America, Etc.

Excerpt

My dad, the drone pilot, is losing to me again at Missile Command. He’s only on level three and is already desperate with the joystick, jerking it around and repeatedly stabbing the fire button like it’s Morse Code for I’ll be dead in three seconds. “The smart bombs are too smart!” he says, and winks. But the game we’re playing is thirty years old, and, trust me, the bombs aren’t that smart. And anyway, why is he winking? Maybe if he kept both eyes open, he’d successfully defend more cities.

Mom’s in bed. The baby, Avery, is in her crib being quiet for now. I should probably be in bed, too, since I have basketball in the morning, but while I was brushing my teeth, Dad found me in the bathroom and asked how my thumbs were feeling.

“They’re feeling restless,” I said.

“Then let’s have at it,” he said.

That’s our routine. So I spat into the sink and followed him downstairs.

“Hands down, this is the best part of my day,” he said as the cartridge loaded up and he went to work on the stack of Keebler cookies on the coffee table in front of us.

Michael Kardos

Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Before He Finds Her and The Three-Day Affair, the story collection One Last Good Time, and the textbook The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide. His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Harvard Review, and elsewhere, and have won a 2015 Pushcart Prize. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he currently lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.

Patrick Ryan on “America, Etc.”

Every once in a while a story comes through our office that is so good and so relevant to the world we’re living in that I find myself sitting forward in my chair as I read, and by the time I get to the last page, I’m already eager—even antsy—to publish it. That’s how it was for me when I first read Michael Kardos’ “America, Etc.”

Jeremy is your average teen. He’s got two parents and a little sister. He plays basketball; he plays video games. In the evenings, after dinner, his dad often joins him at their vintage Atari console for a few rounds of Missile Command. And by day, his dad is a drone pilot.

Since we all started learning what drones are and how they’re used by the military, I’ve imagined what it would be like to sit in the “pilot’s seat” and steer a craft from halfway around the world. Even more bewildering is imagining what it must be like to cause destruction from such a great (and safe) distance. “America, Etc.” takes this line of imagining a step further: What would it be like if one of your parents was the person flying the drone, targeting distant cities and towns, dropping bombs at the flip of a switch, and then coming home each night to the safety and comfort of your home?

One Teen Story is thrilled to be ushering “America, Etc.” into the world. It’s a story that will draw you in, make you wonder, and make you care. And it might change the way you think about drone warfare.