The Helicopter
The former lair of the Accidental Cootchie Mama sat in the flight path of the emergency rescue choppers for the local medical complex; and as of yesterday, it has been bought by a woman for her twenty-something daughter to live in while studying the law. Here’s a repost to honor the gift that keeps on giving…
She cannot escape the sound. Not by burying her head under pillows. Or holding her breath underwater. Or playing music at deafening decibel levels. Or shouting into the gale created by the blades of the hovering helicopter. The ampule of glass and metal is always there, droning in the sky above her house.
Sometimes, she has to squint to see it, a dot swallowed by a glorious expanse of blue. She can feel its vibration in her chest, but that minor irritation is a reprieve from the other days. The ones where she thinks it will land, its whirring metal blades hacking her to pieces and leaving her in a mutilated heap in her back yard.
It doesn’t land. Down and up, it spins. In and out, it hovers. Always watching her, stirring her atmosphere, perpetually moving, never still.
She tries to pretend the helicopter is something pretty, like a hummingbird. The rotating blades become a blur of tiny wings, the sound the slapping together of feathers of a chirping tail. A momentary illusion can give her peace for a few minutes, maybe a few days, if she focuses.
That’s the problem with droning, violent motion. A low swoop always shatters her. In the face of something that can fly up and down, forward and back, side to side, that has the mechanical ability to be tireless, her meager concentration is doomed.
So, she closes the windows, draws the blinds. She grabs her dot-like reprieves and runs outside to savor the blast of sunshine without its shadow to encroach on her dancing arms and grinning countenance. Carefree. Even with the oppressive cares swirling far overhead, she feels weightless, airy. Herself.
It never lasts long.
The helicopter taunts her. Sometimes it allows her to think she’s finally alone before it closes the distance like a lightening strike, kicking grit that blinds her eyes and chasing her to shelter. The windows rattle as its eyes of glass try to penetrate the house. Dishes break and books fall while she sits in a corner, clutching her stomach and heart to keep them from vibrating outside of her, perhaps to prevent them from stopping in the wake of the latest assault.
It never needs to refuel its rages. Somehow, it makes its own energy. Will it always ebb and crash, ebb and crash, pounding at her edges and ploughing through the center of her life?
Hovering helicopters are the worst! We live on a flight path to an airport- the planes are loud, but they at least move out of the way
It always felt big city-ish to me to hear them blast over the house.
I remember how Katy and I moved to a neighborhood just outside of the Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta. I worked for Delta Airlines as a contractor and I needed to be closer to the airport in case I got called, which was always at 2 am or later in the morning. I got tired of driving from Alpharetta all the time. We moved into a two story condo. I will never remember how shocked I was at the house rattling when the air craft roared over head. Our complex was in direct line of path to a runway. Go figure…. It never occurred to me to realize that. Somehow we got used to it. To this day, I love watching air craft of all sizes. I remember how my parents uses to go to Carswell AFB in Ft Worth to get groceries each month. They would leave my sister and I in the car and we could watch the jet fighters take off and land for an hour. Man, that was quite a treat for a boy from a small town.
It always amazes me that any of those things can fly.
Floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.
Ha.
I don’t get tired of helicopters hovering. We go up to watch them dip their bucket (during fire season) into the lake and then flutter off to drop on the fire – I love the reverberation (reminds me of a very strong Harley), the thing I don’t care for is the dirt being imbedded in your skin.
Don’t know why but I cried all the way through your blog this morning. I’m not sure I can pinpoint what it is that hit me hard but I just boohooed all the way through (must be my perception and the fact that my Payten turned 3 and I am unable to feel her little arms around my neck or see her running towards me with her arms up – will this feeling never end?). Why would helicopters bring up such emotion? Rotating blades that slice my heart? Ha, how’s that for poetic.
Hey, thanks for your support. Means a lot to me.
This one made me cry the first time I wrote it, Lori. It has a lot of layers beyond the obvious.
It’s not for nothing that incessant sound is used as a form of torture.Quite simply, I cannot think of anything worse. The poor soul who is in there now!
She is a student and will make her own form of noise, I’m sure.
In Haiti, we always knew when political unrest erupted, as UN helicopters would begin circling over-head. I can never hear one now and not flash-back to Port-au-Prince. Weird.
Hugs,
Kathy
They are very loud things up close, aren’t they? And sort of sudden.
Haunting writing, as evocative as one of my favorite film scenes with a similar sensibility:
http://vimeo.com/6159478
Well. THAT is a compliment. Thank you, Dear.
That was a great visual for this story MTM!
We sometimes have them overhead here, Andra. Usually news traffic copters circling overhead when there is a nasty accident. We were close to an expressway in our other house and had them there as well. We just always know/knew when there was a crash. This sounds awfully close and imposing.
It’s weird that I love to see them when I walk the bridge or something. Watching them fly out in the open is really something.
When I think of helicopters, one of the next things that usually comes to mind is MASH and that sound overlying so many of the episodes. Sent me looking for the theme song and, for the first time, EVER, I discovered there are lyrics . . . sometimes a bit of learning is too much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo How incredibly sad……
That is sad. I never knew the lyrics, either.
Katy and I have watched every single episode of MASH. Yeah the lyrics are rather a downer huh?
Medical transport helicopters aren’t really a part of my routine paths, but I do occasionally see them and have actually once been on the freeway when one was cleared to land. That was imposing and breathtaking and disturbing. I think more than the noise, I’d be upset every time thinking that someone’s life just changed. There is good reason to be a little upset. Debra
Yeah, that was a lot of the problem at the old place. I always knew someone was hurt or dying when I heard one hovering overhead.
My husband’s grandmother lived in Vermont near Burlington. She wound up in the flightline for one of the airport’s runways, and when one came in for a landing in the middle of a conversation, everyone would just stop, wait silently for it to pass, and then resume exactly where they started off.
We also heard C-17′s fly over our old house quite often, too.
Farewell, helicopter! I have them pass by regularly but usually only the military ones are loud enough to be annoying, and those only come a couple of times a year (Fleet Week and so on).
Noise becomes noise when there’s enough of it. That’s one of the things I really love about cities.
There’s always some celebrity or other on the streets, some chase or other in full speed , some president or other visiting for a fundraiser, where I live. I know exactly what you mean, though I couldn’t have done it quite this eloquently.
It can wear on you sometimes, can’t it, Megan? Sometimes a rush. Sometimes not.
Looking at the picture for this post I am JUST NOW realizing what it is. I remember thinking this morning. What in the world is this and how does it relate to this story. OMG… That is what happens when you get up at 4:41 am. Nothing makes sense. LOL
It IS a fast-spinning fan, isn’t it? On the new ceiling of our bedroom.
Helicopters can be quite startling as they dart about the heavens. Beautiful writing, Andra.
hubby is a pilot….this is our life…
Of a helicopter?
Oh, detest the helicopters that fly by on their way to land at a small airport near by. They weren’t around much when I looked at the house or first lived here, but now…. Grrrrrr
They are annoying.