Bad Animals, page 27
“And what do they say?” Jonah interrupts, writing a note to himself.
“Tell me. Go ahead. Look.” I point to the page, but it’s likely I’m over-prompting. He doesn’t have to reread it. He remembers the Musketeers’ famous unifying motto and says it out loud. “Again,” I say, and we shout it together this time, as we wait for his mother to overhear and drop what she’s doing.
THE SCHOOL BELL RINGS and I wait for Jonah in the car. A girl from his class who appears, from a distance, to be a pint-sized Oprah gets him in a walking bear hug—she’s twice his size—and I watch him try, without success, to wriggle free. On Jonah’s checklist the other day his child care worker made a reference to a girl, likely this one, and Jonah behaving “inappropriately” between classes. it seems the two were caught kissing. When I asked Jonah where she had kissed him, he said in the schoolyard. Good enough. I admit I probably would have teased Jonah about this if he were a different child. But Jonah, so far, has proven difficult to tease. He either gets mad or is completely unaffected. There’s no middle ground. I suppose, with a different kid, I also would have had to resist the clichéd urge to take some obligatory paternal pride in this accomplishment. But with Jonah, a simple playground kiss was, instead, a new and more complicated cause for worry. There was still so much he had to learn, so much he was vulnerable to, so much ... okay, who am I kidding? I couldn’t be prouder.
Puberty was scary and incomprehensible enough when I went through it, but I can’t imagine what it will be like for Jonah. I’d better start, though, because, like it or not, it’s here. Last year, Jonah came home from school with a free sample of deodorant in his backpack. This year he’s being encouraged to use it. Jonah’s homeroom teacher has bluntly suggested to parents they make sure their children bathe regularly and change their clothes. There is, apparently, an odour that hits a peak when kids turn eleven and twelve; in particular, when twenty of them are stuck together for hours in a stuffy classroom. The teachers call it Eau de Sixth Grade.
Jonah is finally free of his, what—girlfriend? stalker?—and he spots me and hops into the backseat. I’m hoping he’ll say something about what just happened but he’s more interested in where we are having supper. I ignore the question and make up a story about the countless girls who used to hug me all the time when I was his age, but he still doesn’t bite. Having had no success at finding out where we’ll be eating, he now wants to know what we’ll be eating. I start the car and, again, change the subject. I shout, “Shotgun!” Jonah scrambles into the front passenger seat. He’s big enough to sit beside me now, and I encourage him to. It makes it easier for us to carry on something closer to a conversation. In fact, Cynthia and I have both noticed he’s revealing more about what’s happening at school than usual. Not that he’s telling us anything useful, anything that will make his homework easier to complete or that will assist us in helping him cope with whatever stresses or pressures he may be feeling. Mostly, it’s gossip. Grade six is part Lord of the Flies, part reality TV. We have pieced together enough information to know that Stephanie has a crush on James, that Tommy is in trouble for burping in the faces of classmates, and Terrell is relentless in teasing Tyler about his love life. As Jonah explains, “Terrell sings, ‘Tyler has a girlfriend; that he’ll never see again.
This is the good stuff, the reason I like having Jonah beside me in the car. But before we head home I am compelled to at least look through Jonah’s backpack to see how much homework he has and what the child care worker has deigned to tell us about his academic day. The news, according to his school agenda, isn’t uplifting.
“There seems to be little support in reality for the popular belief that we are mellowed by suffering,” Peter De Vries once wrote. “Happiness mellows us, not troubles.” If you’d asked me just a year ago if I agreed with this statement, I’ve no doubt I would have said yes and had good reason to. Ask me now and I’d also say yes. Be serious, sweetheart. All right, it has occurred to me this past year that happiness and trouble aren’t quite as inseparable as I once thought. What can I say? I have no clue. Which is, coincidentally, my signature move.
Jonah is watching me intently as I read the teacher’s note in his agenda. I do my best to keep my expression neutral and wait as patiently as I can for him to speak first. He wants to put on “That’s Life,” but I shake my head and turn off the car engine. Eventually, my old interviewing tactic works. He speaks first and says more than he intends to.
“I laughed today ... in school.”
“And?”
“I had to stand in the hall outside the class. The teacher said I will have to go see the principal next time.”
“And do you want to stand outside? Do you want to go to the principal’s office? No? So why do you do it Jonah?”
“My French teacher’s name is Miss Melanie and I find it funny to say Miss Shmelanie.”
“Jonah?”
“I laugh because it has a shm in it for Shmelanie. I have to go out in the hall because I find the shm funny.” Proving the point, he cracks up, and so, eventually, do I. That’s because he’s right. It is funny, for the reason he says and, who knows, for a whole lot of other reasons we have yet to figure out.
Selected Bibliography
On Autism
Collins, Paul. Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.
Cutler, Eustacia. A Thorn in My Pocket: Temple Grandin’s Mother Tells the Family Story. Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2004.
Grandin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports on My Life with Autism. New York: Doubleday, 1995.
_______. The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s. Arlington, TX: Future Horizons, 2008. This collection of magazine columns has practical advice on everything from dealing with bullying to learning to drive a car.
Grandin, Temple, and Maureen S. Scariano. Emergence: Labelled Autistic. New York: Warner Books, 1986.
Grinker, Roy Richard. Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism. New York: Basic Books, 2007.
Gutstein, Stephen E. The RDI Book: Forging New Pathways for Autism, Asperger’s and PDD with the Relationship Development Intervention Program. Houston: Connections Center Publishing, 2009. Just so you know, I’ve made it to page seventy-five.
Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2004.
Hornby, Nick. Songbook. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003. Hornby’s collection of essays on his favourite songs includes “Puff the Magic Dragon,” on Hornby’s son Danny, who has autism.
Howard, Cori (ed.). Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood. Toronto: Key Porter, 2007. This anthology includes Estée Klar’s essay about her son.
Isaacson, Rupert. The Horse Boy: A Father’s Quest to Heal His Son. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.
Kaufman, Barry Neil. Son-Rise. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
_______. Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues. Tiburon, CA: H.J. Kramer, 1994.
Lord, Cynthia. Rules. New York: Scholastic Press, 2006. A charming novel about a twelve-year-old girl and her younger brother who has autism; it’s intended for grades four to seven.
Lovaas, O. Ivar. Teaching Individuals with Developmental Delays: Basic Intervention Techniques. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed Inc., 2003. This ABA manual is appropriately dedicated to “all parents of children with developmental delays in recognition of the heavy burdens they carry and the models they provide for all parents to follow.”
Moon, Elizabeth. The Speed of Dark. New York: Random House, 2003. This is a science-fiction novel which features a hero with autism.
Nazeer, Kamran. Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism. London: Bloomsbury, 2006.
Page, Tim. Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger s. New York: Doubleday, 2009.
Park, Clara Claiborne. The Siege: A Family’s Journey into the World of an Autistic Child. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.
_______. Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001.
Picoult, Jodi. House Rules. New York: Atria Books, 2010. This is an engaging if formulaic novel by a bestselling author who takes on topical themes. In this case, one of the novel’s main characters has Asperger’s and is also a murder suspect.
Sacks, Oliver. Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1995.
Tammet, Daniel. Born on a Blue Day: A Memoir of Asperger’s and an Extraordinary Mind. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2006. Tammet’s sequel, Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour across the Horizons of the Mind, was published in 2009.
Williams, Donna. Nobody Nowhere: The Extraordinary Autobiography of an Autistic. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1992. This is one of the early insider memoirs. Williams wrote three more memoirs: Somebody Somewhere, Like Color to the Blind, and Everyday Heaven.
Other Sources
Berry, Joy. Let’s Talk About Complaining. Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1982.
Brown, Ian. The Boy in the Moon: A Father’s Search for His Disabled Son. Toronto: Random House Canada, 2009. This memoir isn’t specifically about autism, but it is a bravely written book about being the father of a son with special needs.
Chabon, Michael. Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
De Vries, Peter. The Blood of the Lamb. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961.
Dyer, Geoff. Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H Lawrence. London: Abacus, 1997.
Elkin, Stanley. The Living End. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Crack-Up. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931.
Geisel, Theodor. Horton Hears a Who! New York: Random House Books for Young Readers, 1954.
_______. Green Eggs and Ham. New York: Beginner Books, 1960.
Gilmour, David. The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and a Son. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2007. This is a frank and charming father-son love story.
Humphreys, Josephine. The Fireman’s Fair. New York: Penguin, 1991. I also recommend Humphreys’s earlier novels, Dreams of Sleep and Rich in Love.
Joyce, James. Ulysses. London: Penguin Classic, 2000 (New Edition).
Kingsley, Jason, and Mitchell Levitz. Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome. Orlando, FL: A Harvest Book, 1994. This is the book co-written by the son of Emily Perl Kingsley, author of “Welcome to Holland.”
Menaker, Daniel. A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation. New York: Twelve, 2010.
Pinker, Susan. The Sexual Paradox: Extreme Men, Gifted Women and the Real Gender Gap. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008.
Roth, Philip. Patrimony: A True Story. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991.
Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
Shields, Carol. Unless. Toronto: Random House, 2002.
Acknowledgments
Excerpts from Bad Animals, in somewhat different form, appeared in Maisonneuve Magazine (Spring 2008) as well as The Malahat Review (Winter 2008) and the anthology In Other Words: New English Writing from Quebec (Vehicule Press, 2008). An early version of the chapter “What You Need” was also broadcast on CBC Radio’s Cinq a Six. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council and Quebec’s Conseil des Arts. Special thanks to the Quebec Writers’ Federation, especially Lori Schubert, as well as to my colleagues in the Literary Journalism Program at The Banff Centre, in particular to my editors there, Marni Jackson and Don Gillmor.
If it doesn’t exactly take a village to raise a child, it takes a lot of people working hard. I am grateful to all of Jonah’s therapists and teachers over the years. As well, my thanks to the Friendship Circle and Mrs. Rudski at Kumon. Our families—in particular Cynthia’s parents and my sisters—have had our backs, as always. And Sybil Kramer remains an inspiration. My thanks to the friends who have listened to me whine about this book pretty much forever; they are numerous, but a few should be singled out for their occasionally contradictory mix of good sense and encouragement. A few have made more of a difference than they probably know: Mark Abley, Julie Bruck, Bryan Demchinsky, Dawn Rae Downton, David Homel, Elaine Kalman Naves, Scott Lawrence, and Monique Polak.
Helen Reeves has provided invaluable assistance in helping me give shape to this story. Everyone at Penguin has been a pleasure to work with. John Pearce, at Westwood Creative Artists, has provided expert guidance and judgment. Finally, this book is dedicated to my wife and my son, but that hardly does justice to their part in its writing—their constant and sometimes unsuspecting collaboration. What’s best in Bad Animals I owe to them.
Joel Yanofsky, Bad Animals
