DENYSE: He’s offered you a thousand dollars?!

  ISH: Fifty thousand.

  DENYSE: THE FUCK WHAT?

  ISH is now tearing into an apple.

  ISH: Fifty thousand dollars if I help him convince this chick to go on a date with him. The thousand is so I don’t tell anyone about it.

  DENYSE: But you’ve just told me about it –

  A beat. ISH stops eating her apple.

  ISH: Fuck.

  Beat.

  DENYSE: How’s that guy got fifty thousand dollars and that haircut?

  ISH: You know, strangely, in the conversation I just had, we didn’t talk about haircuts, Denyse. It slipped my mind. Should I be concerned about early-onset Alzheimer’s, I just can’t fathom how JESUS CHRIST DENYSE HE WAS WEARING A FREAKIN’ HAT A HAT HE WAS WEARING A HAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

  Beat.

  He’s a management consultant.

  DENYSE: How does a management consultant have a spare fifty grand?

  ISH: Doesn’t it pay well?

  DENYSE: How would I know? What do management consultants do?

  ISH: I don’t know, Denyse, academic study is such a narrowing pursuit. I don’t even know what people do in my own department. What do you even do? Computer science? Is that where you grow a spare hard drive in a test tube, or put a baby in a hadron collider until an iPad comes out? I have absolutely no idea.

  DENYSE: Are you going to do it?

  ISH: Of course I’m not going to do it.

  DENYSE: It’s fifty thousand dollars!

  ISH: It’s bananas!

  DENYSE: He wants you to coach him on how to pick up this girl, and if she goes on a date with him, you get the money –

  ISH: I know, right?

  DENYSE: You should go see her, and offer her some of the money if she agrees to going out with him. She’d probably do it for less than a grand. What’s stopping you?

  ISH: Ethics. Morals. The fibres of my very character.

  DENYSE: Then go fifty fifty. Even if you only take home twenty-five thousand, you’re still up on what you settled with DeWitt for –

  ISH: It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s awful and wrong.

  DENYSE: Some management consultant with a cheap haircut throwing around fifty thousand dollars is wrong. Putting the money to good use –

  ISH: Isn’t it called laundering? Or embezzlement? Or one of those go-to-jail words?

  DENYSE: Then just go play ‘dating coach’ until he stops paying. This – this – is money for jam! Or jamming for money, or money that could lead to jamming – who cares? You’re broke. Just do it.

  ISH: I can’t believe you’re encouraging this.

  DENYSE: Ishtar: no one should be overjoyed to see a carrot.

  Besides, how hard could it be?

  Beat.

  I’d go out with him. He’s pretty cute.

  ISH: He’s what?!

  DENYSE: Don’t you think?

  ISH: I thought you said he had a bad haircut?

  DENYSE: Cheap, not bad. Pretty eyes. Good cheekbones.

  ISH: I’d rather fuck the photocopier.

  DENYSE: And when I had him in the headlock – I felt some guns.

  ISH: Madam, should I arrange to have you spayed?

  A knock on the door. Panic.

  TOBY: [Through the door] Hello?

  It’s Toby, ‘Your alternative is death’ …

  / DENYSE cannot believe that’s the actual password. ISH is triumphant.

  ISH: / Come in, Toby –

  TOBY: [Entering, with milk blisters and a kettle] I’m not disturbing something intense and personal, am I?

  ISH: Well, some kind of reformed male pickup artist has just offered me fifty thousand dollars if I teach him feminist seduction techniques in order to bang a librarian.

  TOBY: What?

  DENYSE: Yes – he even left a thousand in cash as a [to ISH] guarantee of confidentiality .

  Beat.

  ISH: Shitballs.

  TOBY: She must be one hell of a librarian.

  ISH: I guess he finds her … really Dewey!

  Silence from the other two.

  TOBY: Are you going to do it?

  DENYSE: We were in process of debating the ethics of this action when you walked in.

  TOBY: As the mathematician present, I recommend zero deliberation until everyone’s had a cup of tea. [Presenting a box] Nature’s finest milk blisters AND a kettle of your own –

  ISH: Oh, / Toby – !

  TOBY: / Ex-display model, five bucks. [To ISH] In the midst of moral crisis, the convenience of boiled water stabilises every conceivable externality.

  ISH: Denyse, your friendship with Toby is boring: you should marry him. [She embraces the box that the kettle and milk are in, like a baby] He is the definition of male kindness.

  TOBY: Alas, it’s not enough to attract Dr Kim’s refined regard.

  ISH: And why is that?

  TOBY: I don’t know – guess it must be the shape of my head.

  He, of course, means this as a joke – but the reaction of the two women results in an excruciating pause.

  DENYSE seizes the box from ISH’s arms.

  DENYSE: Water. For tea.

  Is. Um.

  Needed.

  She leaves the room.

  TOBY: … Denyse?

  Beat.

  ISH: For the record, I think there’s nothing wrong with your head – in its shape or otherwise. I find your facial roundness very pleasing.

  Beat.

  ‘Moonish’ is a wonderful compliment. I’d love someone I cared about to compare me to the moon. ‘The sun has one kind of glory, the moon another and the stars another glory altogether.’ You own it. You be your glorious moon self.

  TOBY: She really said that about the shape of my head?!

  ISH: I can’t be a dating coach, Toby. I haven’t had sex in a year. I’m like a bomb that could stop all the sex in the world.

  TOBY: [Shouting] Denyse! [Screaming, leaving the room] Hey – hey, DENYSE!

  As TOBY leaves, ANNE enters the library with her pile of books.

  ISH: [Calling after TOBY] Everybody loves the moon!

  And ISH sees ANNE.

  SCENE THREE

  In which ISHTAR finds herself conflicted by utilitarian/deontological instincts when she decides to visit the library.

  ISH has applied a disguise. She is one of those people who looks even more like herself when in disguise.

  ANNE goes through her book.

  ISH does not know what to do.

  ANNE: Are you joining me in this scene, or are you staying behind in your own?

  ISHTAR: The eternal question!

  She demonstratively enters the scene.

  ANNE: Welcome to the City Library!

  Have you just come to stare at me?

  Or are you gazing?

  Which word do you think is more appropriate?

  ISH: Sorry – What? – are you talking to me?

  ANNE: You’ve been in a stasis for twenty minutes.

  Is it my activity that fascinates you, or my books?

  Or do you wish to ask me a question?

  ISH: Um – ah –

  ANNE: About the library perhaps? Or some function you wish to perform within it?

  ISH: Yes.

  ANNE: I haven’t seen you in here before.

  ISH: I’m based at the university.

  ANNE: – which has a most excellent library. So is it library tourism that brings you here today? A comparative journey of brackets and stacks?

  ISH: What are you doing with the gloves?

  ANNE: [With a book] Henri Matisse’s Jazz, 1947 first edition. A bequest. Should she be removed from the world, she could not be replaced – and yet this is a child any member of the public may be approved to handle. Every time I turn her pages, it’s with the fear they’ve been ripped or broken – worse – the fine prints cut from their binding with a scalpel.

  Two crimes as old as the library itself are those of book mutilation and theft.

  ISH: Why do they do it?

  ANNE: For trophies. Those who cannot create, destroy. ‘Stealing books from libraries is one of the unspeakable crimes – like stealing coins from the eyes of dead men.’

  ISH: You really are one hell of a librarian.

  ANNE: In Boston once, a newspaper urged the citizens to lynch all book thieves.

  ISH: Kind of an extremist response, for a moral person to condone.

  ANNE: For a moral person, it would depend entirely on which book.

  But have you come to the library researching my taste in rare books or what constitutes a moral crisis?

  Beat.

  ISH: Your name is ‘Anne’, right?

  ANNE: / Yes –

  ISH: / I have a friend who comes in here. He’s mentioned you to me, once or twice –

  ANNE: I hope I’ve provided him effective service.

  ISH: Either way too much or way too little. I’m afraid he has a crush on you.

  ANNE: Crush?

  ISH: If he’s been getting in your face, or creeping you / out –

  ANNE: / I have no awareness of such a person.

  ISH: Bit younger than me, t-shirt and jeans kind of person, maybe a cap?

  [Beat] He has pretty eyes and his cheekbones are not horrible.

  He’s probably tried some half-arsed lines to chat you up –

  ANNE: This is every young man from Jutland to Ontario since ‘librarian porn’ became a thing.

  ISH: Wait – Jutland?

  ANNE: Yes. Even in Aarhus, there is no dialect barrier to internet porn.

  Is this progress for Denmark? Who can say?

  ISH: You’re Danish?

  ISH hands ANNE some kind of card.

  ISH: If a guy like that bothers you, here’s a number you can get me on.

  ANNE: Dr Denyse Kim, Faculty of Computer Science?

  ISH: Uh – My name ‘Ish’ in biro underneath with an office extension number – But, yeah, Denyse’s mobile, long story.

  ANNE: [Bellows] Ishtar Madigan – the feminist games writer?!

  / Beat .

  Milde Moses! If I have treated you at all /2 disrespectfully – !

  ISH is terrified she will be identified.

  ISH: / Yeah, but if you could be slightly more subtle on the recognition there – /2 What? No –

  ANNE: – I love your writing. I used to love your blog – And I read about what those men did to / you –

  ISH: / That’s just what happens when you challenge / male power –

  ANNE: / male power – I read your article where it said that.

  ISH: – Quoting one of my own articles is a bit / embarrassing –

  ANNE: / It isn’t. They’re brilliant – You’re /1 brilliant. And all that horrible harassment. Those threats and cruelty and those little game boys and pickup men and the male rights troll people everywhere /2 – is this why you do not publish anymore? Hold da helt ferrie – Anne Toft – My whole name –

  ISH: /1 No … No, no no, 2/ it really was quite the cascade, you can understand if it’s made me a bit paranoid out in public –

  ANNE: /2 I don’t have a card to give / you –

  ISH: / you have mine, which I / guess –

  ANNE: / I’ll call you. You know where I work anyway. If you want to call me. Which you should. About anything. Really. I’m such a big fan.

  Beat.

  ISH: Great.

  ANNE: Do you want to have a coffee or something?

  ISH: You’re – squeezing that book a bit tight, Anne –

  ANNE: – Oh my god – !

  ISH: – I just got the impression it was valuable –

  ANNE: Yes – yes, I – and maybe I should just get to work –

  ISH: We can coffee another time –

  ANNE: Yes! I would like that. Coffee!

  ANNE doesn’t move.

  ISH: Yeah, I’d better go –

  ISH leaves.

  ANNE: And we’ll coffee!

  At JAKE’s house, there’s a knock on the door. He’s back in his slob gear.

  I’ll call you!

  The knocking continues.

  I have your number! ISHTAR MADIGAN!!!

  SCENE FOUR

  In which ISHTAR MADIGAN turns up at JAKE’s house, and tries to offer everyone a neat resolution to their present quandaries, failing utterly.

  JAKE: Who is it?

  ISH: It’s the feminist menace.

  He freezes.

  JAKE: You said you’d be here at four!

  ISH: I’m early. Let me in.

  Maybe he hides one or two Guy DeWitt things. He lets her in.

  ISH: Yeah, sorry if it seems like I’m imposing, but it’s really hard to kill time when you don’t have an iPhone and you can’t pick a fight on the internet.

  Of his place –

  But I see you’ve already made the place ready for a guest.

  As she removes her disguising accessories.

  JAKE: [Of the disguise] Since when did ‘dating coach’ demand dressing like a homeless … pirate?

  ISH: Since an army of trolls wrote ‘die, fat slut, die!’ on an Instagram post about gardening.

  JAKE: Don’t you think you’re taking that stuff a bit seriously?

  ISH: I don’t want them to find me.

  JAKE: I found you through a staff directory. Your name is on your office door.

  ISH: My first piece of dating advice for the young heterosexual male is that an eyeful of underpants glued to the floor is a real thigh-shutterer.

  JAKE: You’d be surprised –

  ISH: And, frankly, I’ve already had all the surprises I can take. [Handing him a wad of cash] I took $150 to pay Denyse back for some groceries – I’m not entirely noble. Take it –

  JAKE: It’s a down payment –

  ISH: It’s a lost cause. Pursuing that woman is a fool’s errand. A rocket straight into the sun. In likelihood-of-success terms, it’s Scott of the Antarctic leading Operation Market Garden. It is the Vietnam War in your pants.

  JAKE: How do you know?

  ISH: I went to see her today. [Beat] Jake – she’s Danish.

  Beat.

  JAKE: How Danish?

  ISH: Forty years of legislated gender equality Danish. Culturally resistant to bragging Danish. Cradle-to-grave welfare state Danish, triumph of Scandinavian social democracy Danish, economically self-sufficient and independent from all men Danish.

  JAKE: Yeah, but you can help me with that.

  ISH: Mate – Alfred the Great couldn’t help you with that. That chick is so Danish I’m surprised she isn’t wrapped in ten layers of pastry and has an apricot for a head.

  JAKE: I can’t believe a feminist just compared a woman to a bakery product.

  ISH: Fine, I’ll compare her to a mathematical theory; that girl is Kolmogorov’s axiomatic basis for the calculation of probability and you have absolutely no chance.

  JAKE: What did she say?

  ISH: She doesn’t even know who you are! Such a steady stream of amateur masturbators are out seeking fulfilment of a book-pile fuck fantasy, she can no longer tell you apart. To her, you’re all like a homogenous mass of wank-Borg.

  JAKE: Did you tell her I was the palmistry guy?

  ISH: Of course not.

  JAKE: Why not?

  ISH: I might be an unemployable bankrupt who sleeps with a Xerox but I’ve got self-respect.

  Beat.

  You could at least offer me some food.

  He hurls her something that’s close to hand [like an apple from a fruitbowl, or a can of Pepsi or something].

  JAKE: [Stunned by how she’s devouring whatever he’s given her] Remind me to take you to lunch with my mum.

  ISH: The tenant of this temple to household order has a mum?

  JAKE: – Somewhere.

  ISH: Under the discarded piles of underwear, or is that a bit too Freudian for us all?

  JAKE: It’s not the last (apple) in the world –

  ISH: I’m on the Paleo diet – the original one, where you eat like a sabretooth is chasing you across a clifftop in an icestorm. You don’t have to count calories when your life expectancy is less than ten minutes.

  JAKE: Dear god, what made you like this …

  ISH: Doxing. Letter-bomb. Settlement payout.

  Fucking trolls.

  JAKE: A letter bomb?!

  ISH: You know your friend the registered trademark didn’t even turn up with his lawyers to shake me down? All that harassment from that army of dickclowns – and I was the one who lost everything –

  JAKE: You must really hate him.

  ISH: But I’ve also developed a new appreciation for things. Like beds and meals and showers.

  Oh my god, are showers still as good as I remember?!

  JAKE: Maybe you should just keep the money –

  ISH: Nah – looks like you need it more than I do. This place is big but you’d have to pay an excavator to clean it all out. Or an archaeologist. No wonder you want to date a librarian. You need one just to archive your pizza boxes. I refuse to believe chicks come back to this.

  JAKE: They’re happy to come back to it.

  … It’s kinda the point that they’re also pretty happy to leave.

  ISH: Relationship management the semen-stained-sheet way.

  Beat.

  What if you met a girl you didn’t want to leave?

  JAKE: I have. And now you tell me she’s goddamn Danish. The most unfuckable women on the planet!

  ISH: Not strictly true, given the continued existence of Danes.

  JAKE: The guru of gurus couldn’t get laid in Denmark – goddamn social democracy like a nationwide bitch shield –

  ISH: Bitch shield?!

  JAKE: [Ignoring her reaction] Only you can get me through this –

  ISH: Give it up!

  JAKE: I can’t!

  ISH: You don’t even know her. I spent five minutes with her and found out more than you have.

  JAKE: Why did you go meet her if you’re not going to help me out?

  ISH: [Beat] Maybe I went to see if – some arrangement – could be made. Fifty grand’s a lot of money to turn down –

  JAKE: Yes!

  ISH: It’s impossible! She’s more interested in me than she is in you. She used to read my blog. She wants to take me for coffee, for Christ’s sake –

  JAKE: You have to do this for me!

  ISH: Dude, I don’t even want to do it for me. I couldn’t tell if she was just fangirling or a really niche form of nuts.

 

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