By: Todd Mercer

Yes, I do live in my helicopter. Let me address that right off. People sure enjoy being judgemental about that situation. Nobody understands how it happened, but they have plenty of thoughts to share about it anyway. I try to maintain patience with the negativity. I remind myself that they have never met an unhoused person who nevertheless lucked into owning a functioning and licensed helicopter.

Yes, I cook my meals in here. You’d be surprised what you can do with an air fryer and a hotpot. Sure enough, you can sleep in here, but no, it’s not comfortable at all. Whenever possible I sleep somewhere else.

My life is the life that I have though. How can I respond except to live it? If I say “poor me,” will strangers come running with hugs and encouragement? It’s not happening, so I just keep my sorrows to myself. Sometimes there’s a shred of dignity available.

What else I do is fly all over. Anywhere I want to go, as long as I file a flight plan with the airport. Every time I gather enough funds for fuel, it’s back up in the air and into something interesting. If you see me grounded a while, I’m saving up fuel money.

My business card says that I’m down for: sightseeing tours, worker transportation to remote and offshore locations, wildfire water-drops, traffic reports, storm tracking, surveillance, drug-spotting, and emergency medical transport.

I had to use smaller than standard print size to get all that on to the card. Extra small. Honestly it looks like shit. Been meaning to ask my daughter to make me a better card. She has a real eye for design.

I should be constantly booked and even having to turn down legitimate business, but my gigs have been pinched down to a bare trickle. Certain persons would like to freeze me out of this area. I do drink occasionally. It’s still legal. I got into an altercation at a bar with a guy who keep saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” Knocked a couple teeth in. It turns out he was a vengeful and locally prominent person. In the aviation field. My trouble snowballed from there. It’s stupid that in an industry this specialized, decisions are made out of petty rivalries, or from ancient grudges.

If I relocated to Florida, no doubt I’d have the whole year booked out within days. Better to sleep in a helicopter here than to become low-key wealthy in Florida. I would be successful, but I’d be in Florida. You dig?

We’re all in it alone, sorry to tell you. It’s survival of whoever out there.

People say, “Man, look at you now, compared to ten years ago!” Ouch.

Even with things going not too super lately, I still love people in general. Like, specifically as a group. Every one of my conflicts and disappointments have been with individuals. Certain individuals are blots on the beautiful human story we’re trying to live together, but people in general, thought of as a group, they’re wonderful.

Two nights ago, I was flying along the far bank of the river, close to the treetop elevations. Barely into full dark. In the middle of a cornfield, I saw a bright light. I circled above it to where I could make out a couple sitting in easy chairs, each side of a flood light. They looked to be reading. I could see the world’s longest extension cord, orange, disappearing into the agricultural background in the direction of the only farmhouse in sight, a wood-framed salt-box style, distant.

They turned out to be Harriet and Walter. They’re both over eighty, big readers. It was a notably muggy August night. They weren’t going back in the house, until it cooled down to a sleep-able temperature. They had a beverage fridge out there, humming.

Harriet said, “You can call me Grandma, if you want to, hun. Everybody does.”

I looked at Walter who said, “Yeah, well, you’d better just use my name.” He turned and said to Harriet, “We’re not his grandparents, you know.”

They weren’t, but I wished they were, because they rolled with it, didn’t seem to blink when I landed on their crops just to see what the light was about. I don’t want to say they were rip-less, as in those who don’t give a rip. They were dramatically relaxed and really at home, way out in the field. We got talking about intelligent matters, to where I didn’t want to leave.

Certainly I felt less motivated to part from good company, when the place I was going back to was a landing pad outside the airport hangar. My home turf, from now until… fuzzy question mark. When I land somewhere else, I’ll surely let you know.

Next weekend I’ll be flying researchers around the rim of the volcano. I mean, I will unless the volcano starts erupting. ‘Til then my schedule is wide open.

When I’m in the air though? And to me, this is the decisive thing—every time I’m in the air, I’m free.

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Todd Mercer writes fiction and poetry in Grand Rapids and Antrim County. His short collections include Box of Echoes (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press), Life-wish Maintenance (Right Hand Pointing), and Ingenue (Celery City Press). Todd was never really an astronaut-senator, he just says so in bars.