I returned with a heavy chain leash that looked like something a lion trainer might use, and the filming continued, take after failed take. Each scene was worse than the one before. At one point, Danielle the teenage actress let out a desperate shriek midscene and screamed with true horror in her voice, "Oh my G.o.d! His thing is out!"

"Cut!"

In another scene, Marley was panting so loudly at Danielle's feet as she spoke on the telephone to her love interest that the sound engineer flipped off his headphones in disgust and complained loudly, "I can't hear a word she's saying. All I hear is heavy breathing. It sounds like a p.o.r.n flick."

"Cut!"

So went day 1 of shooting. Marley was a disaster, unmitigated and without redemption. Part of me was defensive-Well, what did they expect for free? Benji?-and part was mortified. I self-consciously stole glances at the cast and crew and could see it plainly on their faces: Where did this animal come from, and how can we send him back? Where did this animal come from, and how can we send him back? At the end of the day one of the a.s.sistants, clipboard in hand, told us the shooting lineup was still undecided for the next morning. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow," he said. "We'll call if we need Marley." And to ensure there was no confusion, he repeated: "So unless you hear from us, don't show up. Got it?" Yeah, I got it, loud and clear. Gosse had sent his underling to do the dirty work. Marley's fledgling acting career was over. Not that I could blame them. With the possible exception of that scene in At the end of the day one of the a.s.sistants, clipboard in hand, told us the shooting lineup was still undecided for the next morning. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow," he said. "We'll call if we need Marley." And to ensure there was no confusion, he repeated: "So unless you hear from us, don't show up. Got it?" Yeah, I got it, loud and clear. Gosse had sent his underling to do the dirty work. Marley's fledgling acting career was over. Not that I could blame them. With the possible exception of that scene in The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments where Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea, Marley had presented the biggest logistical nightmare in the history of cinema. He had caused who knows how many thousands of dollars in needless delays and wasted film. He had slimed countless costumes, raided the snack table, and nearly toppled a thirty-thousand-dollar camera. They were cutting their losses, writing us out. It was the old "Don't call us, we'll call you" routine. where Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea, Marley had presented the biggest logistical nightmare in the history of cinema. He had caused who knows how many thousands of dollars in needless delays and wasted film. He had slimed countless costumes, raided the snack table, and nearly toppled a thirty-thousand-dollar camera. They were cutting their losses, writing us out. It was the old "Don't call us, we'll call you" routine.

"Marley," I said when we got home, "your big chance and you really blew it."

The next morning I was still fretting over our dashed dreams of stardom when the phone rang. It was the a.s.sistant, telling us to get Marley to the hotel as soon as possible. "You mean you want him back?" I asked.

"Right away," he said. "Bob wants him in the next scene."

I arrived thirty minutes later, not quite believing they had invited us back. Gosse was ebullient. He had watched the raw footage from the day before and couldn't have been happier. "The dog was hysterical!" he gushed. "Just hilarious. Pure madcap genius!" I could feel myself standing taller, chest puffing out.

"We always knew he was a natural," Jenny said.

Shooting continued around Lake Worth for several more days, and Marley continued to rise to the occasion. We hovered in the wings with the other stage parents and hangers-on, chatting, socializing, and then falling abruptly silent whenever the stagehand yelled, "Ready on set!" When the word "Cut!" rang out, the party continued. Jenny even managed to get Gary Carter and Dave Win-field, the Baseball Hall of Fame all-star who was making a cameo in the movie, to sign baseb.a.l.l.s for each of the boys.

Marley was lapping up stardom. The crew, especially the women, fawned over him. The weather was brutally hot, and one a.s.sistant was a.s.signed the exclusive duty of following Marley around with a bowl and a bottle of spring water, pouring him drinks at will. Everyone, it seemed, was feeding him snacks off the buffet table. I left him with the crew for a couple of hours while I checked in at work, and when I returned I found him sprawled out like King Tut, paws in the air, accepting a leisurely belly rub from the strikingly gorgeous makeup artist. "He's such a lover!" she cooed.

Stardom was starting to go to my head, too. I began introducing myself as "Marley the Dog's handler" and dropping lines such as "For his next movie, we're hoping for a barking part." During one break in the shooting, I walked into the hotel lobby to use the pay phone. Marley was off his leash and sniffing around the furniture several feet away. A concierge, apparently mistaking my star for a stray, intercepted him and tried to hustle him out a side door. "Go home!" he scolded. "Shoo!"

"Excuse me?" I said, cupping my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and leveling the concierge with my most withering stare. "Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

We remained on the set for four straight days, and by the time we were told Marley's scenes were all completed and his services no longer needed, Jenny and I both felt we were part of the Shooting Gallery family. Granted, the only unpaid members of the family, but members nonetheless. "We love you guys!" Jenny blurted out to all within earshot as we herded Marley into the minivan. "Can't wait to see the final cut!"

But wait we did. One of the producers told us to give them eight months and then call and they'd mail us an advance copy. After eight months when I called, however, a front-desk person put me on hold and returned several minutes later to say, "Why don't you try in another couple months?" I waited and tried, waited and tried, but each time was put off. I started feeling like a stalker, and I could imagine the receptionist, hand cupped over the phone, whispering to Gosse at the editing table, "It's that crazy dog guy again. What do you want me to tell him this time?"

Eventually I stopped calling, resigned that we would never see The Last Home Run, The Last Home Run, convinced that no one ever would, that the project had been abandoned on the editing-room floor on account of the overwhelming challenges of trying to edit that d.a.m.n dog out of every scene. It would be two full years later before I would finally get my chance to see Marley's acting skills. convinced that no one ever would, that the project had been abandoned on the editing-room floor on account of the overwhelming challenges of trying to edit that d.a.m.n dog out of every scene. It would be two full years later before I would finally get my chance to see Marley's acting skills.

I was in Blockbuster when on a whim I asked the clerk if he knew anything about a movie called The Last Home Run The Last Home Run. Not only did he know about it; he had it in stock. In fact, as luck would have it, not a single copy was checked out.

Only later would I learn the whole sad story. Unable to attract a national distributor, the Shooting Gallery had no choice but to relegate Marley's movie debut to that most ign.o.ble of celluloid fates. The Last Home Run The Last Home Run had gone straight to video. I didn't care. I raced home with a copy and yelled to Jenny and the kids to gather round the VCR. All told, Marley was on-screen for less than two minutes, but I had to say they were two of the livelier minutes in the film. We laughed! We cried! We cheered! had gone straight to video. I didn't care. I raced home with a copy and yelled to Jenny and the kids to gather round the VCR. All told, Marley was on-screen for less than two minutes, but I had to say they were two of the livelier minutes in the film. We laughed! We cried! We cheered!

"Waddy, that you!" Conor screamed.

"We're famous!" Patrick yelled.

Marley, never one to get hung up on pretenses, seemed unimpressed. He yawned and crawled beneath the coffee table. By the time the end credits rolled, he was sound asleep. We waited with breath held as the names of all the actors of the two-legged variety had scrolled by. For a minute, I thought our dog was not going to merit a credit. But then there it was, listed in big letters across the screen for all to see: "Marley the Dog...As Himself."

CHAPTER 17.

In the Land of Bocahontas.

One month after filming ended for The Last Home Run, The Last Home Run, we said good-bye to West Palm Beach and all the memories it held. There had been two more murders within a block of our home, but in the end it was clutter, not crime, that drove us from our little bungalow on Churchill Road. With two children and all the accoutrements that went with them, we were packed, quite literally, to the rafters. The house had taken on the pallid sheen of a Toys "R" Us factory outlet. Marley was ninety-seven pounds, and he could not turn around without knocking something over. Ours was a two-bedroom house, and we foolishly thought the boys could share the second room. But when they kept waking each other up, doubling our nocturnal adventures, we moved Conor out to a narrow s.p.a.ce between the kitchen and the garage. Officially, it was my "home office," where I played guitar and paid bills. To anyone who saw it, though, there was really no sugarcoating it: We had moved our baby out into the breezeway. It sounded horrible. A breezeway was just a half step up from a garage, which, in turn, was nearly synonymous with a barn. And what kind of parents would raise their boy in a barn? A breezeway had a certain unsecured sound to it: a place open to the wind-and anything else that might blow in. Dirt, allergens, stinging insects, bats, criminals, perverts. A breezeway was where you would expect to find the garbage cans and wet tennis shoes. And in fact it was the place where we kept Marley's food and water bowls, even after Conor took up residence there, not because it was a s.p.a.ce fit only for an animal but simply because that's where Marley had come to expect them. we said good-bye to West Palm Beach and all the memories it held. There had been two more murders within a block of our home, but in the end it was clutter, not crime, that drove us from our little bungalow on Churchill Road. With two children and all the accoutrements that went with them, we were packed, quite literally, to the rafters. The house had taken on the pallid sheen of a Toys "R" Us factory outlet. Marley was ninety-seven pounds, and he could not turn around without knocking something over. Ours was a two-bedroom house, and we foolishly thought the boys could share the second room. But when they kept waking each other up, doubling our nocturnal adventures, we moved Conor out to a narrow s.p.a.ce between the kitchen and the garage. Officially, it was my "home office," where I played guitar and paid bills. To anyone who saw it, though, there was really no sugarcoating it: We had moved our baby out into the breezeway. It sounded horrible. A breezeway was just a half step up from a garage, which, in turn, was nearly synonymous with a barn. And what kind of parents would raise their boy in a barn? A breezeway had a certain unsecured sound to it: a place open to the wind-and anything else that might blow in. Dirt, allergens, stinging insects, bats, criminals, perverts. A breezeway was where you would expect to find the garbage cans and wet tennis shoes. And in fact it was the place where we kept Marley's food and water bowls, even after Conor took up residence there, not because it was a s.p.a.ce fit only for an animal but simply because that's where Marley had come to expect them.

Our breezeway-c.u.m-nursery sounded d.i.c.kensian, but it really wasn't that bad; it was almost charming. Originally, it was built as a covered, open-air pa.s.s-through between the house and garage, and the previous owners had closed it in years earlier. Before declaring it a nursery, I replaced the old leaky jalousies with modern, tight-fitting windows. I hung new blinds and applied a fresh coat of paint. Jenny covered the floor with soft rugs, hung cheerful drawings, and dangled whimsical mobiles from the ceiling. Still, how did it look? Our son was sleeping in the breezeway while the dog had full run of the master bedroom.

Besides, Jenny was now working half-time for the Post Post's feature section, and mostly from home, as she attempted to juggle children and career. It only made sense for us to relocate closer to my office. We agreed it was time to move.

Life is full of little ironies, and one of them was the fact that, after months of searching, we settled on a house in the one South Florida city I took the greatest glee in publicly ridiculing. That place was Boca Raton, which, translated from the Spanish, means literally "Mouth of the Rat." And what a mouth it was.

Boca Raton was a wealthy Republican bastion largely populated with recent arrivals from New Jersey and New York. Most of the money in town was new money, and most of those who had it didn't know how to enjoy it without making fools of themselves. Boca Raton was a land of luxury sedans, red sports cars, pink stucco mansions crammed onto postage-stamp lots, and balkanized walled developments with guards at the gates. The men favored linen pants and Italian loafers sans socks and spent inordinate amounts of time making important-sounding cell-phone calls to one another. The women were tanned to the consistency of the Gucci leather bags they favored, their burnished skin set off by hair dyed alarming shades of silver and platinum.

The city crawled with plastic surgeons, and they had the biggest homes and most radiant smiles of all. For Boca's well-preserved women, breast implants were a virtual requirement of residency. The younger women all had magnificent b.o.o.b jobs; the older women all had magnificent b.o.o.b jobs and and face-lifts. b.u.t.t sculpting, nose jobs, tummy tucks, and tattooed mascara rounded out the cosmetic lineup, giving the city's female population the odd appearance of being foot soldiers in an army of anatomically correct inflatable dolls. As I once sang in a song I wrote for a press skit, "Liposuction and silicone, a girl's best friends in Boca Raton." face-lifts. b.u.t.t sculpting, nose jobs, tummy tucks, and tattooed mascara rounded out the cosmetic lineup, giving the city's female population the odd appearance of being foot soldiers in an army of anatomically correct inflatable dolls. As I once sang in a song I wrote for a press skit, "Liposuction and silicone, a girl's best friends in Boca Raton."

In my column I had been poking fun at the Boca lifestyle, starting with the name itself. Residents of Boca Raton never actually called their city Boca Raton. They simply referred to it by the familiar "Boca." And they did not p.r.o.nounce it as the dictionary said they should, with a long O, BO-kuh O, BO-kuh. Rather they gave it a soft, nasal, Jersey-tinged inflection. It was BOHW-kuh! BOHW-kuh! as in, "Oh, the manicured shrubbery is as in, "Oh, the manicured shrubbery is bew-tee-ful bew-tee-ful here in here in BOHW-kuh!" BOHW-kuh!"

The Disney movie Pocahontas Pocahontas was in the theaters then, and I launched a running spoof on the Indian-princess theme, which I t.i.tled "Bocahontas." My gold-draped protagonist was an indigenous suburban princess who drove a pink BMW, her rock-hard, surgically enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s jutting into the steering wheel, allowing her to drive hands-free, talking on her cell phone and teasing her frosted hair in the rearview mirror as she raced to the tanning salon. Bocahontas lived in a pastel designer wigwam, worked out each morning at the tribal gym-but only if she could find parking within ten feet of the front door-and spent her afternoons stalking wild furs, trusty AmEx card in hand, at the ceremonial hunting grounds known as Town Center Mall. was in the theaters then, and I launched a running spoof on the Indian-princess theme, which I t.i.tled "Bocahontas." My gold-draped protagonist was an indigenous suburban princess who drove a pink BMW, her rock-hard, surgically enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s jutting into the steering wheel, allowing her to drive hands-free, talking on her cell phone and teasing her frosted hair in the rearview mirror as she raced to the tanning salon. Bocahontas lived in a pastel designer wigwam, worked out each morning at the tribal gym-but only if she could find parking within ten feet of the front door-and spent her afternoons stalking wild furs, trusty AmEx card in hand, at the ceremonial hunting grounds known as Town Center Mall.

"Bury my Visa at Mizner Park," Bocahontas intones solemnly in one of my columns, a reference to the city's toniest shopping strip. In another, she adjusts her buckskin Wonderbra and campaigns to make cosmetic surgery tax-deductible.

My characterization was cruel. It was uncharitable. It was only slightly exaggerated. Boca's real-life Bocahontases were the biggest fans of those columns, trying to figure out which of them had inspired my fictional heroine. (I'll never tell.) I was frequently invited to speak before social and community groups and invariably someone would stand up and ask, "Why do you hate BOHW-kuh BOHW-kuh so much?" It wasn't that I hated Boca, I told them; it was just that I loved high farce. No place on earth delivered it quite like the pretty-in-pink Mouth of the Rat. so much?" It wasn't that I hated Boca, I told them; it was just that I loved high farce. No place on earth delivered it quite like the pretty-in-pink Mouth of the Rat.

So it only made sense that when Jenny and I finally settled on a house, it was located at ground zero of the Boca experience, midway between the waterfront estates of east Boca Raton and the snooty gated communities of west Boca Raton (which, I relished pointing out to the very zip-code-conscious residents, fell outside the city limits in unincorporated Palm Beach County). Our new neighborhood was in one of the few middle-cla.s.s sections in the city, and its residents liked to joke with a certain reverse sn.o.bbery that they were on the wrong side of both sets of tracks. Sure enough, there were two sets of railroad tracks, one defining the eastern boundary of the neighborhood and one the western. At night you could lie in bed and listen to the freight trains moving through on their way to and from Miami.

"Are you crazy?" I said to Jenny. "We can't move to Boca! I'll be run out of town on a rail. They'll serve my head up on a bed of organic mesclun greens."

"Oh, come on," she said. "You're exaggerating again."

My paper, the Sun-Sentinel, Sun-Sentinel, was the dominant newspaper in Boca Raton, far outpacing the was the dominant newspaper in Boca Raton, far outpacing the Miami Herald, Miami Herald, the the Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach Post, or even the local or even the local Boca Raton News Boca Raton News in circulation. My work was widely read in the city and its western developments, and because my photograph appeared above my column, I was frequently recognized. I didn't think I was exaggerating. "They'll skin me alive and hang my carca.s.s in front of Tiffany's," I said. in circulation. My work was widely read in the city and its western developments, and because my photograph appeared above my column, I was frequently recognized. I didn't think I was exaggerating. "They'll skin me alive and hang my carca.s.s in front of Tiffany's," I said.

But we had been looking for months, and this was the first house that met all our criteria. It was the right size at the right price and in the right place, strategically located between the two offices where I split my time. The public schools were about as good as public schools got in South Florida, and for all its superficialities, Boca Raton had an excellent park system, including some of the most pristine ocean beaches in the MiamiPalm Beach metropolitan area. With more than a little trepidation, I agreed to go forward with the purchase. I felt like a not-so-secret agent infiltrating the enemy's encampment. The barbarian was about to slip inside the gate, an unapologetic Boca-basher crashing the Boca garden party. Who could blame them for not wanting me?

When we first arrived, I slinked around town self-consciously, convinced all eyes were on me. My ears burned, imagining people were whispering as I pa.s.sed. After I wrote a column welcoming myself to the neighborhood (and eating a fair amount of crow in the process), I received a number of letters saying things like "You trash our city and now you want to live here? What a shameless hypocrite!" I had to admit, they made a point. An ardent city booster I knew from work couldn't wait to confront me. "So," he said gleefully, "you decided tacky Boca isn't such a bad place after all, huh? The parks and the tax rate and the schools and beaches and zoning, all that's not so bad when it comes time to buy a house, is it?" All I could do was roll over and cry uncle.

I soon discovered, however, that most of my neighbors here on the wrong side of both sets of tracks were sympathetic to my written a.s.saults on what one of them called "the gauche and vulgar among us." Pretty soon I felt right at home.

Our house was a 1970s-vintage four-bedroom ranch with twice the square footage of our first home and none of the charm. The place had potential, though, and gradually we put our mark on it. We ripped up the wall-to-wall s.h.a.g carpeting and installed oak floors in the living room and Italian tile everywhere else. We replaced the ugly sliding gla.s.s doors with varnished French doors, and I slowly turned the bereft front yard into a tropical garden teeming with gingers and heliconias and pa.s.sion vines that b.u.t.terflies and pa.s.sersby alike stopped to drink in.

The two best features of our new home had nothing to do with the house itself. Visible from our living room window was a small city park filled with playground equipment beneath towering pines. The children adored it. And in the backyard, right off the new French doors, was an in-ground swimming pool. We hadn't wanted a pool, worrying about the risk to our two toddlers, and Jenny made our Realtor blanch when she suggested filling it in. Our first act on the day we moved in was to surround the pool with a four-foot-high fence worthy of a maximum-security prison. The boys-Patrick had just turned three and Conor eighteen months when we arrived-took to the water like a pair of dolphins. The park became an extension of our backyard and the pool an extension of the mild season we so cherished. A swimming pool in Florida, we soon learned, made the difference between barely enduring the withering summer months and actually enjoying them.

No one loved the backyard pool more than our water dog, that proud descendant of fishermen's retrievers plying the ocean swells off the coast of Newfoundland. If the pool gate was open, Marley would charge for the water, getting a running start from the family room, going airborne out the open French doors and, with one bounce off the brick patio, landing in the pool on his belly with a giant flop that sent a geyser into the air and waves over the edge. Swimming with Marley was a potentially life-threatening adventure, a little like swimming with an ocean liner. He would come at you full speed ahead, his paws flailing out in front of him. You'd expect him to veer away at the last minute, but he would simply crash into you and try to climb aboard. If you were over your head, he pushed you beneath the surface. "What do I look like, a dock?" I would say, and cradle him in my arms to let him catch his breath, his front paws still paddling away on autopilot as he licked the water off my face.

One thing our new house did not have was a Marley-proof bunker. At our old house, the concrete one-car garage was pretty much indestructible, and it had two windows, which kept it tolerably comfortable even in the dead of summer. Our Boca house had a two-car garage, but it was unsuitable for housing Marley or any other life-form that could not survive temperatures above 150 degrees. The garage had no windows and was stiflingly hot. Besides, it was finished in drywall, not concrete, which Marley had already proved himself quite adept at pulverizing. His thunder-induced panic attacks were only getting worse, despite the tranquilizers.

The first time we left him alone in our new house, we shut him in the laundry room, just off the kitchen, with a blanket and a big bowl of water. When we returned a few hours later, he had scratched up the door. The damage was minor, but we had just mortgaged our lives for the next thirty years to buy this house, and we knew it didn't bode well. "Maybe he's just getting used to his new surroundings," I offered.

"There's not even a cloud in the sky," Jenny observed skeptically. "What's going to happen the first time a storm hits?"

The next time we left him alone, we found out. As thunderheads rolled in, we cut our outing short and hurried home, but it was too late. Jenny was a few steps ahead of me, and when she opened the laundry-room door she stopped short and uttered, "Oh my G.o.d." She said it the way you would if you had just discovered a body hanging from the chandelier. Again: "Oh...My...G.o.d." I peeked in over her shoulder, and it was uglier than I had feared. Marley was standing there, panting frantically, his paws and mouth bleeding. Loose fur was everywhere, as though the thunder had scared the hair right out of his coat. The damage was worse than anything he had done before, and that was saying a lot. An entire wall was gouged open, obliterated clear down to the studs. Plaster and wood chips and bent nails were everywhere. Electric wiring lay exposed. Blood smeared the floor and the walls. It looked, literally, like the scene of a shotgun homicide.

"Oh my G.o.d," Jenny said a third time.

"Oh my G.o.d," I repeated. It was all either of us could say.

After several seconds of just standing there mute, staring at the carnage, I finally said, "Okay, we can handle this. It's all fixable." Jenny shot me her look; she had seen my repairs. "I'll call a drywall guy and have it professionally repaired," I said. "I won't even try to do this one myself." I slipped Marley one of his tranquilizers and worried silently that this latest destructive jag might just throw Jenny back into the funk she had sunk into after Conor's birth. Those blues, however, seemed to be long behind her. She was surprisingly philosophical about it.

"A few hundred bucks and we'll be good as new," she chirped.

"That's what I'm thinking, too," I said. "I'll give a few extra speeches to bring in some cash. That'll pay for it."

Within a few minutes, Marley was beginning to mellow. His eyelids grew heavy and his eyes deeply bloodshot, as they always did when he was doped up. He looked like he belonged at a Grateful Dead concert. I hated to see him this way, I always hated it, and always resisted sedating him. But the pills helped him move past the terror, past the deadly threat that existed only in his mind. If he were human, I would call him certifiably psychotic. He was delusional, paranoid, convinced a dark, evil force was coming from the heavens to take him. He curled up on the rug in front of the kitchen sink and let out a deep sigh. I knelt beside him and stroked his blood-caked fur. "Geez, dog," I said. "What are we going to do with you?" Without lifting his head, he looked up at me with those bloodshot stoner eyes of his, the saddest, most mournful, eyes I have ever seen, and just gazed at me. It was as if he were trying to tell me something, something important he needed me to understand. "I know," I said. "I know you can't help it."

The next day Jenny and I took the boys with us to the pet store and bought a giant cage. They came in all different sizes, and when I described Marley to the clerk he led us to the largest of them all. It was enormous, big enough for a lion to stand up and turn around in. Made out of heavy steel grating, it had two bolt-action barrel locks to hold the door securely shut and a heavy steel pan for a floor. This was our answer, our own portable Alcatraz. Conor and Patrick both crawled inside and I slid the bolts shut, locking them in for a moment. "What do you guys think?" I asked. "Will this hold our Superdog?"

Conor teetered at the cage door, his fingers through the bars like a veteran inmate, and said, "Me in jail."

"Waddy's going to be our prisoner!" Patrick chimed in, delighted at the prospect.

Back home, we set up the crate next to the washing machine. Portable Alcatraz took up nearly half the laundry room. "Come here, Marley!" I called when it was fully a.s.sembled. I tossed a Milk-Bone in and he happily pranced in after it. I closed and bolted the door behind him, and he stood there chewing his treat, unfazed by the new life experience he was about to enter, the one known in mental-health circles as "involuntary commitment."

"This is going to be your new home when we're away," I said cheerfully. Marley stood there panting contentedly, not a trace of concern on his face, and then he lay down and let out a sigh. "A good sign," I said to Jenny. "A very good sign."

That evening we decided to give the maximum-security dog-containment unit a test run. This time I didn't even need a Milk-Bone to lure Marley in. I simply opened the gate, gave a whistle, and in he walked, tail banging the metal sides. "Be a good boy, Marley," I said. As we loaded the boys into the minivan to go out to dinner, Jenny said, "You know something?"

"What?" I asked.

"This is the first time since we got him that I don't have a pit in my stomach leaving Marley alone in the house," she said. "I never even realized how much it put me on edge until now."

"I know what you mean," I said. "It was always a guessing game: 'What will our dog destroy this time?'"

"Like, 'How much will this little night out at the movies cost us?'"

"It was like Russian roulette."

"I think that crate is going to be the best money we ever spent," she said.

"We should have done this a long time ago," I agreed. "You can't put a price on peace of mind."

We had a great dinner out, followed by a sunset stroll on the beach. The boys splashed in the surf, chased seagulls, threw fistfuls of sand in the water. Jenny was uncharacteristically relaxed. Just knowing Marley was safely secured inside Alcatraz, unable to hurt himself or anything else, was a balm. "What a nice outing this has been," she said as we walked up the front sidewalk to our house.

I was about to agree with her when I noticed something in my peripheral vision, something up ahead that wasn't quite right. I turned my head and stared at the window beside the front door. The miniblinds were shut, as they always were when we left the house. But about a foot up from the bottom of the window the metal slats were bent apart and something was sticking through them.

Something black. And wet. And pressed up against the gla.s.s. "What the-?" I said. "How could...Marley?"

When I opened the front door, sure enough, there was our one-dog welcoming committee, wiggling all over the foyer, pleased as punch to have us home again. We fanned out across the house, checking every room and closet for telltales of Marley's unsupervised adventure. The house was fine, untouched. We converged on the laundry room. The crate's door stood wide open, swung back like the stone to Jesus' tomb on Easter morning. It was as if some secret accomplice had snuck in and sprung our inmate. I squatted down beside the cage to have a closer look. The two bolt-action barrel locks were slid back in the open position, and-a significant clue-they were dripping with saliva. "It looks like an inside job," I said. "Somehow Houdini here licked his way out of the Big House."

"I can't believe it," Jenny said. Then she uttered a word I was glad the children were not close enough to hear.

We always fancied Marley to be as dumb as algae, but he had been clever enough to figure out how to use his long, strong tongue through the bars to slowly work the barrels free from their slots. He had licked his way to freedom, and he proved over the coming weeks that he was able to easily repeat the trick whenever he wanted. Our maximum-security prison had in fact turned out to be a halfway house. Some days we would return to find him resting peacefully in the cage; other days he'd be waiting at the front window. Involuntary commitment was not a concept Marley was going to take lying down.

We took to wiring both locks in place with heavy electrical cable. That worked for a while, but one day, with distant rumbles on the horizon, we came home to find that the bottom corner of the cage's gate had been peeled back as though with a giant can opener, and a panicky Marley, his paws again bloodied, was firmly stuck around the rib cage, half in and half out of the tight opening. I bent the steel gate back in place as best I could, and we began wiring not only the slide bolts in place but all four corners of the door as well. Pretty soon we were reinforcing the corners of the cage itself as Marley continued to put his brawn into busting out. Within three months the gleaming steel cage we had thought so impregnable looked like it had taken a direct hit from a howitzer. The bars were twisted and bent, the frame pried apart, the door an ill-fitting mess, the sides bulging outward. I continued to reinforce it as best I could, and it continued to hold tenuously against Marley's full-bodied a.s.saults. Whatever false sense of security the contraption had once offered us was gone. Each time we left, even for a half hour, we wondered whether this would be the time that our manic inmate would bust out and go on another couch-shredding, wall-gouging, door-eating rampage. So much for peace of mind.

CHAPTER 18.

Alfresco Dining.

Marley didn't fit into the Boca Raton scene any better than I did. Boca had (and surely still has) a disproportionate share of the world's smallest, yappiest, most pampered dogs, the kind of pets that the Bocahontas set favored as fashion accessories. They were precious little things, often with bows in their fur and cologne spritzed on their necks, some even with painted toenails, and you would spot them in the most unlikely of places-peeking out of a designer handbag at you as you waited in line at the bagel shop; snoozing on their mistresses' towels at the beach; leading the charge on a rhinestone-studded leash into a pricey antiques store. Mostly, you could find them cruising around town in Lexuses, Mercedes-Benzes, and Jaguars, perched aristocratically behind the steering wheels on their owners' laps. They were to Marley what Grace Kelly was to Gomer Pyle. They were pet.i.te, sophisticated, and of discriminating taste. Marley was big, clunky, and a sniffer of genitalia. He wanted so much to have them invite him into their circle; they so much were not about to.

With his recently digested obedience certificate under his belt, Marley was fairly manageable on walks, but if he saw something he liked, he still wouldn't hesitate to lunge for it, threat of strangulation be d.a.m.ned. When we took strolls around town, the high-rent pooches were always worth getting all choked up over. Each time he spotted one, he would break into a gallop, barreling up to it, dragging Jenny or me behind him at the end of the leash, the noose tightening around his throat, making him gasp and cough. Each time Marley would be roundly snubbed, not only by the Boca minidog but by the Boca minidog's owner, who would s.n.a.t.c.h up young Fifi or Suzi or Cheri as if rescuing her from the jaws of an alligator. Marley didn't seem to mind. The next minidog to come into sight, he would do it all over again, undeterred by his previous jilting. As a guy who was never very good at the rejection part of dating, I admired his perseverance.

Outside dining was a big part of the Boca experience, and many restaurants in town offered alfresco seating beneath palm trees whose trunks and fronds were studded with strings of tiny white lights. These were places to see and be seen, to sip caffe lattes and jabber into cell phones as your companion stared vacantly at the sky. The Boca minidog was an important part of the alfresco ambience. Couples brought their dogs with them and hooked their leashes to the wrought-iron tables where the dogs would contentedly curl up at their feet or sometimes even sit up at the table beside their masters, holding their heads high in an imperious manner as if miffed by the waiters' inattentiveness.

One Sunday afternoon Jenny and I thought it would be fun to take the whole family for an outside meal at one of the popular meeting places. "When in Boca, do as the Bocalites," I said. We loaded the boys and the dog into the minivan and headed to Mizner Park, the downtown shopping plaza modeled after an Italian piazza with wide sidewalks and endless dining possibilities. We parked and strolled up one side of the three-block strip and down the other, seeing and being seen-and what a sight we must have made. Jenny had the boys strapped into a double stroller that could have been mistaken for a maintenance cart, loaded up in the back with all manner of toddler paraphernalia, from applesauce to wet wipes. I walked beside her, Marley, on full Boca minidog alert, barely contained at my side. He was even wilder than usual, beside himself at the possibility of getting near one of the little purebreds prancing about, and I gripped hard on his leash. His tongue hung out and he panted like a locomotive.

We settled on a restaurant with one of the more affordable menus on the strip and hovered nearby until a sidewalk table opened up. The table was perfect-shaded, with a view of the piazza's central fountain, and heavy enough, we were sure, to secure an excitable hundred-pound Lab. I hooked the end of Marley's leash to one of the legs, and we ordered drinks all around, two beers and two apple juices.

"To a beautiful day with my beautiful family," Jenny said, holding up her gla.s.s for a toast. We clicked our beer bottles; the boys smashed their sippy cups together. That's when it happened. So fast, in fact, that we didn't even realize it had happened. All we knew was that one instant we were sitting at a lovely outdoor table toasting the beautiful day, and the next our table was on the move, crashing its way through the sea of other tables, banging into innocent bystanders, and making a horrible, ear-piercing, industrial-grade shriek as it sc.r.a.ped over the concrete pavers. In that first split second, before either of us realized exactly what bad fate had befallen us, it seemed distinctly possible that our table was possessed, fleeing our family of unwashed Boca invaders, which most certainly did not belong here. In the next split second, I saw that it wasn't our table that was haunted, but our dog. Marley was out in front, chugging forward with every ounce of rippling muscle he had, the leash stretched tight as piano wire.

In the fraction of a second after that, I saw just where Marley was heading, table in tow. Fifty feet down the sidewalk, a delicate French poodle lingered at her owner's side, nose in the air. d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, I remember thinking, I remember thinking, what is his thing for poodles? what is his thing for poodles? Jenny and I both sat there for a moment longer, drinks in hand, the boys between us in their stroller, our perfect little Sunday afternoon unblemished except for the fact that our table was now motoring its way through the crowd. An instant later we were on our feet, screaming, running, apologizing to the customers around us as we went. I was the first to reach the runaway table as it surged and sc.r.a.ped down the piazza. I grabbed on, planted my feet, and leaned back with everything I had. Soon Jenny was beside me, pulling back, too. I felt like we were action heroes in a western, giving our all to rein in the runaway train before it jumped the tracks and plunged over a cliff. In the middle of all the bedlam, Jenny actually turned and called over her shoulder, "Be right back, boys!" Jenny and I both sat there for a moment longer, drinks in hand, the boys between us in their stroller, our perfect little Sunday afternoon unblemished except for the fact that our table was now motoring its way through the crowd. An instant later we were on our feet, screaming, running, apologizing to the customers around us as we went. I was the first to reach the runaway table as it surged and sc.r.a.ped down the piazza. I grabbed on, planted my feet, and leaned back with everything I had. Soon Jenny was beside me, pulling back, too. I felt like we were action heroes in a western, giving our all to rein in the runaway train before it jumped the tracks and plunged over a cliff. In the middle of all the bedlam, Jenny actually turned and called over her shoulder, "Be right back, boys!" Be right back? Be right back? She made it sound so ordinary, so expected, so planned, as if we often did this sort of thing, deciding on the spur of the moment that, oh, why not, it might just be fun to let Marley lead us on a little table stroll around town, maybe doing a bit of window-shopping along the way, before we circled back in time for appetizers. She made it sound so ordinary, so expected, so planned, as if we often did this sort of thing, deciding on the spur of the moment that, oh, why not, it might just be fun to let Marley lead us on a little table stroll around town, maybe doing a bit of window-shopping along the way, before we circled back in time for appetizers.

When we finally got the table stopped and Marley reeled in, just feet from the poodle and her mortified owner, I turned back to check on the boys, and that's when I got my first good look at the faces of my fellow alfresco diners. It was like a scene out of one of those E. F. Hutton commercials where an entire bustling crowd freezes in silence, waiting to hear a whispered word of investment advice. Men stopped in midconversation, cell phones in their hands. Women stared with opened mouths. The Bocalites were aghast. It was finally Conor who broke the silence. "Waddy go walk!" he screamed with delight.

A waiter rushed up and helped me drag the table back into place as Jenny held Marley, still fixated on the object of his desire, in a death grip. "Let me get some new place settings," the waiter said.

"That won't be necessary," Jenny said nonchalantly. "We'll just be paying for our drinks and going."