Shepherd of the Roses: Whatta Pisser

Parma's Frankfort Avenue is 1/3 of a mile in length but only fronted with 4 houses whose address bear the name. Uncle Don's was a large, 2-storey bungalow stylishly consistent with the others...a small porch, and finished basement customized to accommodate a garbage-eating potbellied furnace not far from the '50s refrigerator modified for a beer tap's protrusion through the door.


His sidewalk's terminus was accented by small (square yard/meter,each) gardened squares of roses in which he took pride, save for a daily visit from a loose German Shepherd's stop to hike his leg, urinating on a selected bush or 3 much to the ex-Marines' creative string of combined profanities.


Cousin Jerry wandered into the garage one afternoon, following his dad's voiced expletives, to find my Uncle Don messing with old rusty steel-meshed screen, tin snips and wires, only to be greeted with a raised hand exhibiting screen-punctures, declaring, "Don't begin to THINK about asking because it's a surprise for that German fuck-ing Shepherd who's fire-hose pissing all over your Mother's god-dam finger pricking roses and I'm fed up with it to where I'd stick my boot up his poop-chute 'til he barked the German national anthem if I could catch that goddam bladder bomber," at which my cousin slinked away shaking his head and laughing at his ole man's temper.


My uncle sat behind his screened door with child-like fiendish delight the entire next afternoon laying in wait and, as he spotted the dog, reached down from his chair and connected the wires.


Here he came, running from side to side across Frankfort all collared and groomed bee-lining to his favorite roadside rest area and hiked his leg, only to get an electric charge traveling upstream to his penis from the screen's attachment to car batteries, sending the dog howling never again to alter the sweet bouquet of Aunt Almira's roses, as Uncle Don jumped up and down inventing celebratory new expletive combinations to express, anew, man's dominance over the rest of the animal kingdom.