Banging Denmark, page 7
Knocking continues. It’s JAKE’s house, but JAKE does not appear to be home.
The knocker shakes the lock of the door. The door comes open – it’s unlocked.
ISH lets herself into JAKE’s apartment.
ISH: Hello?
There’s no answer. She walks in and trips over a shoe.
She picks it up – it belongs to a woman.
Hey, dicksmack – you home?
He appears not to be. She has a look around the room. Something she moves reveals to her a pile of something else. Something she does not like.
JAKE enters – looking somewhat the worse for wear.
JAKE: How did you get in here?
ISH: You left the door open. You look a bit rough. [Waves the shoe] Did I catch you dressing up as your mum or something?
JAKE: You shouldn’t just barge in –
ISH: I shouldn’t do a lot of things and one of those things we have to talk about –
JAKE: Phone ahead!
ISH: Except I have no phone to hand and Denyse has gone missing with hers. I don’t know why you’re snapping at me. I’m the one with the shame, guilt and hangover and I’m being entirely pleasant. I repeat: there is something that we really have to discuss –
JAKE: [Calling] You might as well come out. I don’t think she’s going anywhere.
ISH: Reverting to your base nature, I see. I just found your stack of Guy DeWitt instructional fuck pamphlets and –
DENYSE emerges from JAKE’s room, wrapped in a sheet, holding one shoe. Her state, however decorated, is unambiguous.
DENYSE: – I can’t find my shoe.
ISH brandishes the shoe in her hand.
ISH: Oh, Cinderella – weren’t the instructions clear? You’re supposed to fuck the prince, not one of the rats.
JAKE: Is the great feminist slutshaming a friend for spending the night here?
ISH: There’s a discernible difference between slutshaming a young woman and questioning her taste. But who hasn’t slept with a monster to enjoy the warmth of a cave?
JAKE: Denyse is no monster.
ISH: I am not describing Denyse.
DENYSE: Hello, I am in the room –
ISH: [To DENYSE] Was everything all right? Did he treat you with respect?
DENYSE: Do you want a blow by blow?
ISH: Just reassuring affirmation.
DENYSE: Jesus Christ – I have done this before, you know –
ISH: ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?
DENYSE: I’M FINE!
ISH: Then collect up your shit and get out –
JAKE: You don’t issue commands in my house!
ISH: So you wish her to stay, do you? That’s something of a turn-up. Denyse, my mistake. Put all your things down. Settle in so Jake can entertain you for the day, or forever.
DENYSE: [To JAKE] What’s going on here?
JAKE: Look – Denyse – I have some things to do today –
DENYSE: Things?
ISH: Things, Denyse! An indescribable list of tasks, all of them excluding you.
JAKE: Shut up – This is not my ideal exit conversation –
DENYSE: ‘Exit conversation’?
JAKE: I had a really great time last night –
ISH: If he’s saying it in front of an audience, it must be true.
DENYSE: Shut up! [To JAKE] What’s an ‘exit conversation’?
ISH: It means he’s happy to fuck you once, but he does not want to be your boyfriend.
DENYSE: He’s going to call me, Ishtar – he’s been calling me all week.
Beat.
ISH: Oh, Denyse – !
DENYSE: Tell her you’re going to call me!
ISH: Why don’t you ring Toby to come pick you up?
DENYSE: Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth? You’re not my fucking mother! And even if my mother said what you are saying, she could fucking shut up, too!
JAKE: I’ll always remember we had a really good time –
ISH: God – you’re not using that line, are you?
JAKE: Sometimes things are special because they don’t last long –
DENYSE: Oh, fuck you.
[To ISH] And fuck you.
Fuck you both. Doublefuck each other. Fuck EVERYTHING.
She tears out the door with her stuff.
ISH: No really, superbly handled, well done.
JAKE: That was the cruellest thing I’ve ever seen one woman do to another.
ISH: I’m not the one manipulating an innocent young woman for five minutes of gratuitous spearing –
JAKE: Denyse is not as innocent as maybe you’d like to think –
ISH: Spare me the details of the porn-themed acts you talked her into – it’s obvious she’s never had a one-night stand!
JAKE: She knew what she was doing –
ISH: Which is why she fled in a sheet –
JAKE: – because YOU humiliated her!
ISH: because YOU put her out like trash!
JAKE: Lady, I don’t know how much you’ve seen of the 21st century, but here we call that ‘Friday night’ –
ISH: Offering me thousands of dollars because you’re supposedly so obsessed with Anne the Dane –
JAKE: Because – unlike women – I can keep my sexual and emotional connections distinct!
ISH: Oh, who are you kidding? You’re so emotionally fucking disconnected you’re having to outsource your feelings TO ME.
JAKE: While you’re projecting your sexual frigidity out in my direction –
ISH: ‘Frigid’.
JAKE: You’re so terrified that sex won’t be covered in lovehearts and flowers you’ve bitch-shielded your every detail of your life –
ISH: – ‘Frigid’, though, really?
JAKE: From the way you dress / to the way you carry on – all that inane shit about pirates and swearing, swearing, all the time.
ISH: / What is wrong with the way I dress?!
JAKE: You radiate sexual disinterest. You are a weapon of mass celibacy. You emit an electromagnetic pulse that shrivels every hard-on in a thousand-mile radius.
ISH: A detail of curious irrelevance to the sex I had last night.
JAKE: You. Had sex. What with?
ISH: WITH ANNE.
Beat.
JAKE: Bullshit.
ISH: Inspired by an earlier conversation about honesty, I thought I’d come round and talk through this one of potentially a thousand reasons why she has zero sexual interest in you.
JAKE: Utter bullshit.
ISH: You want to have a sniff under my fingernails, Jake, or taste the Danish glazing on my face? If you want a map of her anatomy I could probably give you one but I’d have to do it with my eyes closed.
Beat.
JAKE: You fucked Anne?!
ISH: She’s a bit emotionally intense for me so I’m not pursuing a relationship – but fuck her I did. On her couch, her bed and a bit in the shower.
JAKE: It really is a day for revelations.
ISH: I can’t believe you fucked DENYSE! The ONE condition I made, the ONE thing I told you not to do. What kind of wilful, childish shit is this?! Do you get out of your car at every intersection to ram your junk into the stop signs? Is it a territorial compulsion to smear your wang on everything you see?! Or are you so fucking lonely you use that thing between your legs as a compass needle to point you at what a human person is?
JAKE: Been thinking about it, have you? My junk, my wang, my schlong, dick, penis, penis, penis – did you discuss with Anne what was really on your mind?
ISH: You can’t discuss much with A MOUTH FULL OF CLITORIS.
JAKE: I envy she found a means to avoid your rants about taxation!
ISH: My rants about taxation are the most human communication you have had in years. You’re not shelling out the dollars for advice. You’re such a calcified, friendless hermit, you have to pay adults to talk to you! You do everything you can to drive women screaming from you in a sheet because you’re terrified they’ll discover that your dick is all you’ve got.
JAKE: Why did you fuck Anne?!
ISH: Why did you fuck Denyse?!!
JAKE: Well, technically, she was also fucked by Guy DeWitt.
In case you hadn’t worked out that WE’RE THE SAME GUY.
Long pause. ISH finally registers the reason there is more than one copy of Guy DeWitt’s book.
She EXPLODES. She throws everything she can at JAKE. She attacks him in a fearless dervish of wilful destruction. He has to fight back. To defend himself, he has to hold her in restraint.
A pause.
And then they are at it with a breathless passion. In their entire lives, these two people have never kissed anyone this way … their clothes are in perilous danger of renting asunder.
… But ISH is having none of it.
ISH: No! No way – get fucked. You don’t get to have everything you want, just because you want it.
She gets up. She wipes her mouth with theatrical fury. She leaves.
JAKE is on the floor amongst the wreckage of his home and everything he understands.
On the computer …
TOBY: Hello?
Beat.
Hello, am I on the air?
SCENE NINE
In which Guy DeWitt, whose name is really JAKE NEWHOUSE, must face some certain truths about himself.
JAKE’s house. TOBY, on the computer.
TOBY: Hello?
JAKE: Caller, you’ve reached Santa Claus … Is Coming – ahoy – broadcasting live at you from the starship Open Hole, this is Guy DeWitt – or what remains of him – you’re on the air.
TOBY: Hi, um – I’ve called you before using a different name –
JAKE: Which one was that?
TOBY: – I’d rather not say. But my real name is Toby.
JAKE: Hi, Toby. Why are you calling today?
TOBY: I’m calling because a woman’s broken my heart –
JAKE: That’s a regular a theme on this show. What’s this bitch like?
TOBY: She’s not a bitch.
JAKE: You’ve never even made out with this girl, have you – ?
TOBY: No, I haven’t –
JAKE: And she’s banging someone else, right? And he’s the worst fucking person you could possibly imagine –
TOBY: Yeah, I think so –
JAKE: Toby – this chick’s a bitch.
TOBY: No, Jake – she’s not. She’s my best friend. She’s smart and she’s pretty and, whoever she’s fucking, she’s still all the things that I love her for.
JAKE: Are you calling us to share some special insight into what it means to be a man eaten by a pussy, Toby?
TOBY: I was calling to ask you some questions.
JAKE: ‘What’s it like to have a spine?’ ‘How do I tell if I am still a man?’ ‘Will my balls ever grow back?’
TOBY: I just want to know if you’re happy with your life.
Stunned pause, and recovery.
JAKE: Well, yeah – I’ve got my boat, enough cash to swim in, I’ve listeners and fans and I sell books and lesser men worship me like a god. I get a new bitch every night – I had one last night as tight as a peanut’s asshole and this morning she left, without drama.
TOBY: You don’t worry that tomorrow’s just gonna be some reenactment of yesterday?
JAKE: That doesn’t sound so bad – my yesterday was pretty good.
TOBY: And pretty good’s good enough, good enough is okay, okay is you’re surviving, what’s under that? Despair?
JAKE: This is Santa Claus … Is Coming, this is Guy DeWitt speaking to ‘Toby’, a victim of a theft in which his balls were stolen – by a bitch.
TOBY: You live in a flat you don’t clean. You don’t go out most days of the week. You pick up these girls, fuck them and you don’t even talk to them. When’s the last time you had a decent conversation?
GUY: I’m the happiest guy that I know.
TOBY: How many people are with you now?
JAKE: You’re here.
TOBY: No, I’m not. Right now, I’m walking into a room where the girl that I love is gonna come smash into pieces what remains of my heart.
Then I’m probably going to go home, listen to at least three Radiohead albums, drink whisky in the bath and cry. And, yeah, sure I could resurrect some game routine and run a script that would talk her into a farewell pity-fuck but I don’t want to have sex with bullshit, Jake. Sex with bullshit is even more lonely than Radiohead.
Beat.
JAKE: Why are you calling me ‘Jake’? Who’s ‘Jake’? Who’s that guy? Is ‘Jake’ who you’d rather be with, because if he’s hanging around your sexual thoughts, dude, there’s a conversation you need to have with yourself. About how you want guys. Maybe it’s not really about the girl here, know what I’m saying?
JAKE hates himself for even saying this.
TOBY: No, it’s not about the girl.
I don’t want to be lonely anymore, Jake.
I don’t want to be alone. Do you?
/ I don’t want to be alone.
JAKE: [To himself] / I don’t want to be alone.
SCENE TEN
In which a difficult reconciliation occurs amidst an intense intake of carbohydrates.
A park.
DENYSE is here. ISH approaches, carrying a milkshake for herself and one also for DENYSE.
The milkshake is handed over. The two women drink. There is silence.
DENYSE manages the world’s most passive-aggressive milkshake slurp ever.
ISH: Oh, come on!
DENYSE: I can’t believe you kissed him!
ISH: I can’t believe you were staring through the window like a massive fucking creeper.
DENYSE: I was kicked out when I was wearing a sheet –
ISH: You ran –
DENYSE: – I had to get changed on the goddamn verandah!
ISH: Denyse, if you have to stare through a window to put your underpants on you’re doing underpants completely wrong.
DENYSE: You don’t even like him!
ISH: You don’t like him either! What the fuck was that pathetic business about wanting him to call you? What’s that guy ever going to call you about? Help with a maths problem? Installing a new operating system? You really want him to talk to you about hot, sexy management consultation?
DENYSE: Management consultation got you on your back pretty quickly.
ISH: I feel really sorry for him, ok?
DENYSE: I refuse to believe you slutshamed me onto the street just so you could ‘feel sorry for him’ with your tongue in his mouth.
ISH: I was just so angry and I’d run out of things to yell.
DENYSE: And, like, if you don’t like him, why even were you angry? I’m not your kid, I’m a consenting adult – that whole scene had zip to do with you.
ISH: Denyse, porn has come to frighten me.
DENYSE: Porn? What?
ISH: And I have seen some terrible stuff. Those trolls did not hold back. Oh, here’s an email about a gardening club, no it isn’t, although that woman is using a bucket. And many, many penises. And – a spade.
And these pickup guys – these fucking DeWitt guys who are everywhere – they lurk, hide, give you false names and false impressions – they’ve been raised on porn. Bad porn, worse porn – a whole potting shed of truly terrible porn scenarios, Denyse, oh my god. And they think of women’s bodies like they’re big jizz spittoons –
DENYSE: ‘Jizz’ what?!
ISH: / That we’re all just big flesh ashtrays to shove themselves in … and I know you didn’t get laid at high school, you’re just coming into your sexuality now and I want you to have a nice time, a pleasant time, and think of sex as something fun and comfortable not some kind of extremist cruelty yoga that involves gardening tools and pain.
DENYSE: Ish, there were no garden tools. I had a nice and pleasant time. The sex was fine.
ISH: You don’t really want him to call you, do you?
DENYSE: I want someone to call me.
You’re right – I didn’t get laid at high school. I studied as hard as I could to be the best I could, at everything. Now, I am. I really am, and I’m here, and I’m ready, and I’m totally amazing. And the universe of men just … doesn’t care.
ISH: Toby cares.
DENYSE: Toby has never said a word about it.
ISH: Toby told me yesterday that he’s in love with you.
DENYSE: Doesn’t seem much like love if he can’t even broach the subject with, you know, me.
ISH: If you’re not interested, you have to stop spending time with him.
DENYSE: ‘You haven’t actually told me you’re in love with me, Toby but in case you are, this thing is over.’
ISH: Tell him the truth. The truth. The truuuuuuuuuuth.
… But maybe don’t mention the getting-spadged-by-a-pickup-artist bit, though. That wouldn’t be kind.
DENYSE: This whole thing has been so humiliating.
I couldn’t find my underpants. At Jake’s. I had to get a bus home with just a skirt on and my thighs got stuck on the seats.
ISH: Oh, man, I am sorry. They kinda tear and sting make that rip noise when you get up – ooh, yeah, that’s the worst.
They are reconciled.
They both slurp their milkshakes.
SCENE ELEVEN
In which there is no happy outcome, although there is also a happy outcome.
JAKE goes straight up to ANNE.
ANNE: Hello, can I help you?
JAKE: My name’s Jake. I’m sort of … trying to be a writer and I come into this library all the time to work – I work over there. I like the peace and quiet.
And I saw you handling the rare books one day … and you were just so connected to this simple thing that since that time I have been so curious about who you are and what you do I have created an infinite number of stories in my head about who you might be. I’ve spoken to you a couple of times –
ANNE: This is a public institution and I handle many enquiries in a day –
JAKE: I don’t expect I stand out much in a crowd –
ANNE: In Denmark, we have great regard for those who understand what it means to be ordinary.
JAKE: I just wanted to say … you’re fascinating. And if you ever wanted to have coffee with a very ordinary person who’s spent so much of their own time trying to imagine all the things that you think about, I would love to be that person.
