The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

On his birthday, Samuel Builds-the-Fire (Thomas’s grandfather) makes his way through the city of Spokane to his job as a motel cleaner. He arrives much earlier than usual on account of his elevated mood. He thinks about his children spread out across the United States and grants them patient understanding for not having sent him a birthday greeting. When he arrives at work, the motel manager breaks the disappointing news that even though Samuel is an “outstanding employee,” he must let Samuel go because of the “damn recession” (131). He promises to hire him back when the economy turns around.

Stunned because he has never lost a job before, Samuel reflects on his excellent work performance. He feels the rooms he cared for will never be as clean again. Not knowing where to turn, Samuel makes his way to the Midway Tavern. The narrator informs the reader that Samuel, like his grandson, was also a gifted storyteller who “could pick up the pieces of a story from the street and change the world for a few moments” (132). When he was young, Samuel’s friends paid him when his stories were good. In one such encounter, Samuel generously spent the $20 he earned to buy all his friends a hot dog.

Unsure what to order, Samuel sits down at the bar of the Midway Tavern, “where all the Indians drank in eight-hour shifts” (133). The bartender recommends a beer, giving Samuel his first taste of alcohol. He continues drinking in order to understand “wisdom, courage” but finds he understands “fear and failure” as well (134). Wondering if alcohol would compromise the quality of his stories, Samuel contemplates the story his children loved about how Coyote’s clipped toenails fall to the earth to become white people.

The narrator explains that Samuel moved away from the reservation after a period of isolation: Not only had his family relocated, but his friends had passed away. Setting out on a new life in the city, Samuel took the first job he was offered at minimum wage—the job he lost at the beginning of the story—and watched the hotel’s reputation decline over time. Drug dealing, sex work, and overdose characterized the clientele. Samuel took special care of the Indigenous sex workers by offering them his own money so that they could take the day off.

The story concludes with Samuel being forced out of the bar and aimlessly wandering the streets. He stands on the Union Pacific railroad tracks and trips just as an oncoming train approaches. With the train whistle blaring, he falls face down on the tracks and passes out.

“Junior” (likely Junior Polatkin from “A Drug Called Tradition”) spends a quiet afternoon with his mother while she sews a quilt. While Junior fakes being unconscious, his mother engages him by asking, “Don’t you think your stories are too sad?” (140). Junior mildly agrees but adds that his stories are equally humorous. His mother challenges Junior to write a good story “because people should know that good things always happen to Indians, too” (140).

Junior readies himself and offers his story about Uncle Moses (possibly Moses MourningDove from “Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Indian Reservation”). Moses occupies the house he built 50 years earlier. It isn’t sturdy, but “tribal imagination” holds it together (141). As Moses is happily eating his lunch, his hyperactive and heavyset nephew, Arnold, comes running to the house. His skin is pale even though he is a “full-blood Spokane,” and other children regularly tease him. When Uncle Moses inquires why no other children are around, Arnold tells him that they are attending school activities. Arnold ditched having fun with peers to keep Moses company.

As the story ends, Junior’s mom begins to hum and smile. Junior asks her if she likes his story, and she responds by singing a little louder. Junior relishes the “barely enough goodness” of the day (144).

Victor buys a used baby grand piano. He hesitates to play it publicly until the day of a barbecue, when he performs a work by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. The “strange and familiar music” deeply moves the Spokane audience (146).

The unnamed narrator describes the beauty of several everyday things: the grass under a picnic table, the whispered song of a lover, the warmth of sunlight, a young Indigenous boy with black hair who wins foot races and wrestling matches, tiny visions from broken glass, and an “ordinary carnival” (147). The narrator glories in Simon’s legendary victories at the barbecue: winning the horseshoe pitch, the storytelling contest, the coyote contest, and the one-on-one basketball tournament. Simon declares that “basketball should be our new religion” (147).

The narrator reframes the barbecue’s festivities in traditional ways, calling them dances and dreams. The last image features a sunset holding a child of white and Indigenous descent. The sun announces that “Both sides of this baby are beautiful” (148).

An unnamed narrator gives readers a series of directives to envision how the present would be different if significant historical events took place at other times, with other actors, or in other ways. The narrator says, “Imagine Crazy Horse invented the atom bomb in 1876 and detonated it over Washington, D.C.,” and “[i]magine Columbus landed in 1492 and some tribe […] drowned him in the ocean” (149).

The narrator recalls working at a Seattle 7-11 and being robbed; the thief locked him in the refrigerator alongside the store’s milk and eggs. The narrator proposes the equation “Survival = Anger X Imagination” as a way to combat such victimization (150).

The narrator describes an Indigenous boy who tells fortunes. By touching each person’s hands, the boy offers a personal insight that resonates with their experience. One man, Seymour, dismisses the boy, saying, “You ain’t some medicine man come back to change our lives” (151). However, the boy continues undeterred and mentions details about Seymour’s missing family members and his wedding ring. He proceeds with other friends’ stories of heartbreak and shame.

The narrator then discusses the relevance of Hollywood and television to Indigenous imagination. He tells his friend, Adrian, that “July 4th and all is hell” (152). With bitter sarcasm, the narrator cites war-wounded and deceased friends and questions how imagining a new future is possible when others refuse to hear their stories. The narrator imagines various “methods of survival” (153)—sales on forgiveness, Indigenous lead guitarists for the Rolling Stones, etc.—until finally pleading with Adrian to save the reservation from its current state.

James Many Horses, the same child with a speech disability featured in “Jesus Christ’s Half-Brother Is Alive and Well on the Spokane Reservation,” has grown up, speaking with a quick wit and settling down in his HUD house on the reservation. He is in the middle of an argument with his wife, Norma; James is on the losing side and about to drive away in retreat. Realizing he forgot his car keys, James re-enters the house and covers his embarrassment by cracking jokes. Norma doesn’t respond, busying herself with getting ready to go dancing at the Powwow Tavern. James humbly apologizes, but Norma ignores James and leaves him with his “illusions.”

James decides to hitchhike to the tavern and gets picked up by Simon. On the way, Simon asks why he and his wife were arguing. James reveals that he was diagnosed with cancer, which has spread throughout his entire body. When James revealed the details to his wife, he joked about the size of his “favorite tumor” (157)—the one that was the size and shape of a baseball. James’s seemingly flippant attitude about his condition deeply offended Norma.

James reconnects with Norma at the tavern and apologizes. Norma declares, “If you say anything funny ever again, I’m going to leave you […] And I’m fucking serious about that” (159). James cannot resist making just one more wisecrack. Norma carries through on her promise and leaves James.

Alone, James reflects on how the two of them were drawn to each other at the tavern years before. He recalls the jokes they exchanged, the stories they told, and the cigarette they smoked despite neither of them smoking. James offered to take her home that evening, but Norma replied, “I thought I was at home” (160).

Three months into treatment, James is informed that he’s not getting any better. He thinks back to the poorly timed jokes he made when Norma received the news that her mother had passed away and when a racist trooper pulled them over without cause. He decides that despite the hurt that his humor has caused, it has also helped to heal.

Norma mails James postcards from all over the country. Out of the blue, Norma returns to their house, expresses how she’s missed James, and claims this is where she belongs. James asks why she’s returned, and she replies it’s because the man she was with “was so fucking serious about everything” (170). Norma stays with James so that he won’t die alone.

In first grade, the narrator (likely Junior Polatkin) takes on the class bully, Frenchy, who teased him for his appearance and clumsiness. Junior’s second-grade teacher racially discriminates against him. His third-grade teacher fails to appreciate the humor in his drawing “Stick Indian Taking a Piss in My Backyard” (173). Junior’s fourth-grade teacher suggests he should become a doctor to improve tribal health. In fifth grade, he begins his love affair with basketball. In sixth grade, he meets his new best friend, Randy, after he accepts Stevie’s challenge to “throw the first punch” (175).

By seventh grade, Junior kisses his first white girl and feels as though he has betrayed his tribe. In eighth grade, he is struck by the contrast of his ongoing hunger versus the anorexia and bulimia of the girls who attend the affluent junior high school nearby. In ninth grade, he demonstrates his profound basketball talent but passes out during a high school dance due to undiagnosed diabetes. He gets his driver’s license in 10th grade precisely as another reservation member, Wally Jim, kills himself by driving into a tree. In 11th grade, he is ashamed to have missed his two free throws, costing his school the championship. In 12th grade, he graduates as valedictorian alongside classmates who have yet to learn how to read.

In the middle of the night, Victor makes his way down to the 7-11 where he formerly worked. He notices the white cashier, who gives him a suspicious once-over. He flashes back to the time when he was robbed and shoved into the store’s freezer. Observing that once a “person starts to look at another like a criminal, the love is over” (182), he recalls getting lost on the way home from his white girlfriend’s house and being profiled by the neighborhood’s residents.

By the time Victor selects his creamsicle and checks out, the tension between the clerk and Victor has built up. Seeing the clerk’s fear, Victor begins to joke around, asking if the clerk knows all the lyrics to the theme song of The Brady Bunch. Both laugh and the clerk ends up paying for Victor’s creamsicle.

The stress brings to mind Victor’s relationship with his white girlfriend and the anger that caused him to repeatedly break lamps. He affirms that their fighting was never physical, but he knows that verbal attacks hurt just as much. Before their breakup, Victor was haunted by nightmares featuring gory scenes of tribal fighting, all stemming from his union with a white woman. Unable to resolve the racial rift between them, Victor left Seattle in the middle of the night to go back to the reservation.

Once resettled, Victor struggled to find a sense of belonging and purpose, so he took up basketball again. He heard about a new player on the reservation, the white BIA chief’s kid, and decided to join the opposing team. They were beaten soundly. The following morning Victor channeled his energy into finding work and took his current job in Spokane. His ex tracked him down to apologize, and they both expressed uncertainty about their future. The story ends with Victor feeling that all his dreams are bound to end in defeat.

Junior remarks that the TV in his childhood home was always too loud and that its message seemed to inevitably change somewhere between the broadcasting and the hearing. Junior claims to recall TV better than his family memories. As he describes the childhood traumas related to his father’s absence and alcohol addiction and to his siblings’ gnawing hunger, he notices that people recall the same events differently.

Junior relates the precarious circumstances surrounding his birth; he had fluid on his brain that produced seizures. His father reinterpreted his later epileptic seizures as dancing, saying that he regularly danced during “The Tonight Show” when its introductory theme song was played. Junior goes on to remember his siblings sniffing gas for fun during the summer and Victor’s father teaching him how to drive.

Junior tells the story of his father’s first encounter with the television. Junior’s father and friends gawked at a mesmerizing TV promotion that they spotted in a store window in Coeur d’Alene. It featured a young woman perched on top of a TV, which showed the same woman perched on top of the same TV, and so on. Junior interprets the girl as a singer, a family member, a fancydancer, and forgiveness.

“Somebody Kept Saying Powwow” narrates the friendship between Junior and Norma Many Horses, the wife of James. Junior affectionately remembers Norma as a likable “cultural lifeguard” (199), a fry bread cook, a rodeo queen, and a journalist. Though she is just slightly older than Junior, he calls her “grandmother” and respects her clean lifestyle and guidance. He recalls a time when Norma coaxed his partnership on the dance floor. Junior embarrassed himself, but she told him at the end of the evening that he had the “heart of a dancer” (201).

Junior confesses that he always imagined Norma and Victor would end up together. However, Norma didn’t approve of Victor’s violence as a child. Junior nostalgically remembers when Norma wrote a glowing article about Junior’s game-winning basketball play back in high school. He has kept the newspaper clipping in his pocket to the present day.

Norma and Junior’s conversations over the years have covered personal experiences on and off the reservation, Norma expressing curiosity about the world “out there” and Junior sharing the isolation he felt. Norma pointed out that leaving the reservation allowed Junior to have a child but divulged that she has misgivings about raising any children of her own.

As their friendship grew, Norma asked Junior what the worst thing he ever did was. Junior related his story of hazing a new member of the college basketball team simply because he was a prior convict. Norma’s disdain for his actions seemed to change how she treated Junior afterward. A year later, Norma offered Junior an olive branch by comparing him to Pete Rose—an incredible MLB player “only remembered for the bad stuff” (210).

“Witnesses, Secret and Not,” voiced by an unnamed narrator, centers on a 13-year-old’s internalization of his father’s account regarding a man who went missing 10 years prior. The Secret Witness Program phones the narrator’s father asking him what he knows about the night Jerry Vincent disappeared. This is something the father has been interviewed about before, but both he and his son make the trip into Spokane to meet the detectives. On the way, the curious son pumps his father for information, and the latter obliges. Their car suddenly skids on the ice, does a 360, and then corrects itself as if nothing happened. The two pick the conversation back up without comment, and the father reveals that Jerry “got shot in the head in the alley behind the bar” where they were drinking beer (214).

The narrator’s father tells his son that disappearances and reappearances on the reservation are not uncommon and have a silver lining: the welcome members receive upon returning. The narrator asks his father if he has ever killed anyone, and the father answers that he accidentally crashed into a car driven by an intoxicated white man.

After a considerable wait at the police station, Detective Clayton meets with the two. The encounter is uneventful. The narrator’s father gives an account identical to others he has given over the years, and the detective doesn’t press him further. Despite this, the narrator states that he and his father left the station “feeling guilty” (222). When they arrive home to a full house, the father cries over his dinner plate.

An Indigenous boy, John-John, takes an inventory of his savings and packs up his belongings. John-John includes the photo of his older brother, an air force pilot named Joseph, posing in front of the US flag. He recalls the text of the letter informing the family that Joseph has been “shot down and taken prisoner by the enemy” (225). Missing his brother, he remembers small details about him, like his extraordinary singing voice and his clumsy dancing.

As the years pass, John-John religiously waits at the window anticipating his brother’s homecoming. Whenever he hears a plane overhead or sees one in the sky, he rushes toward the airport hoping his brother is on board. Even in dreams, he replays his brother’s return, complete with battle scars. When awake, John-John creates a new reality in which Joseph is at home teasing him about his name the way he used to. He imagines himself as a pilot who rejoins his brother before a rescue team recovers them both. Called back to the present, his mother tells him it’s time to leave the house because it’s being fumigated. When John-John returns, he continues his vigil, hoping, “Next time, it will be Joseph” (231).

Junior dreams of Old West fame, hunting down outlaws like Wild Bill Hickok and Billy the Kid. His name would be Sonny Six-Gun, and he would be legendary among white and Indigenous Americans alike. Instead, Junior is a college student scrambling to his first-morning class at Gonzaga University. A white student named Lynn captures his attention for both her looks and her boldness. She is not afraid to question the professor’s racial biases. After class, when Junior follows her to the cafeteria, he gets the opportunity to strike up a conversation with her but is overcome by shyness.

Junior wants to avoid going back to the reservation, so he spends Christmas break on campus reading a book per day. Bored, Junior leaves his room to check his mailbox for potential holiday greetings and runs into Lynn. They engage in small talk, although “Lynn [does] most of the talking” (236). They acknowledge his “Indianness,” his drinking, and his tardiness. They discuss movies and the actors that would best portray themselves. By day’s end, they have sex to stave off their loneliness. Though they used contraception, Lynn immediately worries she may become pregnant. Weeks later, Lynn informs Junior that this is in fact the case; she decides to have the child.

The baby, Sean Casey, is born “with dark skin and blue eyes” (240). As Sean grows, Junior makes periodic, scheduled visits. Lynn’s parents disapprove of Sean’s paternal ethnicity, but Lynn does her best to teach Sean his Spokane tradition and language.

Junior registers for another history course taught by the same professor, but this time he is more engaged. He challenges the lectures the way Lynn used to. Tired of having to defend his position to Junior, the professor gives the entire class a pop quiz, which Junior aces. Junior then tosses his quiz in the trash and hitchhikes back to the reservation. Just before reaching home, he calls Lynn to tell her he has dropped out of college. He asks to speak to Sean and tells him he loves him. Sean replies, “quen omanche” (242)—the Spokane word for love.