Lucifer didn't care about hand signals. He flew at Davis, hitting him in the chest. Davis stumbled back, tripping over a molehill. He went down.
Higgins screamed, "Do something!"
She turned to run back to the gate, but Fluffy was there. Fluffy, the smallest and meanest, lowered his head and hissed, spreading his wings. He looked like a cobra with feathers.
Higgins froze. She looked left. She looked right.
She saw the open sliding glass door to my house, which I had locked the screen on. She saw the gate blocked by geese. She saw the shed. She panicked.
"Get them away! Get them away!" she shrieked, dancing a jig as Attila nipped at her ankles.
Davis scrambled up, his uniform grass-stained. "Ma'am, move toward the gate."
"I can't!"
The locksmith, watching this from the safety of the driveway, looked at me. "Do you want me to do something?"
"Are you charging me by the hour?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Then just watch."
Higgins made a break for it. She tried to skirt around the pool. This was a tactical error. Wet concrete is slippery and panic makes you clumsy.
Ripper chased her. She looked back and screamed, "Get away!" Then she slipped on a patch of water near the deep end, and splash.
It was a glorious sound, a heavy, rhythmic splash that resonated through the neighborhood. Mrs. Patricia Higgins, HOA president, arbiter of drainage, was now fully submerged in the chlorinated waters of 402 Maple Drive.
The geese stopped at the water's edge. They honked in triumph. They knew water was their element, but they didn't need to go in. The victory was already won.
Davis stood there brushing dirt off his pants, looking at Higgins bobbing in the pool. Her hair helmet was deflated. Her glasses were crooked. She was sputtering.
"I am... I am going to..." She gargled water.
"Officer Davis," I called out from the driveway, "would you like to inspect the shed now, or would you like to help the lady out of the pool?"
Davis looked at the geese who were now doing a victory lap around the pool deck. He looked at Higgins. He looked at me.
"Inspection canceled due to unsafe environment," Davis muttered.
He turned around and walked out the gate, giving the geese a wide berth.
I walked to the edge of the pool. The geese parted for me like the Red Sea. I extended a pool skimmer pole to Mrs. Higgins. "Need a hand, Patricia?"
She stared at me. If looks could kill, I would have been vaporized on the spot. She grabbed the pole. I pulled her to the stairs. She climbed out, dripping, shivering, defeated.
She walked to the gate, squelching with every step. She didn't say a word. She just walked past the locksmith, past the city officer, and down the street to her house.
I looked at the geese. Lucifer let out a soft honk. "Good boy," I said.
The aftermath was swift and brutal, but not for me. My video of the splash didn't go public. I'm not that cruel.
But the story spread. The locksmith told the mailman. The mailman told the neighbors. The city officer told everyone at City Hall.
Animal Control never showed up. Apparently, Officer Davis canceled the call, listing the reason as, "Homeowner compliant; complainant fell into pool."
Two days later, there was an emergency HOA meeting. I attended. I brought a plate of cookies.
The board voted 4-1 to remove Mrs. Higgins as president, citing conduct unbecoming and creating unnecessary liability for the association. The only vote against removal was Higgins herself.
The new president was a guy named Bob from down the street. Bob liked beer and hated meetings.
"Mike," Bob said to me after the meeting. "Keep the geese. Just maybe put a lock on the gate."
"Done," I said.
I kept the geese for another year. They became neighborhood mascots. Kids would come by the fence safely to throw them peas. The "Enter at Your Own Risk" signs stayed up, but they became less of a warning and more of a tourist attraction.
Eventually, I moved. I sold the house to a young couple who wanted to start a family. They asked about the coop.
"What was this for?" the wife asked.
"Security," I said. "The best security system money could buy."
I took the geese with me. I bought a place further out with five acres and a pond. No HOA, no neighbors for a mile.
Sometimes, when I'm sitting on my new porch watching Lucifer chase a deer off the property, I think about Mrs. Higgins. I wonder if she ever checks the drainage anymore. I wonder if she flinches when she hears a honk.
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I disagree. Revenge is a dish best served with six angry birds and a bag of frozen peas.