CHASER: (approaching HOSS’s body) He was knockin at the door. He was right up there with the best of ’em. He came the long route, though. Not like you. He earned his nook. He was a Marker. A true Marker.

CROW: He was backed up by his own suction, son. Didn’t answer to no name but loser. All that power goin backwards. Creates a helluva vortex. It’s good he shut the oven. Fact, I did him a favor. He was stopping up force fields from here to Salt Lake City. Lookit all the air I’ve opened up for us. All the blazing road.

CHASER: Us? I’m not packin with you, chump.

CROW: Honor and loyalty. Remnants of the Royalty. Dirty, cryin shame how they’ve vanished with the game.

(CROW sings as lights dim slowly to black. HOSS’s blood continues to flow toward the audience.)

CROW: Song: “Sweet Lullaby”

SWEET LULLABY

Time is quit
Look it in the eye
In blood we sit
In dark we die
Don’t blink now
Sweet lullaby

Clock is stopped
Stare into the skull
Into the face
Invisible
Hold me close
Sweet actual

Come and drape across my knee
Rain through my street
Come and blow this candle out
Incomplete

Time is quit
Look it in the eye
In blood we sit
In dark we die
Fare the well
Sweet lullaby

Time is quit
Look it in the eye
In blood we sit
In dark we die
Don’t blink now
Sweet lullaby

Copyright

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL, FEBRUARY 2006

Copyright © 1974, 2006, copyright renewed 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.

This is a revised edition of the work originally published as The Tooth of Crime by Grove Press, New York, in 1974.

CAUTION: This play is fully protected, in whole, in part, or in any form, under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the copyright union, and is subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, radio, television, recitation, and public reading, are strictly reserved. All inquiries for performance rights should be addressed to the author’s agent, Judy Boals, Judy Boals, Inc., 307 West 38th Street, #812, New York, NY 10018.

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

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shepard, Sam 1943–2017
Tooth of crime : (second dance) : a play with music in two acts/
Sam Shepard; with music and lyrics by T Bone Burnett.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
I. Burnett, T Bone. II. Title.
PS3569.H394 T6 2006
812′.54—dc22
2005045661

Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN 9780307274894
Ebook ISBN 9780307498359

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