Man on the river

I loved going to the provincial, mundane ranch house of my father-in-law Ron. He lived on the St. John’s River and had a breathtaking view of Jacksonville’s modest skyline. Our dogs jumped up and down whenever we approached his house – they loved the football-sized backyard. So did the kids. Ron had a treehouse he built for his pet pheasant. But the pheasant got eaten up by an alligator, so now it was for Michael and Brooke.

Captain Ron always had lunch waiting for us – boiled ham, tomato and lettuce salad, Cool Whip for dessert. Invariably he wore short ‘80s shorts and a wild Florida print shirt. He had a deep tan from years of boating. He’d gotten some sort of settlement from Social Security after a work-related accident back in ’78 right when his marriage to Mike’s mother came to an end. Since then there’ve been two more wives. Now, Prospect No. 4 is trying her charms on him.

“What do you think, Jim?”

Ron came over to me in the living room that first afternoon. I was lying on the sofa reading Michael Cunningham and he stood in front of me, his face turned one way, then the other like Carol Merrill showing off a prize on “Let’s Make a Deal.”

I knew what he wanted me to say, so I played stupid.

“Think about what, Ron?” I asked in as innocent a tone as I could muster.

"This." He tossed his jaw one more time to the left, then to the right.

I knew stupid could only go so far. "Oh, of course! How nice."

“How nice” was the kiss-of-death compliment in the Deep South. Luckily Ron came from Detroit so he didn't get it. Perhaps he just chose to ignore it.