The Porterville Outlaw
A Hostage Negotiator's Guide to the 3:00 AM Hour
I am sixty-four years old, a professional witch, and a resident of a perfectly accessible ADA-compliant fortress in a remote mountain area of El Dorado County, California. By all accounts, I should be drifting through my golden years on a cloud of lavender-scented serenity. Instead, I am currently being held hostage by a two-year-old death row survivor from an orchard in Porterville.
Meet Bruce (short for “Brucifer”). To the casual observer, he’s a charming Jackshund. To the officer who tried to abduct him in Central California, he’s the reason for a tetanus shot. To me? He is the sovereign ruler of the 3:00 AM hour, the high priest of a cult of one, and the primary reason the bags under my eyes have their own matching set of Samsonite luggage.
If you’re wondering who the cult leader is, consider that this is usually described as “a charismatic leader.” Trust me. In this situation, “charismatic” does not apply to me, but seriously, wook at dis face:
The VIP Section (Population: 1)
It is a well-documented fact in the magical community that a witch’s familiar is supposed to be a bridge between worlds. My familiar, however, is a biological “No Trespassing” sign with a wagging tail.
Bruce doesn’t just “prefer” me; he has joined a localized religion where I am the sole acceptable provider of affection and the only human being on Earth who warrants his love. Bruce hates everyone who is not me. To Bruce, the rest of the human race—including my husband, Eric—is a collection of suspicious entities clearly plotting to abduct him back to the orchard.
Eric is a nice guy who provides yard time, but to Bruce, he’s basically a glorified roommate to be barely tolerated, provided he doesn’t breathe too loudly. Being the “Chosen One” of a traumatized Jackshund sounds romantic until you realize it means you are the only person allowed to touch him without a formal risk assessment.
Anatomy of a Midnight Heist
My night usually begins in a state of grace. Bruce is tucked into the crook of my leg like a warm, dappled comma. It’s a scene of domestic tranquility that lasts exactly until Bruce’s internal “chaos clock” chimes around 12:30-1:00 am.
The first sign of the apocalypse isn’t a trumpet blast; it’s The Flap. Bruce sits up and aggressively shakes his head. His ears hit his skull with the rhythmic velocity of a helicopter rotor. Thwack-padda-thwack-padda-thwack. Behind my eyelids, I offer a silent prayer to any deity working the night shift: Please, let him just be repositioning. Please, please, please let me sleep. Please Bruce, Goddess, and Jesus, please just let me sleep.
But then comes the death knell: The Leap. He launches his sausage-shaped body off the bed and hits the hardwood floor with a sound like a dropped sack of flour. Then begins the pacing. Click-click-click. Click-click-click. If I attempt the “Play Dead” strategy, Bruce escalates to structural sabotage. He jumps back onto the bed, then off, then back on. He whimpers. Eventually, he uses those teeth to physically peel the blankets off my body. At this point, my bladder joins the mutiny. I have to pee, Bruce has to pee, and the dream of REM sleep is officially buried in the backyard.
The Office Lockdown
While Eric sleeps peacefully on the other side of the house—blissfully unaware that a biological weapon is being detonated in the hallway—I have to go into containment mode. Because I am the only one Bruce trusts, I am the only one who can talk him down from the ledge. If Eric tries to intervene or assist, Bruce looks at him like he’s a stranger trying to sell him a sketchy extended car warranty.
So, I lock the Manic Meatloaf and myself into my office. For the next two to four hours, Bruce is loaded for bear. He zips. He zooms. He conducts high-speed maneuvers around my desk while I sit there, fueled by pure cortisol and the flickering glow of YouTube videos I don’t even remember clicking on. I am a Bog Witch, but at 3:00 AM, my magic is mostly limited to trying to write blog posts without crying.
The Audacity of the Slumber
Eventually, the sun begins to peek over the horizon, and Bruce’s battery finally hits 1%. He stops zipping, looks at me with big, soulful eyes, and lets out a judgmental whine. He wants to go to bed. He cannot understand why I am stupid enough to be awake at this hour.
This is where this Goddess takes her revenge. Because Bruce spent the night acting like a cracked-out squirrel, he expects to sleep for the next fifteen hours or so. But a Bog Witch never forgets. My day is now a dedicated mission of Aggressive Dog-Waking.
“BRUCE! Wake up! No sleeping!” If I let him nap, I am signing my own death warrant for the following night. Eric does his part by putting the outlaw into our fenced yard to run off energy since my knee injury still prevents me from walking him. We are a team, unified in our goal to make sure Bruce is exhausted enough to let me close my eyes for more than twenty minutes. It doesn’t work.
The Samsonite Life
I am tired in a way that sleep cannot fix. My brain is a slurry of cortisol and trauma-informed canine management. But then, in those rare moments when he isn’t pacing or trying to eat the mailman, he puts his head on my knee and sighs.
I realize that while I might be theoretically set for old age in my ADA home, I am actually just a very tired Goddess serving a very specific, very grumpy, very loyal sausage-shaped god. If you see a “Katrina Sighting” in public and I seem to be vibrating slightly, don’t worry. I’m just listening for the faint, phantom sound of clicking nails on a hardwood floor which I quite literally hear in my sleep.
