The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: Flight Summary & Analysis

A young Indian man, John-John, counts dollar bills he’s been saving in a shoebox. He counts out two hundred stacks of ten dollars each, and wonders “How much is enough?” He packs his money into a suitcase along with clean underwear, a toothbrush, and a worn photograph of his older brother, Joseph, in “full military dress in front of an American flag.” John-John remembers receiving a letter which informed his parents that Joseph, a jet pilot, had been taken prisoner during a military operation.

John-John recalls waiting at the window “for years” after his brother’s disappearance. While his friends lived their lives—grew up, married, had children—he “lived” by the window. John-John waits on the porch with his suitcase, “watching the sky for signs.” He then has a vision of a jet “ripp[ing] through the sound barrier,” and he can “see vapor trails stretched across the sky.”

John-John runs down the highway, chasing the jet; it touches down in front of him. He wonders if Christopher Columbus has come back. John-John sees his brother Joseph climbing from the jet, and his brother removes his helmet to reveal his scarred face. Joseph does not remember John-John, and John-John cries, thinking that “memory [is] like a coin trick; like an abandoned car.”

John-John, having fallen asleep, dreams of all the ways his brother might return to him. Upon waking, he revels in memories of their childhood, and the jokes they told. He waits a little while more at the window. He eventually goes back to sleep and “dreams of flight,” and of finding Joseph in the woods. Upon waking, he returns to the window. He watches vapor trails form in the sky, counts his dollar bills, and dreams of “escape.”