toby’s head rises with the tides?

  DENYSE: I don’t want to have this conversation.