Sherman Alexie - The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Lynn taught Sean the Spokane word for love, quen comanche , but Sean could never get his tongue around the syllables. But he always tried.

Lynn eventually returned to Gonzaga after dropping out to have the baby. Junior always imagined that in their movie, she would have a one-paragraph description of the rest of her life just before the closing credits rolled:

LYNN CASEY returned to college and earned her degree in American History. She graduated with honors and is currently pursuing her master’s in history, focusing on the American West. Her thesis paper, “Of Bullets and Band-Aids: Repairing the Mythology of Dodge City,” is being published in the Journal of Applied History and Literature , Summer 1986. Lynn and her son, Sean, live in Spokane, Washington.

Junior stayed in school another year, even took another history class from the professor who’d taught that course where Lynn and Junior had met. Although Junior had done fairly well in the first class, he wanted to do even better the next time around. He studied hard, sacrificed his grades in other courses, even skipped other classes to study history. And just like Lynn had done, he challenged the professor on every point. Every detail.

“But don’t you think the gunfighter was just a symbol that justified the violent nature of white men?” Junior asked.

The professor ignored Junior and continued with his lecture. Junior leaned back in his chair and dreamed of being a gunfighter. He drew his pistol and fired, once, twice, three times. He never missed.

“But don’t you think the western movie is just a contemporary measure of America’s fondness for war?” Junior asked.

“Okay, okay,” the professor said. “Enough lecture. Time for a pop quiz. And you can all thank Mr. Polatkin for it.”

The class groaned and struggled with the test. Junior ran through the test, answered most questions correctly, missed a couple. He carried the test up to the professor.

“Correct this,” Junior said.

“I’ll give it back to you next class,” the professor said.

“No, correct it now.”

The professor grabbed the test from Junior, hoped it was a failure. But Junior did well enough to get an A.

“Happy now?” the professor asked.

“No,” Junior said. He took the test paper back and threw it in the garbage as he walked out the classroom door and out of college. He hitchhiked back to the reservation, stopped at a pay phone, and made a collect call to Lynn.

“Hello, Lynn, this is Junior. I left school.”

“Junior, you can’t do that. You can’t go back to the reservation. You’ll die out there.”

“Well, I’m dying at school, too. So I guess it’s a matter of choosing my own grave.”

“Listen, Junior, do you need anything?”

“Can I talk to my son?”

“Sure, hold on.”

Junior waited for Sean Casey’s voice.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Sean, it’s Daddy.”

“Daddy.”

“I love you, Sean.”

“ Quen comanche , Daddy.”

“Yeah, Sean, quen comanche .”

Junior hung up the phone and walked down the highway toward the reservation. He wanted to imagine that he was walking off into the sunset, into a happy ending. But he knew that all along the road he traveled, there were reservation drive-ins, each showing a new and painful sequel to the first act of his life.