AMERICA ONE by T. I. Wade

called me VIN for short,” he said from below the stairs.
    “You walk funny, son. You got a leg problem?”
    “Yes, sir, an IED blew my legs off just outside Baghdad a few months ago.”
    “Sorry to hear that, son. So your new job is driver of a silver airplane without wings, and driving my useless excuse for a son around?”
    “You could say that, sir, and I think you are correct on one part of what you said.”
    “What was that, boy?” the old man asked.
    “Your ‘useless excuse for a son’ is pretty correct, sir. I haven’t found anything he is good at since I met him,” VIN replied, straight faced.
    “At least somebody agrees with me around here,” declared the old man, not moving. “Come sit down. Take the other rocker, and tell me how you lost your legs. It will help me ignore that son of mine for a little while longer.”
    While the two men talked on the porch, Jonesy was herded by his mother into the house.
    An hour later she came out with two cold beers and two plates of food.
    “So, you say you think those guys building the IEDs were Iranians?” the old man asked, accepting his plate and a bottle of beer. He nodded his thanks to his wife, and VIN verbally thanked her. VIN had already noted that both males in the family were so much alike that his travelling companion was nothing more than a wilder chip off the old block, just a quarter of a century younger.
    VIN got to the end of his story and began to eat. It wasn’t long before a new question was asked of him.
    “So why the hell did you pick my son as a travelling partner? I certainly wouldn’t.”
    “I didn’t pick him, sir, he picked me. And, so far, in-between the hangovers—and I have never drunk so much in my life—we seem to get along.”
    “I’m sure, like a snake and a mongoose. I’ve just got to figure out which is the snake and which is the mongoose.”
    After a few minutes they were joined by the other two. VIN gave up his chair to the lady, and both the travelers sat on the top step of the nearly dark porch. The light was switched on as Jonesy’s mother got up to see to her food; silence reigned for most of the meal.
    “So, son, have you been thrown out of any more institutions lately?” asked his father simply. “I see you haven’t been put into one that you couldn’t get out of. You must be behaving yourself.”
    “Joseph, leave your son alone. He is old enough to look after himself,” admonished the mother.
    “Oh, really!” was the answer she received. There were a few minutes of silence.
    “Done any flying lately then, Mr. John Jones?” the old man asked.
    “Just sold a crop duster, dad. I spent the last year in honest employment killing the crap in other people’s fields. Pretty enjoyable flying, I must say.”
    “Well at least you still know how to fly. I suppose you already knew how to fly before you were sixteen, the amount of crap you gave your mother and me in every base we ever lived in.”
    “You could say that, dad.” I didn’t tell you the time the pilot of a small Cessna had a heart attack while he was flying me back into Dyess, did I?”
    “Was that the time they found you in Italy and brought you back via the base in Louisiana? The pilot was found dead at the controls. You were fourteen I think, and, I was still at Dyess in Texas?”
    “That’s right dad, we had just taken off from a base—I can’t remember its name—in this old Cessna 210 spotter aircraft. It was just him and me, and he just got her up to flight altitude and onto auto pilot when he keeled over the controls; I checked for a pulse. We were full of parcels and sacks of letters. I was sitting in the right rear seat and couldn’t see much inside the aircraft because it was full to the roof. Not heavy stuff, just a load of mail.”
    “He was already dead?” his father asked.
    “Felt like it to me.” I couldn’t find a pulse, so since the aircraft was heading towards Dyess, I left it alone. The flight was about three