Headshots

By Idabel Allen

This short story collection is loaded with shotgun blasts that deliver the goods on life in all its pain and glory. 

Inside, a boy learns how hard it is to be good in post war Mississippi, a father teaches his beloved daughter her place in the world, and an elderly doctor makes the ultimate sacrifice on a dying planet. 

All this, plus plenty more to keep an avid reader’s head engaged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lowbrow Literary
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781946718037

Idabel Allen

IDABEL ALLEN serves up the best in new home cooked Southern Literature in the tradition of Eudora Welty, Charles Portis, William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor.  Idabel is the author of Headshots, Cursed! My Devastatingly Brilliant Campaign, Rooted and Strange Agonies In Some Lonesome Wilderness. Idabel's books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and independent bookstores across this fine land. When not burrowing in the written word, Idabel is generally up to no good with her family, dogs and herd of antagonistic cows. Learn more about Idabel at www.idabelallen.net. Follow on: Twitter: IdabelAllen@idafiction Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/idabelallenauthor/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Book preview

Chemical Reaction

Even with his eyes closed he sensed her movements, soft, cautious, in the darkened room.  They were so careful at night not to disturb him as they checked to see if he was still with them.  And he was.  When they leaned close he smelled their work on them, the touch of life and death and medicines and cleaning products lingering on their efficient hands.  Even the male nurses smelled this way, as if the job of caring for the ill had stripped them of their sexes for the greater good of healing.

Healing.  He supposed he was doing that.  That’s what bodies do.  And yet Daniel felt weaker than he ever had in his life.  He was flat on his back, literally.  His every need was being taken care of.  Being a patient took some getting used to.  And he felt their care, their absolute desire to heal him and he was humbled.  To have that type of love in your heart, for even a stranger, astonished him.

In the early morning hours as the timid dawn tiptoed into the dark room, he slipped between dreams, fleeting and unfathomable.  In one he was digging with a spade, the sharp metal piercing the earth’s flesh, uprooting the black soil.  He dug and he dug and he dug, but nothing was uncovered but more dirt.  Then the dream was over, leaving Daniel puzzled for about three heartbeats until he slipped into another dream in which he was playing baseball.  He was wearing his high school uniform but the game was in a large stadium, bigger than anyplace he’d ever played before.  The stands were filled with fans chanting his name, Dan-iel...Dan-iel.  He stepped out of the batter’s box and took it all in.  They were counting on him to hit a grand slam and drive in the winning run.

But he never saw the pitch.  Something fell or crashed with an outraged clanging of metal in the hallway beyond his closed door.  Daniel’s eyes popped open and his heart pounded fearfully in his chest.  What was that noise?  Where was he?  Why did he hurt so? Why was his right arm bandaged from shoulder to wrist? 

Then he was awake and remembered the screaming ambulance ride the afternoon before.  He’d been rushed through the emergency room on a stretcher, a team of doctors and nurses on each side of him, running through the halls with his body.  He’d been burnt.

The dayshift nurses were not as careful or cautious as their night-time counterparts.  They were a perky bunch, hardy in their duties, not ones to shy from fouled sheets or weeping wounds or burnt flesh.  One nurse, an older woman named Doreen, wore pink scrubs littered with little hopping bunny rabbits.  When she noticed Daniel staring at the rabbits she said, The little kids like ‘em.  Think they’re funny.

Daniel froze as if being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  He said, My mom’s name is Bunny.  She’s pretty funny too.

That right? the nurse said, pushing his breakfast tray to his bed.  Runny eggs, toast, and two anemic strips of bacon.  My son’s name is Carl.  Carl Grandberry.  He’s a senior with you at Lincoln High. 

Daniel nodded, thinking of Carl’s lanky brown body shooting past him on the track, leaving him behind as if he were standing still.  Looking at Doreen, he knew where Carl got his height from and the wide, sloping smile he always wore.  Daniel said, Carl’s alright, I guess, feigning disinterest, holding back a laugh as Doreen shot him a withering look.

You bet he is.  And he told me about you catching yourself on fire in chemistry.  As she spoke, she buttered his bread and applied grape jelly.  Then she pointed the plastic knife lined with butter and jelly and crumbs at him and demanded, Why you want to get all burned up like that with graduation coming up?  Ain’t you got any sense? 

It was an accident, he explained.  We were getting ready to do an experiment.  I guess I leaned too close to the burner’s flame.  I don’t even know when it happened.  My jacket was on fire all of a sudden.

Doreen removed the foil lid of his orange juice.  Carl said you lost it in class.

Yeah, I have a habit of freaking out when I’m on fire.  He reached for his juice with his left arm, aware of the sedated pain pulsing in his other arm.  He didn’t mind the pain really.  There was something comforting, even reliable about it.

Well, see that you don’t freak out in here.  She gave him a brief authoritative look as if to show she was not about to let anything happen on her shift.  It was the same kind of look the school secretary gave whenever someone asked to use the phone.  Although she smiled, he sensed she was wary of him but he didn’t understand why.  And then, in a flurry of efficiency she was gone.

His mother, Bunny, arrived shortly after breakfast and stayed with him throughout the day, chirping about the room, making friends with the hospital staff, enjoying herself he thought.  He was not surprised.  That was his mother. 

Other relatives came on that first day, and then the next, but he escaped them all by falling into the heavy cloud of sleep.  By the third day his mother had returned to work, and his hospital life settled into a monotonous routine.  By now he knew that the burns on his arm were serious, but there would be little scarring and he would not need a skin graft.  Antibiotics were pumping throughout his body to prevent infection and the doctor was satisfied that the antibiotics were working.

When he awoke on the third afternoon, Daniel discovered a woman standing over him reading from a manila folder.  When she realized he was awake she adjusted her silver, horn-rimmed glasses that made her triangular face appear quizzical and alert.  She blinked for a moment as if trying to recall why she was there and then said, Hello.  I’m Dr. Pilsner. 

Daniel did not say anything.  Fuzzy with sleep and pain medication, everything seemed unreal.  Nothing was sharp or had edges.  Everything felt as if it would dissolve before his eyes.  He was thankful for the bright fluorescent light pressing down on him, holding him in his bed and his bed to the white polished floor. 

Mind if I pull up a chair, she asked, pulling the chair up as she spoke.

Daniel tugged his white sheet up to his chest and then hugged it close.  The other doctors and nurses had not sat down with him.  He said, Where’s Dr. Nelson?

I’m not sure.  She sat down and placed the manila folder on her lap.  I’m the hospital psychologist.  I’d like to ask you a few questions. 

Why? he asked, I’m not crazy.  He’d never spoken to a shrink before. 

I never said you were, she said in a distracted voice, scanning the open folder on her lap.  I just want so see how you’re feeling, make sure everything is alright.  Her voice was brisk, northern.  She was definitely not from Tennessee. 

Daniel rubbed the sheet between his thumb and forefinger on his left hand, feeling its soft coolness.  He noticed the way her dark short hair shined against the bright white walls.  He did not mind this.  She was younger than his mother, maybe in her late thirties.  Her arms were tanned and toned in her short-sleeved shirt.  She wore no jewelry.  His mother never left the house without full body armor: necklace, earrings, bracelets, rings. 

Dr. Pilsner closed the folder and offered him her full attention.  Her blue eyes were pale but clear.  She had an intelligent, no-nonsense look about her that made Daniel sit up and pay attention a bit more.  She said, How are you? 

Great.  Daniel smiled broadly, not minding the directness of her eyes.

I see, she answered slowly.  And your arm?

It hurts, but the pain medicine helps.  It itches too. He glanced at the bandage. Feels like I’m growing fish scales under here.

She removed the cap from her pen and said, I guess that’s to be expected.

I should expect fish scales? he asked in mock alarm.

No, she looked up from her notes, puzzled.  I meant the itching.  That’s to be expected.  She glanced down at her notes again. 

Daniel suddenly thought of her as a fish, or fishlike: cold, unemotional in her silvery satin shirt and her slick black slacks.  He said, Are you always this serious?

As a heart attack, she replied as she finished writing.  But when she looked at him there was a spark of unexpressed mischief in her eyes. Now I’m going to ask you a series of questions and I want you to answer as honestly as possible.  If you don’t know the answer just say you don’t know.  Okay?

Okay.  He prepared for another round of questions about diabetes or heart disease in his family.  But those were not the questions she asked, and the ones she did ask caught him off guard.  Is there a history of mental illness in your family?  Are you depressed?  Have you he ever been depressed?  Have you ever thought about suicide?  Do you have trouble controlling your emotions?  Have you ever purposefully hurt yourself?  Have you ever destroyed property?  Hurt animals?  Do you burn things?"

Daniel answered no repeatedly, growing more and more uneasy as she marked his answers in the folder.  Why was she asking him about this junk?  What was going on?

When the questions were exhausted she said, Sounds like you’re a pretty healthy young man.  No problems with anger, depression.  No family history of mental illness. 

Daniel let out a long sigh of relief, still trying to decide what to think of her.  This was all new to him, but he could see she was very comfortable asking such personal questions.  This is what she did every day, this was her job and he