Flight

Characters

Zits (Michael), the main character, is fifteen-years-old. For the past nine years of his life, he has been bounced around from negligent family members to remiss foster homes. His Irish-American mother died from breast cancer when he was six years old. Zits’ Native American father left the family when Zits was born. Zits describes himself as "a blank sky, a human solar eclipse," not belonging to anyone and no one belonging to him. After staying with his Aunt and her sexually abusive boyfriend for two years after his mother’s death, Zits runs away, starts drinking, smokes crack, steals a car, and finds himself repeatedly in juvenile detention.

Transformation #1: Hank Storm (FBI Agent) is a short, stocky, attractive, federal agent during the 1975 Indigenous Rights Now! (IRON) movement in Red River, Idaho. Zits is mortified that he is one of the FBI agents who joined with HAMMER, IRON’s opposition. As Hank Storm, Zits learns that Elk and Horse (IRON’s two figureheads) are in cahoots with the FBI and HAMMER. Elk and Horse bring Hank and his partner a member of IRON, Junior, to interrogate. When Hank’s partner, Art, is unable to attain information from Junior, Art shoots and kills him. Hank is forced to shoot Junior as well after he is already dead in order to have his hand in the murder.

Transformation #2: Native American Boy, The Indian boy lives at the camp at Little Big Horn on the eve of Custer's attack. He cannot speak, of previous violence. He has a father who loves him very much; this is first time Zits feels love and affection from another person. His father talks to a Native American with peeling skin and lightning bolts painted on his body; Zits realizes this is Crazy Horse, the Oglala war leader. He witnesses the attack and the brutality the Indians inflict on the white man. He is then told to cut the throat of a young white soldier but hesitates wanting to give the boy mercy.

Transformation #3: Native American Tracker, Gus, the Indian tracker, is an old man leading the US Army against Native Americans sometime during the middle of the 19th century. He is arthritic and has trouble moving, and he also has a deep-seated hatred for Native Americans, because as a younger man he came across a white settlement where men, women, and children were killed by Native Americans. However, during the massacre of the Indian village which he helped initiate, he sees one of the young soldiers, whom he calls Small Saint, running off and saving a little Indian boy, someone he starts to refer to as Bow Boy. He is supposed to turn them over but instead helps them get away because the young man joined the military to help people.

Transformation #4: Pilot (Jimmy), Jimmy is a middle-aged white pilot and flying instructor. He has been married to Linda for twenty years, although he is having a thirteen-month affair with Helda. His best friend of fifteen years is Abbad, an Ethiopian Muslim and an immigrant, whom he taught how to fly. After Abbad hijacks and crashes a plane into downtown Chicago, Jimmy feels a number of emotions, mostly betrayal. When Linda sees Jimmy with Helda, Jimmy takes his plane and crashes it into a lake, committing suicide.

Transformation #5: Zits' Father, Zits' father is a homeless Native American on the streets of Tacoma. As his father, Zits learns that his father endured physical and emotional abuse as a child; after failing to kill an animal on an unsuccessful hunt, Zits' Grandfather forces his son to repeat the lines "I ain't worth shit" over and over again. Haunted by this memory outside the room where Zits is being born, Zits' father runs away and abandons his son. He carries a photo of five-year-old Zits with him at all times.

Justice is an intelligent, good-looking white kid of seventeen that Zits meets in jail. He displays an interest in Native American history and in the recurring violence in American culture. Justice gives Zits a paintball gun and a real gun and convinces Zits to shoot up a bank in after effort to start a contemporary Ghost Dance. With no real record of Justice being in the prison system, it is unclear whether or not Justice is a doppelgänger/opposite of Zits.

Officer Dave is a city cop in Seattle, WA. He has arrested Zits a number of times and he has always showed compassion for him. He is Robert's brother and played a huge part in Zits' adoption.

Robert is Zits's adoptive father and Officer Dave's brother. He works as a firefighter and takes him in along with his wife Mary. Initially, Zits is reluctant to accept their generosity but he warms up to them when he realizes their compassion for him is genuine. At the end of the book, he even reveals his real name to Mary.

Mary, Dave's sister-in-law, wants to be a mother. She and her husband Robert take Zits in and later adopt him. She is trying her hardest to make Zits feel at home and finally safe.


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