Part 7 (2/2)

”I got Marley in the car and it was like driving in a Jacuzzi,” she said. ”He was s...o...b..ring on everything. By the time I got him there, I was drenched.” When they arrived at production headquarters at the GulfStream Hotel, a faded tourist landmark from an earlier era overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, Marley immediately impressed the crew by jumping out of the truck and tearing around the parking lot in random patterns as if expecting the aerial bombing to commence at any moment. ”He was just berserk,” she recounted, ”completely mental.”

”Yeah, he gets a little excited,” I said.

At one point, she said, Marley grabbed the checkbook out of a crew member's hand and raced away, running a series of tight figure-eights to nowhere, apparently determined this was one way to guarantee a paycheck.

”We call him our Labrador evader,” Jenny apologized with the kind of smile only a proud mother can give.

Marley eventually calmed down enough to convince everyone he could do the part, which was basically to just play himself. The movie was called The Last Home Run, The Last Home Run, a baseball fantasy in which a seventy-nine-year-old nursing home resident becomes a twelve-year-old for five days to live his dream of playing Little League ball. Marley was cast as the hyperactive family dog of the Little League coach, played by retired major-league catcher Gary Carter. a baseball fantasy in which a seventy-nine-year-old nursing home resident becomes a twelve-year-old for five days to live his dream of playing Little League ball. Marley was cast as the hyperactive family dog of the Little League coach, played by retired major-league catcher Gary Carter.

”They really want him to be in their movie?” I asked, still incredulous.

”Everyone loved him,” Colleen said. ”He's perfect.”

In the days leading up to shooting, we noticed a certain subtle change in Marley's bearing. A strange calm had come over him. It was as if pa.s.sing the audition had given him new confidence. He was almost regal. ”Maybe he just needed someone to believe in him,” I told Jenny.

If anyone believed, it was her, Stage Mom Extraordinaire. As the first day of filming approached, she bathed him. She brushed him. She clipped his nails and swabbed out his ears.

On the morning shooting was to begin, I walked out of the bedroom to find Jenny and Marley tangled together as if locked in mortal combat, bouncing across the room. She was straddling him with her knees tightly hugging his ribs and one hand grasping the end of his choker chain as he bucked and lurched. It was like having a rodeo right in my own living room. ”What in G.o.d's name are you doing?” I asked.

”What's it look like?” she shot back. ”Brus.h.i.+ng his teeth!”

Sure enough, she had a toothbrush in the other hand and was doing her best to scrub his big white ivories as Marley, frothing prodigiously at the mouth, did his best to eat the toothbrush. He looked positively rabid.

”Are you using toothpaste?” I asked, which of course begged the bigger question, ”And how exactly do you propose getting him to spit it out?”

”Baking soda,” she answered.

”Thank G.o.d,” I said. ”So it's not not rabies?” rabies?”

An hour later we left for the GulfStream Hotel, the boys in their car seats and Marley between them, panting away with uncharacteristically fresh breath. Our instructions were to arrive by 9:00A.M., but a block away, traffic came to a standstill. Up ahead the road was barricaded and a police officer was diverting traffic away from the hotel. The filming had been covered at length in the newspapers-the biggest event to hit sleepy Lake Worth since Body Heat Body Heat was filmed there fifteen years earlier-and a crowd of spectators had turned out to gawk. The police were keeping everyone away. We inched forward in traffic, and when we finally got up to the officer I leaned out the window and said, ”We need to get through.” was filmed there fifteen years earlier-and a crowd of spectators had turned out to gawk. The police were keeping everyone away. We inched forward in traffic, and when we finally got up to the officer I leaned out the window and said, ”We need to get through.”

”No one gets through,” he said. ”Keep moving. Let's go.”

”We're with the cast,” I said.

He eyed us skeptically, a couple in a minivan with two toddlers and family pet in tow. ”I said move it!” he barked.

”Our dog is in the film,” I said.

Suddenly he looked at me with new respect. ”You have the dog?” he asked. The dog was on his checklist.

”I have the dog,” I said. ”Marley the dog.”

”Playing himself,” Jenny chimed in.

He turned around and blew his whistle with great fanfare. ”He's got the dog!” he shouted to a cop a half block down. ”Marley the Dog!”

And that cop in turn yelled to someone else, ”He's got the dog! Marley the Dog's here!”

”Let 'em through!” a third officer shouted from the distance.

”Let 'em through!” the second cop echoed.

The officer moved the barricade and waved us through. ”Right this way,” he said politely. I felt like royalty. As we rolled past him he said once again, as if he couldn't quite believe it, ”He's got the dog.”

In the parking lot outside the hotel, the film crew was ready for action. Cables crisscrossed the pavement; camera tripods and microphone booms were set up. Lights hung from scaffolding. Trailers held racks of costumes. Two large tables of food and drinks were set up in the shade for cast and crew. Important-looking people in sungla.s.ses bustled about. Director Bob Gosse greeted us and gave us a quick rundown of the scene to come. It was simple enough. A minivan pulls up to the curb, Marley's make-believe owner, played by the actress Liza Harris, is at the wheel. Her daughter, played by a cute teenager named Danielle from the local performing-arts school, and son, another local budding actor not older than nine, are in the back with their family dog, played by Marley. The daughter opens the sliding door and hops out; her brother follows with Marley on a leash. They walk off camera. End of scene.

”Easy enough,” I told the director. ”He should be able to handle that, no problem.” I pulled Marley off to the side to wait for his cue to get into the van.

”Okay, people, listen up,” Gosse told the crew. ”The dog's a little nutty, all right? But unless he completely hijacks the scene, we're going to keep rolling.” He explained his thinking: Marley was the real thing-a typical family dog-and the goal was to capture him behaving as a typical family dog would behave on a typical family outing. No acting or coaching; pure cinema verite. ”Just let him do his thing,” he coached, ”and work around him.”

When everyone was set to go, I loaded Marley into the van and handed his nylon leash to the little boy, who looked terrified of him. ”He's friendly,” I told him. ”He'll just want to lick you. See?” I stuck my wrist into Marley's mouth to demonstrate.

Take one: The van pulls to the curb. The instant the daughter slides open the side door, a yellow streak shoots out like a giant fur ball being fired from a cannon and blurs past the cameras trailing a red leash.

”Cut!”

I chased Marley down in the parking lot and hauled him back.

”Okay, folks, we're going to try that again,” Gosse said. Then to the boy he coached gently, ”The dog's pretty wild. Try to hold on tighter this time.”

Take two. The van pulls to the curb. The door slides open. The daughter is just beginning to exit when Marley huffs into view and leaps out past her, this time dragging the white-knuckled and white-faced boy behind him.

”Cut!”

Take three. The van pulls up. The door slides open. The daughter exits. The boy exits, holding the leash. As he steps away from the van the leash pulls taut, stretching back inside, but no dog follows. The boy begins to tug, heave, and pull. He leans into it and gives it everything he has. Not a budge. Long, painfully empty seconds pa.s.s. The boy grimaces and looks back at the camera.

”Cut!”

I peered into the van to find Marley bent over licking himself where no male was ever meant to lick. He looked up at me as if to say, Can't you see I'm busy? Can't you see I'm busy?

Take four: I load Marley into the back of the van with the boy and shut the door. Before Gosse calls ”Action!” he breaks for a few minutes to confer with his a.s.sistants. Finally, the scene rolls. The van pulls to the curb. The door slides open. The daughter steps out. The boy steps out, but with a bewildered look on his face. He peers directly into the camera and holds up his hand. Dangling from it is half the leash, its end jagged and wet with saliva.

”Cut! Cut! Cut!”

The boy explained that as he waited in the van, Marley began gnawing on the leash and wouldn't stop. The crew and cast were staring at the severed leash in disbelief, a mix of awe and horror on their faces as though they had just witnessed some great and mysterious force of nature. I, on the other hand, was not surprised in the least. Marley had sent more leashes and ropes to their graves than I could count; he even managed to chew his way through a rubber-coated steel cable that was advertised ”as used in the airline industry.” Shortly after Conor was born, Jenny came home with a new product, a doggie travel harness that allowed her to buckle Marley into a car seat belt so he couldn't wander around the moving vehicle. In the first ninety seconds using the new device, he managed to chew through not only the heavy harness itself but the shoulder strap of our brand-new minivan.

”Okay, everybody, let's take a break!” Gosse called out. Turning to me, he asked-in an amazingly calm voice-”How quickly can you find a new leash?” He didn't have to tell me how much each lost minute cost him as his union-scale actors and crew sat idle.

”There's a pet store a half mile from here,” I said. ”I can be back in fifteen minutes.”

”And this time get something he can't chew through,” he said.

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