Genesis of Standard Deviation

By David Harry

Standard Deviation is a fiction novel centered around an Asperger’s child.

Thump

“What was that?” I asked, turning to my wife and finding her as startled as I was.

“Your guess is as good as mine.   Sounds to have come from the hallway.”

Thump. Thump.

We both rushed to the front of the house in time to observe our four-year-old granddaughter climbing up to the third step using the handrail for support.  She carefully turned to face the landing.  Without so much as a whoop or a Bonsai, or any other form of warning, she launched herself in the air, barely clearing the bottom step and landing with a resounding thump on the hall floor.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” I admonished.  “Don’t do that.” 

But she was already on the second step on her way to the third.  “Please don’t—” The command had come too late.

Thump

This time her chin hit the ground as well as her feet and knees.  My wife rushed over, expecting to be ministering to a child in need of medical attention only to find her scrambling to her feet intent on repeating the performance.  “Please dear, don’t jump.  You’ll get hurt.  Please, don’t jump.”

Words didn’t seem to impact her, so I put my arms around her small body and held her still.  Well, as still as it is possible to hold a child intent on jumping off the third step.  Eventually, maybe a minute, maybe five, she calmed down. I could feel it in her body.  I let go, expecting her to race back to the stairs.  But instead, she walked toward the back of the house, her head down mumbling to herself, 

“Don’t  jump.  Don’t  jump.  Don’t  jump.  Don’t  jump.”

My heart broke.  My research for Standard Deviation began, research that opened my eyes–and my heart–to a whole new reality.  A reality that is my granddaughter’s life.

A writer’s challenge is to translate the world as he/she sees and feels it to an audience who initially may be indifferent to the writer’s subject.    This daunting task is made easier by selecting a topic you, the writer, have a vested interest in exploring.  Thus, a corollary to the adage, write about what you know is the proposition of caring before telling.

Powerful writing is not so much about what you’re comfortable with, but rather about a desire to share with your audience a particular passion. When your excitement, the excitement stemming from a new revelation, a new truth, a new understanding, bleeds onto the pages of your story you have smoothed the reader’s path to discover what lies beneath the story’s surface veneer. Being overly comfortable with your subject often results in a narration that, even though very well written, lacks the excitement of the hunt.

Since explorations are never without false trails and misplaced truths, the addition of a healthy dash of imagination makes the reader’s journey even more interesting and causes the pages to be turned all that much faster.     

_______________________________________________________________________

David Harry was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BS in Electrical Engineering and from Capital Law School with a Juris Doctorate.  Mr. Harry is a registered patent attorney, now retired and living on South Padre Island with his wife, Mary and German Sheppard, Hydra. David’s hobbies include writing, biking and kayaking. Mr. Harry has published four mystery/thrillers set in the valley featuring Jimmy Redstone, an aging former Texas Ranger, and Angella Martinez, a relative newcomer to law enforcement who finds herself as a Homeland Security agent partnered with Jimmy. Mr. Harry’s latest book, STANDARD DEVIATION, centers around an Asperger’s child and the difficult personal relationships that spectrum people endure. The book explores friendship and love between troubled people. His website is www. davidharryauthor.com

  

In The Midnight Hour

By David Harry

I would need to go back to twelfth, grade. English class. I had to write a short story. I procrastinated until the very last night. I had no idea of what to say or where to begin.

The clock ticked relentlessly. It was past eleven, the paper was blank—so was my mind. “Just begin,” I told myself. “Half a story gets a grade higher than zero.” 

Midnight. Mind and paper still blank. Zero looming large.

Fingers moving. Someone breaks into my house. I get between the intruder and the door. He runs into the basement. I follow.

He picks up a shovel from a construction project. Swings. Hits me on the head. I black out. He runs. Half a story. Better than zero. I’ll take a fifty. Bedtime

My mind won’t leave it. Back to my desk. Erase. The shovel misses me. I grab a pickax. The blade connects. Blood is everywhere.

I now have a possible seventy. Passing. Go to sleep. Can’t.

The dead body is at my feet. What to do now? Idea. Put the body behind the wall and brick him in. Good plan.

I mix the mortar, position the body, and with adrenalin pumping lest my father come down and find what I’m doing, I frantically begin building the wall. I’m working fast, not taking time to snap a straight line. I refuse to think about what it is I am hiding. The wall is waist high. Then it is over my head. I use a chair to finish one section and begin a new area next to it. Brick by brick I am gaining on it. Not much further to go. 

I hear footsteps above me, but nothing coming down into the cellar. Brick dust is on my glasses, the mortar sticking as well. A film forms. It’s getting hard to see. No time to clean my lenses. Gotta keep going. Now it’s almost impossible to see, but I’m only a few bricks from finishing.

The body cannot be seen. The mortar is setting fast, the wall is solid. I’m almost finished. Just three bricks to go. Then two. One.

Done!

I can’t see, but that’s okay. I’ll go upstairs. No one will know. All sound from the house is now gone. I clean my glasses, but no light comes in.

Then I realize with a sudden jolt that I have bricked myself into the corner. The dead guy is in the cellar and I’m behind a solid wall. No possible way to break through.

I scream. No one answers.

In class the next day I was made to stand in front of the class and read the story that I had worked on for less than an hour. My story was, I thought, being held up as what not to do. I sat down. Then teacher then said, “David’s story deserves an A. I see you have read some Poe. Great job!” 

A writer was born.

________________________________________________________________________
 

David Harry is an attorney and author of three mystery novels, The Padre Puzzle, The Padre Predator, and the September 2012 release of his third in the series, Padre Paranoia.

The series of books are set on the rustically beautiful South Padre Island with his returning characters Jimmy Redstone and Angella Martinez.