'Falling Through the Cracks'; a Narrator's Definition of Failure.

Witness: “Looked like they all do. Acne scars and a bad haircut, work pants that showed off his white socks, and those cheap black shoes that have no support.” (Alexi, 181)
Detective: “Can you tell me anything more about the suspect?”
Witness: “No, I don’t think I can.”
Through the short story, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”, Alexi expresses many stories simultaneously that shape the life of the speaker and the setting using the device of narration. With two scenes of direct dialogue, the opening and closing scene, Alexi creates a sense of closure, connecting the two incidents, leading the narrator to believe that one scene in the 7-11, and the other, the conversation with his ex-girlfriend, are directly related. Through the details of the story, Alexi creates the concept that the narrator believes that he is a failure to himself, and that he has ‘slipped through the cracks’, become simply a face with no impact on anything because he cannot “grow up”.
Creating the mood of the scene by linking himself with the 7-11 clerk who has less power than the narrator in this situation, Alexi expresses the narrator’s self-assessed failure in personal life. Through commentary assuming the lifestyle of the clerk, such as the typical nondescript appearance, sitting “at home alone, flipping through channels and wishing he could afford HBO”, the narrator identifies the failure of the clerk while identifying himself with that failure by the line “My arches still ache from my year at the Seattle 7-11”. These details, and the lifestyle of the narrator that has not left a lasting impact on anything or has a purpose gives the reader the impression that the narrator feels lost and out of control of his confused situation in the world. Through the incident where the narrator deliberately holds power over the 7-11 clerk, the narrator gives the reader a sense that this is the only time he can have the power over his own life and life choices, and feels the most in control; feels like he belongs to a world in otherwise he doesn’t “fit the profile of”.
In the closing scene, the narrator has a conversation with his ex-girlfriend, who, evident to the reader, will not enter back into a relationship with the narrator. Her last words to him, “I want to change the world”, is a direct contrast to the narrator’s own life, which has no direction or meaning, a direct contrast to the narrator who “doesn’t know” what he wants to do with his life. Through the short story, Alexi develops the concept of a life spiraling out of control, being lived each day without insight into the future, and how that manner of living causes the narrator to have a lessened identity, ‘fall through the cracks’, and fulfill his standards of a failure.