In NYC, I don’t see them all that often. Or I don’t notice them. I’m sure they are there. But in LA, they come upon you at all hours of the day or night. Night is the scariest – and most exciting – as they chase a speeding car or speeding suspect hot-stepping through the backyards of a neighborhood. They follow the suspect best they can by shining a powerful spotlight, a light so strong it makes the night bright as day. I’ve been collaterally lit like this a few times, each time jarred by the jerky ray as it shines through my window and into my eyes, blanching any and all color in its path.

Friday, there was a fire close to where I live in LA. From a safe distance, I watched several helicopters circle the fire and drop thimblefuls of water and fire retardant on the flames inching ever closer to the Hollywood sign. I was on the phone with my father, asking what would happen if the sign burned down, an impossible event that was suddenly minutes away. “Easy,” he said. “They’ll put up another sign, one that’ll be younger and prettier.”

 

The helicopters seemed so insufficient for the job: a sky full of teeny insectian Davids against one flaming Goliath. (“Flaming Goliath” would be a good name for a bar.) Yet some magic ratio of firefighters, helicopters, maintenance crews and wind direction put out the fire in a matter of hours.

I marvel at helicopters, at their ability to drop down and zoom up into and out of any situation and terrain. No surprise, they were developed during wartime and were first used by Nazi Germany (happy Passover!) in 1937. By 1942, the US Army had them in mass production.

There is something about the gut-rattling WHOMP WHOMP of those rotating blades that always sounds like a war to me; even as I’m safely at my kitchen table sipping coffee and reading the paper, once I hear those metal birds come over the hill, I duck for cover.

While in combat, helicopters are used to get closer to the action, I think of them cinematically as a distancing tool. Helicopters give us final shots with a lyrical ease: as he leaves Korea in a helicopter, Hawkeye sees that B.J. Hunnicutt (and the series) has finally said goodbye by spelling out the word in rocks on the ground:

 

 

Charlie Sheen leaves Vietnam with his platoon while sitting in the mouth of the chopper’s wide open door, feet dangling in the sky above the bloody earth below.

Charlie Sheen with helicopter:

Charlie Sheen (far right) sans helicopter:                                

Instantly close, instantly far; helicopters are aeronautic toys. They give those of us on the ground superhuman powers to see from above everything from sprinting suspects to sluggy traffic clotting the city’s capillaries. They pluck humancicles from the frozen slopes of Mt. Everest. They drop tourists onto glaciers of Alaska while pouring champagne from their bellies, and they can get you from JFK to Manhattan in 8 minutes for a cool $144.80.

I often thought if I could have any superpower that it would be speed-reading, but I also think it would be cool to transform into a helicopter. That “S” on my chest could stand for “Sikorsky,” and I’d be able to land without a runway, to fly between two buildings or fly above the Spelling mansion and see the tiled pool mosaic face of Tori as it was meant to be seen, from a distance. She is beautiful from there, so say the few Icarusi that have flown that close to the sun.

There is a fly in my office I have been trying to kill for days now. It is big and fat and noisy. It goes from the top corner to the window and walks the glass, waiting for me to come toward it with a rolled up magazine. Just as I get close, it zoomZZZZZZZZs to hang out on the top curve of the lamp until I get there. I raise the rolled New Yorker and take a swing, knocking the lamp into a sideways tilt. Did I get it? No. In seconds I hear wings buZZZZZZZZZZZZZing toward the window once more, determined to escape.

I realize this fly is the true superhero. And that part of me is wishing to be a fly-girl. I drop the mag and shimmy open the pane a few inches. I blow on the fly, urging it toward the fresh smoggy air. It electric slides its six legs toward the opening and with a final whoozzzzzz is gone to join the other bug-eyed machines patrolling the city, looking for trouble or a good time.