The Art of Asking

by Amanda Palmer

  I was so irritated. But, I told myself, I was fine.

  Later that night, I didn’t feel fine. I felt very shaken up. I went to my bus-bunk and texted Neil.

  I had a nasty run-in with a pervy fan tonight, post-markering. I think I need my husband for a second.

  I lay there with the phone on my chest. Neil texted back.

  Hello, brave wife. I’m sorry. Do you need to talk?

  Yeah, actually I think I do.

  Only when I called him did I let myself collapse a little. Talking to him made me feel better.

  Shit’s going to happen, I said. Right? And it’s not like I haven’t done a million pieces of naked physical performance art and had lots of sex with lots of people. But man…what a skeezy thing to do. She ruined the perfect magical everything. Or…maybe she was an important part of it. Maybe I should actually be grateful.

  I’m not sure I follow you, darling, Neil said, in a British way that suggests that he’s listening but is sometimes baffled by me.

  I mean…she’s the extreme exception to the rule, right? I’ve been trusting people for years, and it’s all come to this moment, where I lay myself literally bare and then she sticks her hand in my vadge and breaks my heart. But maybe she has to, right? To drive the cosmic point home.

  And what point would that be?

  I trusted them, Neil, I said, feeling a lump growing in my throat. I guess the point is, there is no trust without risk. If it were EASY…I mean, if it was all a guaranteed walk in the park, if there wasn’t a real risk that someone would cross the line…then it wouldn’t be real trust. Now I know it’s real. She proved how much I could trust everybody else. Her stupid drunk move just reminds me how safe I am. Like, there’s a set of statistics I just need to accept and there’s a definite one percent probability that when you trust people like that, someone will fuck with you. Is that crazy? Am I stupid? I feel stupid.

  You aren’t stupid. He sighed. And I don’t think you’re crazy. I think maybe you just trust and love people extremely easily, and that gets you into trouble sometimes.

  It does. On the other hand, I said, it got me married to your ass.

  That’s a very good point, he said.

  I was recently in the Bay Area at a small back-garden hot tub where I’ve been going for years with a local friend. The property is private, but the backyard is a kind of gift from the owner to the community. He prunes the beautiful little Japanese garden, keeps the tub clean, and maintains a little shower and places for people to leave their clothes. Only women are allowed to attend alone; if a man goes, he must be accompanied by a woman. There’s a passcode-locked door, and if it starts to feel like the rules are being broken, the owner just changes the passcode and starts the trust cycle over again. Talking is not allowed. People do yoga on wood platforms under towering trees.

  I was naked in the dimly lit changing shed, freshly showered and about to get in the tub, when a naked girl on her way to put her clothes back on caught my eye and recognized me. She took in a quick breath and remembered we weren’t supposed to speak, so she flailed her arms at me in a way that indicated, I KNOW YOU! I LOVE YOUR MUSIC. I flailed back and then opened my arms to her, asking for a hug.

  She stepped towards me, and we embraced; two silent, naked strangers who didn’t feel like strangers at all.

  “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

  “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

  “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

  “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

  “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

  “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

  —The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

  Once I canceled my tour, and explained why, Anthony started getting fan mail. Girls in Denmark knitted him socks and mailed him chocolate. People in Russia sent him books. A collection of fans in Boston folded him a thousand origami cranes and framed them in a giant glass box. All over the world, people were sending him their love and well wishes. He was amazed. He started a Facebook page.

  What did you do to them? he asked.

  I loved them. And they love me. And I love you. So they love you.

  He’d been writing up some memoirs about his childhood and daily emotional struggles, and I needled him to self-publish them. A few of his friends who were also writers stepped in to help, and he put out a book called Lunatic Heroes and set up shop online. It actually sold really well.

  The best marketing plan in the world, he said dryly. A terminally ill author.

  I kept darting out of Boston for occasional out-of-town appearances and batches of house parties—trying never to be away for longer than a week at a time. People started asking about Anthony everywhere I went, bringing me little gifts to pass on to him. I’d carry them home.

  Staying in the Harvard Square rental house with Neil, while the world seemed to keep turning without me, was hard. I didn’t have the things that usually made me happy and strong. The crowds. The constant love from uncomplicated strangers. The signings. I missed it. It made me feel selfish.

  My band waited patiently and found other work.

  Everybody waited to see which way the fifty-fifty was going to fall.

  We were safe in bed, and I thought up a game.

  I’m going to ask, I said, and you answer.

  Okay, said Neil.

  What are you afraid of? Like really, truly afraid of?

  Getting old.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of? Be specific.

  Getting old and losing my memory, he said, and added, and not being able to write anymore.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  You leaving me alone, he said.

  I hugged him.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  Not being able to have sex anymore.

  I shuddered. Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  Being ugly. Not being attractive enough to hold your attention.

  This game went on for a while.

  Then we traded.

  What else are you afraid of? he asked.

  Turning into an actual drunk someday, I said.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  Losing control at some point and going off the deep end and hurting someone beyond repair.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  Everybody hating me, I said.

  What else are you afraid of? he said. Be honest.

  People thinking I just married you for your fame or money.

  Okay. What else are you afraid of?

  My friends thinking that everything the critics say is true but nobody having the balls to tell me. People actually thinking I’m a cheap bitch who doesn’t think about anybody but herself.

  Oof, dear. Okay. Anything else?

  I swallowed. People thinking I don’t work hard enough. People thinking I’m a shitty musician who just tweets all the time. People thinking I’m an ugly, flaming narcissist. People thinking I’m a fake.

  He drew me close into his chest.

  Oh, darling. You’re really very worried about what people think, aren’t you?

  I buried my face in
his armpit.

  Ya think?

  The next time I saw Yana was a long while after the Melbourne house party, when I returned to Australia to work on this book. I’d taken a ten-day residency at the Sydney Festival, playing a show each night in their wooden, stained-glass, merry-go-round-esque Spiegeltent, and was trying to make progress on the book during the daytime. The publisher’s deadline had become suddenly breakneck, but the shows had been booked months in advance, so I juggled a monastic schedule: wake, yoga, coffee, write, play show, sign, sleep, repeat. Yana, along with a small group of hardcore Australian fans from different cities, had tickets for the entire run of ten shows, and they’d bonded over the Internet and became a clan of friends. Yana dropped me an email just as I arrived, asking if I’d have time for a cup of coffee. I told her that I was antisocially buried in the book, but not to take it personally. I said I’d see her soon, at the shows, and looked forward to giving her a hug.

  On my way to soundcheck one day, I saw Yana and a group of five or six fans by the fountain near the tent, and I went over to say hello. Yana seemed out of sorts; she wasn’t acting like her warm, friendly self. I couldn’t tell if she was angry at me, or just in a globally dark mood, and though I didn’t address it at that moment, I felt bad. Maybe I’d screwed up my priorities. Maybe I was a jerk for saying no to the coffee.

  I brag endlessly about my real friendship with my fans, I thought, but maybe I’m full of it. Maybe I’m just a fair-weather friend who takes what she wants when she needs it and scampers away.

  My inner Fraud Police bristled.

  A few nights later, after the show and signing, I was sitting in my underwear behind my computer, answering the last of the day’s tweets and emails and about to retire according to my book-marathon bedtime of one a.m., when I saw some troubling tweets in Yana’s Twitter feed. I read back through her recent Twitter history, and it was clear that something was wrong—she was posting dark, vague, and despairing sentences. I emailed her to ask if she was okay. She sent back a single word:

  suicide.

  For a moment, all my compassion fled, and I was just pissed. There was no way I could go to bed now. And then I was instantly ashamed of my reaction. I wrote back, and stayed up emailing with Yana and texting with another fan-who’d-become-a-friend, Carolyn, who knew her and who had also seen the tweets. She offered to go check in on Yana at her youth hostel.

  I’ve had fans threaten suicide at me. In 2004, back when my personal email was still posted on the band website, there was a girl who sent me a few emails in quick succession threatening to kill herself if I didn’t write back. It was my first foray into that kind of darkness with a fan over the Internet, and I wrote her long, life-affirming emails for several days. Wrong move. That just encouraged her to send me weirder, more intricate threats. I finally figured out that the best thing to do was to send her the phone number for the Samaritans and otherwise ignore her. She kept sending me suicide threats, several a week, for an entire year. I blocked her email.

  But Yana was different. I knew her. I’d spent real time with her. We emailed that night about her mom and dad and brother, about life, about death, about needing to be seen. I told her we could grab a quick walk together after the show the next night. I tried not to feel manipulated. Life happens. I finally went to bed at around three in the morning, after getting a text from Carolyn that Yana had come down off the figurative ledge and was also heading to bed.

  The next night, after the show and signing, Yana and I left the festival grounds and took a walk to a park. I’d spent time with her, true, but I’d never walked around with her in public, where people stared. I noticed the way people looked at her and her four-foot-six stature as she moved through the world. I wondered what it must feel like to have the gaze of the world fixated on you because of the shape of your body. Inescapable. I remember how I’d been impressed by Yana the first few times I met her. She seemed so absolutely fearless, so embodied, so totally comfortable with herself. I sat and listened while she poured out the stories of the past few months. She’d told me she’d been suicidal since after getting into a scuffle with the management of the hospital where she was working, doing patient intake administration. They’d tried to force her out of her position, but they wouldn’t level with her about the reason why.

  They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, she said, blinking back tears. I was great at my position. I was really good at my job, Amanda. Everybody in the ward loved me. And they refused to tell me what was wrong.

  And that’s what made you suicidal? I asked, wiping her teary cheek with my sleeve. There’s got to be more. I know that losing a job is super-stressful. But it sounds to me like it was about something more than that. Why did it hurt so much?

  Yana didn’t say anything, but it suddenly occurred to me exactly why something like that would hurt Yana so much. It was the story of her life—and I’d just witnessed it as we walked from the tent to the park, through the festival of people who stared at her body and then quickly glanced away. Who gawked at her, but never said anything. She’d lived her whole life having to cope with people looking at her the wrong way, but never addressing it.

  They wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.

  They were looking at her. But they weren’t seeing her.

  We left the park and started walking along the waterfront, and as Yana spilled out more of the background of her story, we wound up on the topic of government assistance. She’d been eligible for disability benefits for ages but had refused to take them. Her parents encouraged her not to.

  Why? I asked.

  Because I don’t really have a “real” disability. I’m just short. I can do things that everybody else can do. I can work, I can drive, I’m educated. My parents insisted, when I was growing up, that I was absolutely like everybody else. Short, for sure, but not different. And the way they see it, if I take disability from the government, it’s like admitting failure. Like defeat. It’s like saying, “Yes! You’re right! I’m a cripple!”

  Her comment from the park echoed in my head. I thought about all the shit this girl had had to go through in her life, the ten operations, the stretched bones, the medications, the people staring in the park, the bosses and co-workers who wouldn’t tell her what was wrong.

  You and I have one giant thing in common, Yana, and I just noticed it, I said. Have I ever told you about my marriage problems? And how I refused to take any money from Neil until Anthony got sick and I had to cancel this year’s tour?

  No.

  You’re in for a lovely treat. Want to walk me home?

  It had been over thirteen weeks of chemo, and they couldn’t tell us yet what the outcome was going to be. There was talk of a bone marrow transplant. And if they did that, an even smaller chance of survival. We all got used to living in the cloud of unknowing.

  One day Neil and I were sitting in the hospital on either side of Anthony, who had just fallen asleep because the chemicals had hit him.

  He’s out cold, I said.

  Yep, said Neil.

  I don’t want him to die, I said.

  I know, said Neil. Neither do I.

  I don’t want you to die either, I said.

  I’m not going to die for a while, darling.

  Good, I said.

  You know, I’m quite proud of you and me. We’ve managed to learn how to take care of each other, Neil said, even if our marriage is a bit of a mess at times.

  Yeah.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, looking at Anthony’s chest rising and falling, his head propped up on the white hospital pillow.

  You really love him, don’t you? said Neil.

  Yeah, I answered. I really do. He taught me everything.

  The liquid dripping into his arm from the metal rack above was crystal clear, and I had a hard time looking at it without remembering that each bag, according to the doctor, cost $10,000. It always made me think about my friends without health insurance, and how hard I’d fought my parent
s when, just getting out of college and broke, I hadn’t wanted to pay for my own. The battle had lasted months. They wound up offering to pay for half of it. I resented it but paid for the other half. God, I was so cavalier when I was twenty-two, so asleep and so ungrateful. I looked at Neil.

  I really love you, too, I said. I actually, truly do. You know that, right?

  Yes. I think I do.

  It’s funny, I said. Anthony taught me that.

  What’s funny? Taught you what?

  The love stuff. You. Taking your help, so we could be here. The whole deal.

  Neil looked at sleeping, snoring Anthony. Then he looked back at me.

  And then he smiled. He taught you how to love. You taught me how to love, and how to be loved. I suppose it’s all a bit of a circle, isn’t it?

  I reached over and squeezed Neil’s hand.

  We’re turning out good, darling, I told him. We’re getting it.

  “I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

  “The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

  The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

  —The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, again

  I called Anthony from the road. I was in someone’s backyard, in Canada, away from home for a few days to deliver a few house parties. He was getting more and more tired. The chemo was wearing him down. And he wasn’t always answering my texts. Sometimes it took a few days to get him on the phone. I worried.

  Remember the sin-eater? he asked.

  Yeah.