You Better Jump...

I started working with Jack Knight in 2017. Jack has autism and is often labeled “low functioning,” a phrase I find painful and misleading—because Jack is smarter than most people I know. He studies neurobiology, loves the Hubble telescope, and understands multiple languages.

When you first meet Jack, though, conversation isn’t what you’d expect. He speaks in lists and moves through the world with bags of stuffed animals—his “furry friends”—which he collects compulsively and arranges with remarkable precision.

Jack communicates using the Rapid Prompting Method, a technique where he’s asked direct questions and responds by spelling answers on a letter board. This method unlocked his ability to communicate and gave others access to just how intelligent, funny, and perceptive he really is.

I’ve worked with people with intellectual disabilities my entire life, and I’ve always made a point to treat my peers in age-appropriate ways. Jack is a 34-year-old man, and I’ve always treated him as such. As it turns out, he really, really hates baby talk.

Jack may be semi-verbal, but he communicates clearly in his own way. Once you learn what that looks like, you begin to understand the full person inside that busy, brilliant brain.

Jack is also one of my very best friends. We’ve been through a lot together, including training for and running countless half marathons. We’ve also completed three full marathons together, including the New York Marathon. If you’re a distance runner, you understand the bond that forms out there on long miles and shared suffering.

And because Jack and I are so close, we know exactly how to mess with each other—and we do it often.

When Jack gets agitated, he mocks you. In your exact tone of voice. If you ever want to know what you sound like, just annoy him. His impersonations are elite.

Once, while I was lecturing him for being a jerk, I noticed he kept making this strange face. After a few rounds of this, it hit me: he was making my mom’s angry face. (My mom is full-blooded Italian, so her pissed-off face is iconic.) Which meant he wasn’t just mocking me—he was showing me that I had inherited it.

Sometimes Jack mocks me while I’m counting reps for him. So I mock him mocking me. This usually devolves into both of us yelling back and forth in wildly exaggerated tones, each trying to out-mock the other. I’ll admit it—Jack wins every time. Eventually I resort to whispering so we don’t disturb the entire gym.

In nearly ten years of friendship, this game has only backfired on me once.

Jack was being especially sassy that day. I was too. He was stalling, moving in slow motion, and resisting almost every cue. I was trying to get him to do broad jumps, and… well, you can see what happens next in the video.

Jack: 1
Kevin: 0