By George V. Higgins
(When novelist George V. Higgins wrote about shots, he generally wasn’t referring to the medical variety, but in this scene from Cogan’s Trade (1974)—now a movie called “Killing Them Softly” starring Brad Pitt –he gives this account of anaphylaxis to bee stings.)
“…See the problem with her, is, she’s got, she’s always had this real bad problem with bugs, you know? Bees and hornets and stuff. She’s allergic to them.”
“Swells up and everything?” Mitch said. “When I was a kid I used to do that.”
“Worse’n that,” Cogan said, “she could actually die. She’s got, she never leaves the house, she hasn’t got a needle with her, adrenalin, I got one in the glove box in the car, I got one in the truck. They told her, you get stung, you get stung above the neck, you got five minutes to get that shot. Twenny minutes below the neck. They told me: ‘Hit her the shot. Don’t try to get her to the hospital. You won’t have time. Her heart’ll stop.’”
“Jesus,” Mitch said, “that’s a tough thing.”
“She’s a tough girl,” Cogan said. “She’s lived like that for most of her life. ‘There’s bees in the world,’ she says. ‘I can’t stay inside all my life. What if a bee comes inside?’ She told me, she got stung a couple years ago, we’re having dinner, this place right on the water and I guess they’re hiving underneath it or something and, she don’t wear no perfume, of course, and I generally got more brains but somebody gave me some of that Brut and I had it on, and one of the bees comes out and I guess he was probably looking for me. So he lands on her neck and the waiter sees it and, he’s gonna be helpful, he tries to brush it away. I didn’t see what he was doing it, he was already doing it. Well, he missed, and the way he did it, he drove the stinger right in and she screams. And he goes for her bag and she starts to turn blue. Well, I had the one I carry, and I practically knock the tables over, getting around to her, and she can’t get no breath, you know? So I give her the shot and she’s all right. ‘Feels like everybody took all the air out of the world,’ she says.”
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