An Open Letter to the Police Helicopter Pilot Buzzing Around My Area Right Now
Dear Mr Pilot,
I just wanted to thank you for the interest in which you have expressed in me, especially in a period of unemployment which has made me feel anonymous and alienated. I am referring, of course, to you shining that searchlight into my attic a few moments ago, and leaving it to linger for a good five or six seconds. Although I applaud your vigilance, I am afraid it is very unlikely that the gang of joyriders you are pursuing is parked on the third storey of my house. I can assure you we don’t even have garage facilites at ground level.
Now that we have become acquainted, I feel I owe you an explanation as to how I am occupying myself, privately, at 1AM in my own home. Perhaps you were momentarily diverted by what I was watching on television, with my bedroom mirror angled at it is so that it can provide a view of the screen from a high vantage point through my skylight. I am watching Raging Bull, the 1980s Scorcese film, I recently purchased the two disc special edition from ebay (I’m sure you saw the open box on the desk). If you had not seen it yourself and were wondering what it was like, I would have to say it is well produced but I am not enjoying it personally. Perhaps, with your passion for boxing, you were thinking that you would enjoy it more than I. In that case, I would be happy to ‘give you a lend’. Fly by at the same time tomorrow night, drop your rope ladder and I will attach it to the bottom.
If your attention was instead drawn to the glass in my hand, I confrim it was half full of Dr Pepper. I considered the possibility that you were thirsty and thus lusting after it and under normal, less invasive circumstances, I would have happily offered you a tumbler full. I’m afraid I was a little lapse as a host when I didn’t try and get the drink up to you, but I hesitated with fear that lobbing the two litre bottle, sealed, at the helicopter could have resulted in clogging the rotors or spilling sticky beverage all over your flight controls. At worst, in todays’ climate, it could have been perceived as a terrorist act. Perhaps tomorrow night we could rig up some sort of system with a jug and some fishing line.
Perhaps your interest in what I was doing, at one o’clock in the morning, alone, was sparked by a reading on your heat vision camera. Sadly that dull flame your equipment registered was not a means of cooking up smack or the sizzling fuse of a bomb, but an incense stick (Wilkinson’s brand ‘White Musk’, but I’m sure you noticed the packet on my bedside table). I don’t use these sticks to cover the odour of illicit drug use, rather, I use them to create a warmer and more pleasant atmosphere, that I am sorry you could not share from you position, 100 feet away, shining a light in my face. I find the aroma is especially pleasing during the summer months, as the heat neccessitates that I open my window a little and thus the exciting but unwarranted smells of the street drift in. These smells include the overpowering wild garlic of Saltwell Park, The warm tar and concrete dust of the road and the stench of jet fuel as it is consumed, burned and emitted by light aircraft hovering insultingly close to my personal space.
Thank you for you time and interest, but I am afraid I must now go to bed. I hold every hope that you are successful in your pursuit and that I will see you soon for another brief meeting.
Thanks again,
Miguel Vennie
P.S I am aware that I am not wearing anything from the waist down, in my defence, I did not expect a chance encounter with a law enforcement professional at this hour and at this altitude.
