The other day I found a military helicopter hovering over my house. We live in the flightpath—the ancient avian flightpath and VFR aid of the Lower Colorado River, and the approach to the airport—so passing helicopters are a daily experience. But you could hear how close this one was, and you could hear the distinct chop, that heavy and slow Nam vintage sound of a Bell Huey. Apocalypse Now. When I stepped out of the old trailer I use as my front yard office, there it was, close enough that if you were on the roof you could probably jump and grab the rails. And as soon as I got my phone out to film it, it peeled off as if caught snooping.
We see all sorts of curious things in the sky over here. An abundance of raptors live in the woods between the highway and the river. This time of year, when the trees are still naked, the hawks lord over the forest floor and the big barred owls come out at dusk. In the morning the osprey cruise over the river, dive-bombing the fat fish when they come up close to the surface. Sometimes you will see a northern caracara, the rugged crested eagle of the Mexican flag, sitting on the rocky beach gnawing on fresh kill. The belted kingfishers buzz around in pairs, their rattling calls like machine reels. If you walk back around the old wetland remnant behind the dairy plant, chances are one of the big herons will lift up into the foggy air before you like the last pterodactyl.

Under skies like this, it’s easy to become both a birder and a planespotter. If you pay attention, you start to notice weird stuff passing over. I saw a Mitsubishi Zero once, Tora Tora Tora all the way, the first of many warbirds, usually old fighters flown by the outfit that used to call itself the Confederate Air Force, and sometimes a big bomber. Once in a while the fighter jets will come screaming over at a low altitude, presumably trainers from one of the USAF bases in San Antonio. The Austin airport used to be an Air Force base, with B-52s pointed at our southern border. Wolverines!
I started using one of those flight tracker apps on my phone to augment the silhouettes I see in the sky, pulling up flight plans and call sign info. They don’t show military aircraft, but they show everything else, and I am sure at some point I will have a Trevor Paglen-worthy revelation of some dark traffic beyond the corporate jets headed out to the oil patch and the mysterious windowless cargo planes lumbering off to faraway shores. Last fall I saw an eastbound jumbo jet at around 20,000 feet with an escort of five fighters in tight formation. The app didn’t show the 747 or whatever it was, but said the fighters were registered to NASA. I watched their avatar on the screen, supposedly en route to Ellington base in Houston, but then they headed out over the Gulf and suddenly disappeared. The truth is out there.
Seeing signs of the military-industrial power of the federal state used to be a curiosity more than a threat. Little moments of wonder, manifestations of the technothriller fantastic in the mundane fabric of everyday life. They feel different now, under the dark mien of the new jefe and his scowling barons. When I posted the video of the chopper over my house a friend joked that I must have provoked such attention with my writing. I should be so lucky, I said, knowing that the likely explanation was the curious design of our house, a buried modernist bungalow camouflaged by a shaggy green roof, and the natural proclivity of all pilots to gawk at interesting sights. But there’s no question that the everyday projections of federal force are now infused with fresh fear, because that’s how they want us to feel. Especially, it seems, how they want some of our neighbors to feel, here under the Six Flags.
The ICE raids started yesterday. Forty-four people rounded up here on the first day. At the bar last night, two friends who teach grade school told us about their terrified students sharing the viral news, wondering if they would go home to find their parents gone. We heard from people we know worried about how they might be affected, asking us how we might help. The newspaper says the raids are focused only on “criminal aliens,” but you know it is also about generating fear, about actively destabilizing community. You know it’s about retribution and discipline, in a “sanctuary city” whose leaders have the temerity to express defiance. And when you see the armed representatives of the federal state now, rolling out into the streets, you realize that Texas and Yemen are not so far apart.
