“She blames him, I guess.”

“Blames him for what?”

“Well, do you know the story?”

“It’s been a long time. I guess I saw it in the sixties.”

“She blames him for the death of Orson Welles.”

“Oh.”

“You remember.”

“Yeah,” I lie. I remember nothing about it except some kind of chase sequence through the sewers of Paris. Was it Paris?

“Don’t you remember? They set him up. The vaccine?”

“Oh, yeah,” I lie again.

“All those kids dying from the phony vaccine?”

“Right.”

“Well, I’m totally exhausted. I’m going to bed. Can you lock up down here?” she says.

“Sure,” I say. She leaves the room, yawning and stretching. I punch the remote control and the TV buzzes off to black. I watch the path she’s taken. The sky lights up with sheet lightning through the big bay windows. I can see the river bright as day. Thunder rolls far off in the valley. It smells like rain and fish. The dogs scratch the screen door. They’re all cowards when it comes to thunder. How long ago was it when I first kissed her and who was I pretending to be?

About the Author

SAM SHEPARD

great dream of heaven

Sam Shepard was the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of more than fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he appeared in more than sixty films and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. He died in 2017.

Also by Sam Shepard

ALSO BY SAM SHEPARD

The One Inside
A Particle of Dread
Heartless
Fifteen One-Act Plays
Day out of Days
Kicking a Dead Horse
Buried Child
Tooth of Crime (Second Dance)
The God of Hell
The Late Henry Moss, Eyes for Consuela, When the World Was Green
Cruising Paradise
Simpatico
States of Shock, Far North, Silent Tongue
A Lie of the Mind
The Unseen Hand and Other Plays
Fool for Love and Other Plays
Paris, Texas
Seven Plays
Motel Chronicles
Rolling Thunder Logbook
Hawk Moon

Copyright

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, NOVEMBER 2003

Copyright © 2002 by Sam Shepard

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2002.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

“An Unfair Question” was previously published in The New Yorker. “Coalinga ½ Way” was previously published in LA Weekly.