Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

Michael sat looking at the billboards on the roadside, feeling pale and weedy.

His father wanted high spirits. 'So what animal are you, Mikey?'

'I don't know. Probably a chicken.'

'Oh, man. We gotta do something about that.'

Sometimes Staff Sergeant Blasco was more like a Mom. He'd say Mike was looking kinda pale. Was he getting out? He was looking thin; maybe he'd like to stop and get something to eat? He'd slap Michael's back to get an idea of its fleshiness. Didn't Mike's Mom feed him anything?

'We gotta get you out on that beach. What sport you doing these days, Mikey?'

Michael dreaded that question. Just the question alone made him feel cold and shivery and skinny. 'Um… snooker? That's something like billiards.' California sunlight made Michael squint.

'Uh-huh,' his father would say, without commitment. 'Snooker sounds cool. Listen, I know you have a lot of studying to do in England, but now that you're here, maybe you'd like to join in with some of the stuff that's going on in San Diego. I know you don't play basketball or any of that stuff, but there's a sailing club, tennis. All kinds of stuff. Some of the NCOs have set up a kind of sports club for the kids in the camp. Maybe you should check it out.'

When Michael came back at twelve, his Dad had just been promoted from Staff Sergeant to Gunney. He worked in Camp Pendleton and so they lived in camp accommodation, a regulation bungalow with a regulation yard.

Dad would have the guys in to watch the game, or he would host a staff barbecue, or there would be a sailing club annual accounts meeting. Marines with wives from Manila or Topeka would mingle in a tiny condo without a single book to talk a mix of baseball statistics, camp politics, shopping tips and the latest model cars.

Sometimes they talked movies. An old guy, somebody's granddad, asked Michael, 'Have you seen that movie Poseidon Adventure yet?'

'I thought it could have been better,' said Michael. 'I thought the ship turning upside down would be magic, but it wasn't.'

'Huh, huh, I love that accent of yours, Michael. Hey Louis, your kid talks better than you do!'

'Don't I know it!' Louis shouted through the open back door. He was grilling hot dogs on the barbecue.

Michael was still trying to talk movies. 'I really like Planet of the Apes movies.'

'Yeah, my grandson loves those too.'

'He gets it all from his mother. She's English!' Louis called back, dumping chicken wings onto a plate and family history at the same time. His calf muscles looked like drumsticks, brown and sinewy.

The old man asked, 'You live in England most of the time, Michael?'

'Yes sir.' That 'sir' was American.

'So you think you'll probably be coming over here to live?' The old man's eyes narrowed and his mouth went thin from expectation.

This was a trope. The little kid from England was now supposed to say oh yes, I want to live in America more than anything because there are beaches here and job opportunities and liberty and the Constitution and you can go to football games.

Michael was English enough to resist being bullied into unwarranted enthusiasm. 'I might come here, I haven't really thought about it.'

Michael had recently found himself corralled into the camp's 4th of July pageant. He had to stand up on a stage in a hall and recite: 'Hello, my name's Michael. I'm from England and I want to know more about the Declaration of Independence.' At least the kid from Chile got to ask about Daniel Boone.

The old man took Michael seriously. 'The schools here are real good if you're thinking of going to university. Good colleges around here too.'

Michael's father shouted from the kitchen, 'Mike's the only guy in the family with any brains. What was that exam you took, Mikey? The elevensomething? Well, anyway, it's like he's a straight-A student.'

'Is that so?' the old man intoned. He didn't have that much time for grades.

Something in Michael wanted to twist the knife. 'Actually, I can't live in California. I'm allergic to sunlight.'

'Allergic to sunlight.' The old man cast a look back over his shoulder in case this was new to Michael's father. 'What are the symptoms, Mike?'

'I go this strange shade of brown all over.' It was a joke. It was a joke about Britain, you know, we never see the sun. so we don't know about tanning. Unfortunately Michael had committed a breach of etiquette. You never tell a conservative American a joke without first signalling and confirming that what will follow is a caprice meant only to amuse.

The grandfather leaned forward, serious and concerned. 'I mean strange how?'

'Dead weird. I mean, where the sun doesn't hit, like under my shorts, it stays white, and you can see the line where the brown stops.'

The old guy blinked in confusion. 'But does it interfere with your activities? Sports, going to the beach, community work?'

'Oh it doesn't hurt or anything.'

'Well. How does it differ from a tan?'

'Tan?' Michael said, rounding his vowels to Terry-Thomas proportions, 'Whot's a tan?'

A shivering nervous laugh, and the old man's steepled hands moved towards the thin little smile. 'Oh. Ha-ha, I getcha.' There was a long uncomfortable pause and he fought his way to his feet. 'I'm going to go and see about those wieners.'

Michael felt pity then; the poor old guy had only been trying to be nice. He felt sorry for himself too: now he would have to talk baseball statistics.

He could at least talk to American adults. American kids seemed to Michael to be unbelievably obnoxious. It was like someone had granted them Asshole Licences that weren't revoked until they were twenty-five. Well, at least the sons of Marines commanded to play team sports. They shouted a lot and could be quite funny, unlike their cautious, thin-lipped, watchful parents. But the humour was loud, often cruel, and consisted of set phrases that Michael simply didn't understand.

'Big man he got money in his hand. Hey big man, whoo-hoo!'

They roared with laughter.

'Hey, he's got a man-tan, man!'

Michael could even begin to join in. He listened to the radio, he watched TV, he tried to understand. A local DJ had an ID that rumbled The Big Man'. But most of it remained mysterious. Maybe it all came from going to Oceanside High School together, stuff they made up. In any case he was irredeemably out of it. And as Michael played baseball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, etc, only when he came to California, i.e. every two years, he was hardly going to win respect on the field.

One of the kids asked in disbelief, 'Are you really Sergeant Blasco's son?' The kid was big, blond, lean and spotty. Despite expensive dental work his face looked like someone had bashed it in with a spade. Aggressively, he drove the hardball into his own mitt, breaking in a new glove.

Michael had to concur. 'Yes. Hard to believe, huh?' He squinted into the sun, sitting on the bench, dreading his turn at bat.

'You got it. It must be something to do with how they raise ' em in England. '

As the summer wore on, it got worse. The accent was an easy target. Americans couldn't hear the difference between posh and Romford-Sheffield and didn't want to.

'I say, old man, just how did you get to be such a discord?'

'Ooh rather.'

'Spastic, I believe the term is.'

'Hey, Spaz, can you get your poop in the pan, yet?'

At twelve Michael had no defence against this. He was small and pale. Without even trying to, he lost his native accent in a protective camouflage of likes, you knows, sos and I means, It worked; Americans regard their accent as a symptom of strength and virtue. They assumed Michael had wised up. Then Michael went home.

At fourteen, it was different yet again. Michael's father had moved into an Oceanside condo that looked like something from Cape Cod. It was made of wood and was painted white and blue. It had security gates and was on the clifftops right over the beach.