by Sam Shepard
AMADO, a mysterious Mexican man, appears to HENRY—an American expatriate on the run from his failed life—in the jungles of Mexico, luring him to a meeting with CONSUELA.
Scene
The jungles of Mexico.
Time
The present.
AMADO
Every year there was a fiesta in our pueblo. The Fiesta of Independence. On this day I would always love to drink sotol and shoot my pistol into the sky. Every year on this day I would do this. And Consuela would dance.
She would dance as though she were being carried away by the angels. There was a happiness in my heart I have never known the likeness of since that time. Then, on this one day, many years ago—the last time I took part in our fiesta—I fired my pistol deep into the blue sky. I was wild with the feeling of freedom and my love for Consuela. The liquor rushed through my blood like boiling water. But one of my bullets must have hit something and bounced off. It struck Consuela’s father, Don Morello, in the eye. He fell in the street and we all rushed to him, not knowing at first what had happened. He just fell over on his face as though it might have been a stroke or heart attack. When we rolled him over and I saw his eye gushing with blood, I knew it was my bullet that had caused this. I saw Consuela’s face quivering. She was kneeling right across from me. Both of us staring at each other across the chest of her father. He was still alive. His chest rising and falling between us. In that moment, my life was changed. This one careless accident of my wildness turned everything upside down. He was taken far away to the hospital in Matamoros. They told us they could save his life but not his eye. I knew then the only honorable thing would be for me to pay his hospital bill. But I had no money. I had no money at all. I had spent it all on bullets for my pistol. So I kissed Consuela and swam the river to the United States, in order to find work.
I kept returning—bringing what little money I’d earned each time. Each time the dogs would chase me. I would go to jail. They would throw me back into Mexico. I would go to Consuela and the children, then swim the river, back to America.