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Listen? Now will you take me seriously?
That this stuff can kill you. But would anyone The dog had a point. Maybe his fear of thunder had not been so irrational after all. Maybe his panic attacks at the first distant rumblings had been his way of telling us that Florida’s violent thunderstorms, the deadliest in the country, were not to be dismissed with a shrug. Maybe all those destroyed walls and gouged doors and shredded John Grogan carpets had been his way of trying to build a lightning-proof den we could all fit into snugly. And how had we rewarded him? With scoldings and tranquilizers. Our house was dark, the air-conditioning, ceil- ing fans, televisions, and several appliances all blown out. The circuit breaker was fused into a melted mess. We were about to make some electri- cian a very happy man. But I was alive and so was my trusty sidekick. Jenny and the kids, tucked safely away in the family room, didn’t even know the house had been hit. We were all present and accounted for. What else mattered? I pulled Mar- ley into my lap, all ninety-seven nervous pounds of him, and made him a promise right then and there: Never again would I dismiss his fear of this deadly force of nature. C H A P T E R 2 0 Dog Beach ❉ As a newspaper columnist, I was always look- ing for interesting and quirky stories I could grab on to. I wrote three columns each week, which meant that one of the biggest challenges of the job was coming up with a constant stream of fresh topics. Each morning I began my day by scouring the four South Florida daily newspapers, circling and clipping anything that might be worth weighing in on. Then it was a matter of finding an approach or angle that would be mine. My very first column had come directly from the headlines. A speeding car crammed with eight teenagers had flipped into a canal along the edge of the Ever- glades. Only the sixteen-year-old driver, her twin sister, and a third girl had escaped the submerged car. It was a huge story that I knew I wanted to come in on, but what was the fresh angle I could John Grogan call my own? I drove out to the lonely crash sight hoping for inspiration, and before I even stopped the car I had found it. The classmates of the five dead children had transformed the pavement into a tapestry of spray-painted eulogies. The black- top was covered shoulder-to-shoulder for more than a half mile, and the raw emotion of the out- pouring was palpable. Notebook in hand, I began copying the words down. “Wasted youth,” said one message, accompanied by a painted arrow pointing off the road and into the water. Then, there in the middle of the communal catharsis, I found it: a public apology from the young driver, Jamie Bardol. She wrote in big, loopy letters, a child’s scrawl: “I wish it would have been me. I’m sorry.” I had found my column. Not all topics were so dark. When a retiree re-
ceived an eviction notice from her condo because her pudgy pooch exceeded the weight limit for pets, I swooped in to meet the offending heavy- weight. When a confused senior citizen crashed her car into a store while trying to park, fortu- nately hurting no one, I was close behind, speak- ing to witnesses. The job would take me to a migrant camp one day, a millionaire’s mansion the next, and an inner-city street corner the day after that. I loved the variety; I loved the people I met; and more than anything I loved the near-total Marley & Me freedom I was afforded to go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted in pursuit of whatever topic tickled my curiosity. What my bosses did not know was that behind my journalistic wanderings was a secret agenda: to use my position as a columnist to engineer as many shamelessly transparent “working holidays” as I possibly could. My motto was “When the colum- nist has fun, the reader has fun.” Why attend a deadening tax-adjustment hearing in pursuit of column fodder when you could be sitting, say, at an outdoor bar in Key West, large alcoholic bever- age in hand? Someone had to do the dirty work of telling the story of the lost shakers of salt in Mar- garitaville; it might as well be me. I lived for any excuse to spend a day goofing around, preferably in shorts and T-shirt, sampling various leisurely and recreational pursuits that I convinced myself the public needed someone to fully investigate. Every profession has its tools of the trade, and mine included a reporter’s notebook, a bundle of pens, and a beach towel. I began carrying sun- screen and a bathing suit in my car as a matter of routine. I spent one day blasting through the Everglades on an airboat and another hiking along the rim of Lake Okeechobee. I spent a day bicycling scenic State Road A1A along the Atlantic Ocean so I John Grogan could report firsthand on the harrowing proposi- tion of sharing the pavement with confused blue- heads and distracted tourists. I spent a day snorkeling above the endangered reefs off Key Largo and another firing off clips of ammunition at a shooting range with a two-time robbery vic- tim who swore he would never be victimized again. I spent a day lolling about on a commercial fishing boat and a day jamming with a band of ag- ing rock musicians. One day I simply climbed a tree and sat for hours enjoying the solitude; a de- veloper planned to bulldoze the grove in which I sat to make way for a high-end housing develop- ment, and I figured the least I could do was give this last remnant of nature amid the concrete jun- gle a proper funeral. My biggest coup of all was when I talked my editors into sending me to the Bahamas so I could be on the forward edge of a brewing hurricane that was making its way toward South Florida. The hurricane veered harmlessly out to sea, and I spent three days beachside at a luxury hotel, sipping piña coladas beneath blue skies. It was in this vein of journalistic inquiry that I got the idea to take Marley for a day at the beach. Up and down South Florida’s heavily used shore- line, various municipalities had banned pets, and for good reason. The last thing beachgoers wanted Marley & Me was a wet, sandy dog pooping and peeing and
shaking all over them as they worked on their tans. NO PETS signs bristled along nearly every stretch of sand. There was one place, though, one small, little- known sliver of beach, where there were no signs, no restrictions, no bans on four-legged water lovers. The beach was tucked away in an unincor- porated pocket of Palm Beach County about halfway between West Palm Beach and Boca Ra- ton, stretching for a few hundred yards and hid- den behind a grassy dune at the end of a dead-end street. There was no parking, no restroom, no life- guard, just an unspoiled stretch of unregulated white sand meeting endless water. Over the years, its reputation spread by word of mouth among pet owners as one of South Florida’s last safe havens for dogs to come and frolic in the surf without risking a fine. The place had no official name; un- officially, everyone knew it as Dog Beach. Dog Beach operated on its own set of unwritten rules that had evolved over time, put in place by consensus of the dog owners who frequented it, and enforced by peer pressure and a sort of silent moral code. The dog owners policed themselves so others would not be tempted to, punishing vio- lators with withering stares and, if needed, a few choice words. The rules were simple and few: Ag- John Grogan gressive dogs had to stay leashed; all others could run free. Owners were to bring plastic bags with them to pick up any droppings their animal might deposit. All trash, including bagged dog waste, was to be carted out. Each dog should arrive with a supply of fresh drinking water. Above all else, there would be absolutely no fouling of the water. The etiquette called for owners, upon arriving, to walk their dogs along the dune line, far from the ocean’s edge, until their pets relieved themselves. Then they could bag the waste and safely proceed to the water. I had heard about Dog Beach but had never vis- ited. Now I had my excuse. This forgotten vestige of the rapidly disappearing Old Florida, the one that existed before the arrival of waterfront condo towers, metered beach parking, and soaring real estate values, was in the news. A pro-development county commissioner had begun squawking about this unregulated stretch of beach and asking why the same rules that applied to other county beaches should not apply here. She made her in- tent clear: outlaw the furry critters, improve pub- lic access, and open this valuable resource to the masses. I immediately locked in on the story for what it was: a perfect excuse to spend a day at the beach on company time. On a drop-dead-perfect June Marley & Me morning, I traded my tie and briefcase for swim- suit and flip-flops and headed with Marley across the Intracoastal Waterway. I filled the car with as many beach towels as I could find—and that was just for the drive over. As always, Marley’s tongue was hanging out, spit flying everywhere. I felt like I was on a road trip with Old Faithful. My only re- gret was that the windshield wipers weren’t on the inside. Following Dog Beach protocol, I parked several blocks away, where I wouldn’t get a ticket, and be- gan the long hike in through a sleepy neighbor- hood of sixties-vintage bungalows, Marley leading the charge. About halfway there, a gruff voice called out, “Hey, Dog Guy!” I froze, con- vinced I was about to be busted by an angry neighbor who wanted me to keep my damn dog the hell off his beach. But the voice belonged to another pet owner, who approached me with his own large dog on a leash and handed me a petition to sign urging county commissioners to let Dog Beach stand. Speaking of standing, we would have stood and chatted, but the way Marley and the other dog were circling each other, I knew it was just a matter of seconds before they either (a)
lunged at each other in mortal combat or (b) be- gan a family. I yanked Marley away and continued on. Just as we reached the path to the beach, Mar- John Grogan ley squatted in the weeds and emptied his bowels. Perfect. At least that little social nicety was out of the way. I bagged up the evidence and said, “To the beach!” When we crested the dune, I was surprised to see several people wading in the shallows with their dogs securely tethered to leashes. What was this all about? I expected the dogs to be running free in unbridled, communal harmony. “A sher- iff ’s deputy was just here,” one glum dog owner explained to me. “He said from now on they’re enforcing the county leash ordinance and we’ll be fined if our dogs are loose.” It appeared I had ar- rived too late to fully enjoy the simple pleasures of Dog Beach. The police, no doubt at the urging of the politically connected anti–Dog Beach forces, were tightening the noose. I obediently walked Marley along the water’s edge with the other dog owners, feeling more like I was in a prison exercise yard than on South Florida’s last unregulated spit of sand. I returned with him to my towel and was just pouring Marley a bowl of water from the canteen I had lugged along when over the dune came a shirtless tattooed man in cutoff blue jeans and work boots, a muscular and fierce-looking pit bull terrier on a heavy chain at his side. Pit bulls are known for their aggression, and they were espe- Marley & Me cially notorious during this time in South Florida. They were the dog breed of choice for gang mem- bers, thugs, and toughs, and often trained to be vicious. The newspapers were filled with accounts of unprovoked pit bull attacks, sometimes fatal, against both animals and humans. The owner must have noticed me recoiling because he called out, “Don’t you worry. Killer’s friendly. He don’t never fight other dogs.” I was just beginning to exhale with relief when he added with obvious pride, “But you should see him rip open a wild hog! I’ll tell you, he can get it down and gutted in about fifteen seconds.” Marley and Killer the Pig-Slaying Pit Bull strained at their leashes, circling, sniffing furiously at each other. Marley had never been in a fight in his life and was so much bigger than most other dogs that he had never been intimidated by a chal- lenge, either. Even when a dog attempted to pick a fight, he didn’t take the hint. He would merely pounce into a playful stance, butt up, tail wagging, a dumb, happy grin on his face. But he had never before been confronted by a trained killer, a gutter of wild game. I pictured Killer lunging without warning for Marley’s throat and not letting go. Killer’s owner was unconcerned. “Unless you’re a wild hog, he’ll just lick you to death,” he said. I told him the cops had just been here and were John Grogan going to ticket people who didn’t obey the leash ordinance. “I guess they’re cracking down,” I said. “That’s bullshit!” he yelled, and spit into the sand. “I’ve been bringing my dogs to this beach for years. You don’t need no leash at Dog Beach. Bullshit!” With that he unclipped the heavy chain, and Killer galloped across the sand and into the water. Marley reared back on his hind legs, bounc- ing up and down. He looked at Killer and then up at me. He looked back at Killer and back at me. His paws padded nervously on the sand, and he let out a soft, sustained whimper. If he could talk, I
knew what he would have asked. I scanned the dune line; no cops anywhere in sight. I looked at Marley. Please! Please! Pretty please! I’ll be
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