Bad Animals by Joel Yanofsky Read Free Book Online Page B

hasn’t a worry in the world. Meanwhile, Cynthia and I cling to our shallowness, hoping Jonah will remain attractive, hoping too that his attractiveness will be his ace in the hole, one thing he will never have to worry about. “The world is unfair,” Park writes in The Siege “and in a pretty child the world will overlook a great deal.”
    JONAH TOLD HIS FIRST joke soon after he was born. Jokes are narratives in a nutshell, little bits of truth. They are uncomplicated. But even the dumbest ones, when they work, maintain their own internal logic. They are the purest form of storytelling: premise and punchline. You get it or you don’t.
    Jonah was lying on his back on his changing table when he sneezed. It shook his tiny body and left him startled by this new possibility. I looked down at him and immediately cracked up. After a few moments, I was laughing hard enough to attract Cynthia’s attention.
    â€œWhat is it?” she called from the other room.
    â€œCome, quick,” I said. We were new, first-time parents. It wasn’t unusual for the other person to drop whatever they were doing—falling asleep, finishing a book, taking a shower, sitting on the toilet—and come running, invariably with a video camera.
    â€œWhat?” Cynthia said, out of breath. “Is something wrong?”
    â€œThere. Look there,” I said, pointing to a tiny trace of mucus on Jonah’s forehead.
    â€œThat’s disgusting,” Cynthia said, reaching for a tissue.
    â€œWait, you’re missing the point. Think about it: it came out of his nose and virtually did a one-eighty. It’s a miracle of aerodynamics, at the very least. Better yet, it’s a stunt, a prank.”
    â€œIt’s a booger,” she said, wiping Jonah’s forehead and leaving the room, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. In our relatively short time together, I was responsible for her having learned to do both simultaneously.
    â€œYou don’t get it. It’s his first sight gag. He’s a natural. And,” I said, leaning down to whisper the first rule of comedy in my son’s ear, “it’s funny, Jonesy, because it’s true.”

THREE
Bad Day
    Has it made you a better father?
    The question is put to me by a local CBC radio producer and it catches me off-guard, though I know it’s something I should have considered by now. This is a pre-interview. It’s the job of the young woman on the phone to help me figure out what I might say in advance of my live interview the following morning. I’ve been booked on this program because I’ve written a short personal essay about Jonah and me and autism. That would be the “it” she’s referring to. In a way, I’ve been anticipating answering this question, aloud, in public, for a while. I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about it and figure out what it presupposes. Now, here’s my chance.
    â€œSure,” I tell the friendly stranger on the other end of the phone, “it can be tough. But an experience like this teaches you what you’re capable of. I’ve heard people, other parents, I mean, say that they’re grateful for what they’ve come to see as an opportunity. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but life gives you lemons and, well, you know.”
    Evidently, the proof of how well I’ve adjusted to this out-of-the-blue circumstance is in the fact that I have written about Jonah in the first place. No need to mention that it has taken me years or that it’s only twelve hundred words. What matters is you’ve done it, sweetheart. You’ve told part of our story anyway. After the essay first appeared in a local magazine, I also received several supportive emails from acquaintances as well as a few phone calls from other parents of kids with autism. This essay, its hard-earned existence, is an indication of how someone like me, like any one of us,