The Swozie’s Ride

I’m at the Acton market, years ago. I’m squatting at the magazine rack as I let the kids shop for frozen food. I was covering meals for a couple of weeks and I DON’T COOK. Screw that. I’ve told my kids many a time, if they come home and find me stirring some pot on the stove, to get my .12 gauge and blow my head off. It’s a Doppleganger, taking my life over. Kill it fast and get it over with. As I’m flipping through a ‘Country Living’, I hear some ladies in line say, “You know, up there past the murder house!” My ears perk up. Murder house? Then, the cashier adds, “The Knotts Berry place on Shannonvalley!” Huh? That was my place! I listen as another guy in line says, “Yeah, the old guy up there shot five people in a home invasion!” Now I’m really interested. I shot five people? I was sort of proud. Plus, with this kind of baloney going around, who would worry about burglars…What had actually happened was the shooting of a pack of wild dogs that had been terrorizing the neighborhood. Coming in through our front gate a sneaking home Tejas had left open, the dogs had already killed all of our geese and had worked their way down to our mules and horse corrals. A pal, Cowboy Greg, had left me in charge of three of his horses as he wooed a new sweetheart. She turned out to be a daughter of Satan, but, that’s another story. These dogs were hard to see in the dark. It was five am on a Sunday morning, so, the sun was’t up yet. I chase the dogs down the dirt drive in a nightgown and untied boots. I hit ’em with some .12 gauge from my short barrel pump. They don’t go down. DAMN! Birdshot! My son’s Noah and Ty run with flashlight carrying the double odd buckshot box. I jack out the crap rounds, then reload on the run. I nail one of the pit bull mix bastards and he still comes back up. I take him to pump city. He stays down…The cops come, tell me to just bury the dogs, the story goes around town and changes from dogs to people. I say nothing. I like the notoriety…I’m at my mailbox a few days later. Darryl Swozie stops his battered pump truck. As usual, his exhaust is making that death rattle wheeze when he takes his foot off the throttle. He waves me to his window, then informs me he knows who owns the stray dog pack. Its from a halfway house for child molestors and creeps, just over the hill towards Aqua Dulce. He also says, that for fifty bucks donation, he’ll take care of the problem. I give him the two twentys in my pocket. His clan is one to stay on good terms with. Being nocturnal, and very numerous, I always stayed on their good side…Sheriffs come by to visit me a couple of days later. Seems someone in an old septic pumper truck had chained the gate closed at a County halfway house over the hill, stuck a septic hose through a side laundry window at three am, then, filled the house with sewage. When the people ran outside, gun shots fired in the air, drove them right back in. Looked like they were going to have to close the house down. My name had come up for some reason during their investigation. I told them I hadn’t a clue on what they were talking about…From then on, when the Swozies needed some water, I filled their Sparkletts bottles gladly…

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