the day Teddy the big German Shepherd guard dog tried to eat my brother alive
Michael Estabrook
He was a beautiful dog, belonging
to a beautiful woman with long
black hair and languid
green eyes. She was married
to a nervous gnome
of a man, a pharmacist
who owned 9 pharmacies who hired us
to paint his house both inside and out.
The outside part was no problem
because Teddy was kept
inside, which made,
of course, painting inside
a somewhat troublesome ordeal especially
seeing as Teddy’s reason for living
was to protect the beautiful mistress
of the house. “Hey, Mr. W., can you get
Teddy to move away from the door,
I have to paint it.”
“I can’t. Paint around him.”
“Hey, Mr. W., can you get
Teddy to stop rubbing his tail
all into the wet paint?” “I can’t.
Paint it over again.”
Apparently, when the gnomic Mr. W. wed
to the beautiful Mrs. W. the dog
came along on the honeymoon; it rarely
left her side. (Can’t say
as I blame him either.) No wonder
good old Mr. W. was the nervous type.
But never was he more nervous
than on that pleasant sunny
afternoon when Teddy crashed his way
out through the front door
and chased my brother Todd
halfway up
the damn ladder, coming
back down again with a patch of soiled
painter’s pants clenched firmly
in his quivering German Shepherd jaws.