Marce, Portrait of a Dog

     Such a big dog, even as a puppy.  I teased Mai that he was part gorilla, with that big black nose, part bear, with those big goofy paws, and of course part crocodile

     (here comes the rain again/)

     with those big, gorgeous blindingly white teeth, and later, part billy goat with his little white beard –

     Remember his shagginess when his beautifully silky curls got overgrown, till they flopped over those intelligent deep brown eyes always watching everything, not missing a trick (especially when it came to fishing your favorite sunglasses out of your purse, left stupidly within reach of the notorious counter thief, simply because he was bored and you were 'ignoring' him.)

     Self-soothe, Marce, I used to tell him, while he stared at me as though to answer, Get a life, Kristin. 

     In some ways he was so unlike other dogs:  he used to balk so much at going for walks.  Everything freaked him out, was too big, too loud – the skateboarder, the garbage truck, the squealy brakes on some old car, a cat across the street, some jogger going by – in some ways, regardless his size, he was just better inside, with his family, standing guard at the window when it was time for Aaron to come home, running to Mai when Andre cried.

 

     He was a big guy but you could never catch him.  You could try (his favorite game; your least, not least because he always, but ALWAYS, won), you did try, sometimes until you were breathless, but no.  You never caught him.

     Not gonna happen.

     Remember taking him out back, throwing a tennis ball while he stared at you like, what?  Then, gamely, he'd run and get it, but if you threw it again you'd really get The Look, the 'WTF you throw that out there again?  I just got it back for you!'

     It wasn't that he didn't like to run – he LOVED to run, and he was incredibly good at it – watching him and Ali play was a thing of rudeness and joy, their combined young health, the way they scared each other on purpose, the sudden standing-on-their–back-legs dance...no, it was that he just didn't understand your motive.

     ('Seriously now:  Why are you throwing that ball away all the time if all you want is to have it back?  Why?')

     Remember one rainy day when he absolutely would not budge to go outside (looking at you like, I don't have fur, where's MY jacket?)

     -- having seen the rubber ducky jacket he was gonna wear in Seattle, he was so close to being there –

     [ASIDE:  FUCK. LIFE!]

     Anyway, I was saying about how one rainy day, stuck inside (I used to get paid to hang with him when he was still a puppy – a big puppy, always, at five months nearly full grown, tall as your hip), I tried to teach him how to dance.  I'd fool around with the I-pad radio they left for on him (either Portuguese jazz – he was a Portuguese water dog after all – or sometimes reggae, very low) when they were both at work (this being B.A.; Before Andre) – so I fooled around with the stations and tried different things:

     Motown just made him crazy.  When I danced around him he would bark at me and jump around and ultimately work himself up into a state I could not handle, so we didn't hit our brief groove until I put on the old standards.  The music my mother loves, Ella and Etta (both of them), the Shirleys (Bassey and Horne), and of course Frank Sinatra -- 

     I invited Marce to dance by bowing, then coaxing him to put his big shaggy popcorn-scented paws on my shoulders, which perplexed him, at first in a good way, but after a little bit, he got tired.  Bbut then, he was always easily frustrated.  If he didn't get it, fuck it.  He'd either bark at you (he had two basic tones, asking you either to 'explain it! or to just 'quit it!') 

     Either that or he'd just lope off to eat your shoe, but only when you thought it was safe to take your eyes off him.

     He was a big black incredibly smart bad boy, my favorite, and I used to call my mom and tell her about him, because she loved 'a good scoundrel,' and Marce was certainly that.

     He was that, and ridiculously sensitive, too, coming to sit next to me one day when I was crying (it was four times a week, sometimes I cried!), putting his big head on my lap, whining a little bit ('please stop!  Here I am, see?  I love you!')

     Which he did.  Which he showed every single time I saw him, flipping out when he saw it was me, jumping like a maniac though he was so much better behaved at two plus years –

     What can I say, I loved it.  I always felt like we'd been lovers in some past life, not least for the way this dog kissed.

     (I know it sounds like this little essay has taken the turn for the weyrd, but I'm not kidding, this dog could have taught lessons).

     So gentle, a sideways kiss, a swipe of your neck, a nibble on your lips, a brief shy glance aside, another little swipe of his tongue on the corner of your mouth.

     I used to kiss him shamelessly, even in front of Mai, and she would just grin.  She knew. 

     We used to rhapsodize about him, the two of us, telling every little detail of his day, rub his belly and croon his name (I don't believe I need to tell you how much he loved this) –

     He was every ordinary dog – fiercely loyal, unendingly loving, deeply protective – and he was Marce, an absolutely unique, brilliant, funny, sensitive and unendingly sweet individual.

     He barged a Marce-shaped space into his people's hearts and now it cannot be occupied by anybody else.  He once belonged to us.

     Now, we belong to him.