This Is Who We Are

by Matt Christiansen

darkened hills, referring to the map by the light of a flashlight every so often. As they continued to converse, their discussion delved deeper and deeper into the sequence of events that had taken place in the Congo those many years ago.

  “So did you have a girlfriend? Back in the tribe?” Mo inquired.

  “Well….” there was a great pause before Lee continued, “…no.”

  “Come on, man, we’ve known each other for way too long for you to lie to me! That was the weakest ‘no’ I’ve ever heard. Tell me about her” Mo pressed. “Tell me more about her.”

  “Okay, her name was Abeba. She was the most gorgeous girl that you’ve ever seen; big brown eyes, cute nose, perfect skin, everything. Ever since we were young we were destined to be together, they said it was written in the stars. We did everything together until like a month before our tribe was –“ Lee trailed off and was suddenly somber.

  “Oh, was she killed?” asked Moses apologetically in a soft voice, sensing that he had struck a nerve.

  “No” Lee replied simply. “She was safe and sound when the attack happened. Like a month before we were attacked she began to grow more and more distant. She started to not act like herself… When I asked her she would just smile and tell me not to worry about it. She was so innocent, I never questioned her.”

  “So what happened then?” Mo asked, sensing that something had been left unsaid.

  “She snuck off the night of the attack, I saw her leaving. When it started, I tried to find her right away. When I did, she was with the other tribe. I tried to save her, but when our eyes met I realized that she didn’t need saving, she had led them to us. After that…” Lee’s voice trailed off as if lost in the distant memory that he had tried relentlessly to forget.

  There was a moment of silence before Lee spoke up again, trying to sound revitalized, “Okay so their cave should be just over this next ridge”.

  Taken aback by the sober glimmer that had surfaced momentarily, Mo mumbled back “Oh, yeah… Okay! So lets… um… we should probably stick together until we get within sight of the cave. Lets sneak around the ridge and come down the shallower side over there.”

  The boys stealthily made their way over the crest of the wooded hill, dog in toe, and as they cleared the hilltop the moonlight shone down through the thinning trees to reveal a small jagged hole in the side of the rock face opposite them. By the light of the full moon the boys made their way down the slope to the edge of the clearing in which the cave was located. Here the boys halted, squatted, and made ready to make their assault on the creatures gathered within the cave.

  “Okay, how are we gonna do this?” Mo asked barely above a whisper as he held Killer in a bear hug, making sure that he didn’t burst into the clearing. Taking the pack from his back, Lee dug for a moment before producing a string of firecrackers as he scanned the clearing.

  “Look! There’s one in the shadows over there, see? Right next to that tree. You can see its eyes illuminated in the moonlight.”

  Mo’s eyes followed Lee’s gesture and sure enough, there were two piercing orbs, reflections of the moon in what must have been massive eyes.

  “It must not know we’re here yet.” Lee went on, “It would have attacked by now. You stay here and I’ll sneak around and try to get behind it, then you send Killer into the clearing to distract it and I’ll set off a string of Black Cats.”

  As Lee turned to sneak off into the woods, he was met by a second creature standing in the moonlight not three feet behind where the boys were crouched. As a cry of surprise escaped Lee’s throat and echoed through the moonlit woods, he sized up his opponent. Standing just under five feet tall, the creature stood bipedal with a surprisingly upright posture. It resembled a gorilla in that it had marginally longer arms than legs and was quite obviously a primate.

  This race of primates being the extreme southern branch of what are known in popular culture as sasquatches, it was little wonder that their existence was met with such skepticism. The tall tales of people being attacked or sighting a gangly eight foot tall ape tramping about the mountain trails of the pacific northwest were, in fact, all fictional.

  In truth, sasquatches more closely resembled a raccoon in behavior and habit. Growing no taller than five feet tall and living almost explicitly nocturnally, sightings of these creatures were obviously rare and when accounts did surface, they were often exaggerated to the point of being extremely nonfactual. But as with every legend, there was a grain of truth at the center.

  In actuality, sasquatches were quite aggressive and were responsible for much of the chaos and discord accredited to wild raccoons and other varmints. The curious trait distinguishing a sasquatch from the fictional tales made up by back woods pseudo-intellectuals was their hair. Covered mostly in fur (except on the abdomen, hands, and feet, much like a gorilla) sasquatches also had a full head of longer hair, oftentimes covering their eyes and giving them a dauntingly human appearance.

  As Lee’s yell echoed and faded from the hills, he stared into the eyes of the sasquatch, who stared straight back. After a couple second pause and a blink, Lee and Mo (and Killer) simultaneously tore off through the trees when a third beast appeared in front of them. Splitting off, the boys made a wide arc and met back on the opposite side of the third sasquatch. As they ran through the moonlit trees, they could hear twigs snapping and branches cracking behind them, indicating that the bipeds were in pursuit.

  “Dude, Plan B……. Plan B,” Mo panted breathlessly after a few minutes of running.

  Without so much as a noise from Lee, both boys abruptly stopped and plastered themselves behind respective trees. Killer, caught unawares (but in exact concordance with the plan), thundered on clumsily through the brush. Eyes scanning the ground franticly, Mo saw and seized a giant stick that had fallen from his tree. At the finding of this small log, he raised it, poised, and waited.

  The sounds of the three beasts in pursuit were now growing dangerously near. Tensed and ready, Moses shot a quick glance at Lee where he was pressed up against his tree grinning from ear to ear, his own club in hand. The sound of footprints drew nearer, louder, closer. One sasquatch passed, then the second. Waiting until the last possible moment Moses ferociously swung his log with every ounce of strength that could be mustered from his body.

  There was a dull smack as the log connected squarely with the pectoral region of the last sasquatch. The force of the blow unleashed on the beast was enough to send its legs sprawling up into the air and then to the ground with a hollow thud. As the first two monsters seemed to realize that they had been bested and split off into the darkness, a roar of laughter erupted from Lee at the sight of the sasquatch being struck so unprepared.

  “Bahaha! We got ‘em good! This thing’s out cold!” Lee exclaimed, still wildly entertained by the comical slap-stick manner in which Mo had tamed the animal.

  “Now people will have to believe us when we tell them about how evil these little guys are! Then we’ll see who’s laughing!” Mo said, shaking the reverberations from the log out of his hands. “Now I guess we just drag him back and cage him up until morning.”

  The boys took turns carrying the deceptively light, unconscious invalid back through the woods, again consulting their map every now and again.

  • • •

  Mo awoke to darkness in their room. As he shifted his eyes past the stream of silver moonlight coming through the window, his eyes fixed on the digital alarm clock on the opposite wall. The clock read 2:55 am. His eyes now adjusted to the absence of light in the room, he noticed that Lee’s bed was vacant.

  Concerned, Mo threw on a dark blue sweatshirt and snuck down the stairs, avoiding every squeak with years of experience. Once outside, he knew exactly where Lee would be. Not feeling particularly gutsy, he opted to take the longer, sloping path down to the beach rather than risking the cliff path. As he drew nearer to the water, he could just make out a silhouette against the reflection of the moon on the water. The tide was
low, and Moses walked out to where Lee sat at the end of the dock, feet dangling in the water, staring up at the moon. Mo eased down beside him silently, following his eyes to where they were focused off somewhere on the dark horizon.

  “T’sup…” Lee greeted him, eyes fixed on the full moon as a string of smoke curled upwards into the night air.

  “Dude you were doing so well…” Mo said sorrowfully as he looked over at his brother. “I thought you said you threw your last pack away.”

  Since his adoption from the Congo, Lee had tried valiantly to kick the habit. The orphanage where Lee had been put up had been a haven for all manor of unhealthy vices, the very mildest of which was cigarette smoking. Having resisted a great many other temptations, Lee had been introduced to nicotine in a moment of weakness.

  Having been removed from the orphanage, Lee had made great strides and had, up until this night, gone a full year and two months without a smoke.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I didn’t throw them,” Lee said apologetically as he stared down into his lap.

  “Did it help?” Mo asked pointedly.

  “Not at all” Lee replied, a realization dawning in his voice. “This shit’s gonna kill me…”

  Without so much as a second thought Lee suddenly hurled the remainder of the pack out into the water.

  “There, you saw me,” Lee smiled triumphantly over at his brother. “That was my last pack from Africa…”

  “Looks like you’re not getting another one until you’re eighteen” Mo beamed back at him, “I’m proud of you.”

  There was a long pause in which the boys just sat, staring off into the Pacific sky. At length, Lee spoke up abruptly.

  “She was the best actress I’ve ever seen. I knew her for eight years… eight years and I don’t even know when she went bad. I don’t know how long she planned her betrayal, or what she did when I saw her sneaking out. I have no idea. When I found her during the fight, our eyes met. Instantly I knew. Those eyes were so cold. They were just, like, dead; no remorse. Nothing.

  “I try to forget, I cover it up, bury it. But sometimes… Sometimes it comes back up. Sometimes, like tonight, I forget and just miss her. You know? I just want answers. No anger, no regret, just the truth.” Lee continued distantly, as though he were gazing across time, into the past in search of answers. “What’s she doing right now? Does she even remember me? Does she ever regret hanging our entire village out to dry? Does she feel anything?”

  “Dude, I’m sorry. I had no idea what happened,” Mo said, staring out into the night.

  “Naw, it’s cool. I’ll be fine tomorrow. It’ll pass. It always does. Dude, that moon is huge…” Lee replied, seeming to snap back to the present. “We should probably get back up to bed. I can’t wait until we show Mack that sasquatch. He’s gonna freak.”

  • • •

  “What?! How could it possibly have gotten loose? You’ve gotta be kidding me! We had it hog tied, face down, passed out, 15 feet away from any sort of sharp object!” Lee roared.

  “Dude, I know! Here’s our rope…” Mo answered, staring dismayed down at the severed ropes lying where the sasquatch had been not five hours before. “The other two must have followed us back and waited to take him back after we went back to sleep.”

  “Alright, now what’s this you wanted to show me?” Mack asked, pushing open the great door with a gnarled, tough looking hand.

  “It was right here, I swear! See? You can see where we had it tied up in the grass! The thing was right there!” Moses moaned in dismay.

  Mack grinned from ear to ear as he stared down at the severed ropes.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t even say it.” said Lee in a condescended tone.

  “Maybe next time,” Mack smiled in obvious disbelief, “maybe next time…”

  - First Impressions -

  “Okay, so we’ll start with the intro from ‘Marianas Trench’ then go straight into ‘Walk On Water Or Drown’…” Moses said thoughtfully from where he stood five feet in front of Lee’s massive drum set. As he finished speaking, Moses looked down at his oddly thick guitar and began to pluck an artistic progression of gradually harshening tabs.

  At first glance, his guitar looked rather shot, seeming old and dilapidated. The electric guitar’s neck was marginally wider than a traditional neck, for the fact that there were seven strings. The bottom six were standard guitar strings, but the seventh, above the thicker of the E strings was the heavy E string of a bass guitar. This seventh string was used to great effect, accenting Lee’s abyssal bass drumming and giving more “meat” to their music.

  The neck was designed specifically by Mo (with help from his uncle Myles, from whom he had been given his first taste of the guitar) and featured an oddly shaped headstock. There was a small switch located on the side of the neck just before it met the headstock that doubled the bass string’s volume when flicked, functioning as a sort of bass-boosting whammy bar. It’s body was of average shape and was only a touch thicker than a normal six string’s. The body was a chipping metallic burnt orange and the edge was covered by a thick metal ridging crudely attached by arbitrary looking bolts and rivets. The addition of this metal edge made the guitar unusually durable and gave it a club-like quality.

  The wiring of the guitar had all been done cooperatively by Mo and his uncle. It had two outlets and could be manually switched between feeding the guitar and limited bass into one amp or dividing them respectively into their own amps. There was also a whammy bar and a couple of dials that speckled the surface of the guitar’s body. It was, all in all, a work of art.

  Five feet from Mo, Lee had his drums set up and began rapidly crunching out a beat riddled with double-bass kicks and cymbal. Lee’s drum setup was more numerous than the average set, though they included the traditional cymbal, two toms, two floor toms, and two bass drums. In addition to the two bass kick drums sitting on the floor, there was a third drum twice as long as the others, making an uncommonly deep boom. This third drum was created from two old bass drums that had been attached and sealed into one massive drum (making a home made meter-long kick drum).

  There were also two dinner plate sized turtle shells set up side by side on the left side of the kit (one slightly larger than the other), and a massive turtle shell mounted to the right. These unique drums were created by Lee from turtle shells that he had found (the smaller two in the woods and the larger one on the beach, having belonged to a great sea turtle). The shells made very hollow dings in three various tones corresponding with the sizes of the shells, and added a tribal essence to his drumming. Further referencing Lee’s tribal origins were 4 bongo drums, 2 of which were tall and two of which were mounted.

  In Africa, Lee had been the drummer who accompanied his tribe on war parties, since he had not been old enough to fight and was incapable of staying away from the action. Ever since the age of four, Lee had been striking up beats with whatever was in his immediate surroundings, and he now made a point of using each and every drum placed before him.

  Just as the boys began to thunder through the tempo pickup Lee stopped abruptly, followed my Mo. “What’s-“ Mo began before he was cut off by a finger held up to Lee’s lips.

  “Shhhhhhh…” Lee breathed, his eyes wandering in concentration as he listened for what he must have thought was a noise outside. Not long after the boys paused, there came a noise loud and clear, through the old shed window that was letting in golden light, shimmering from the millions of tiny dust particles lazily floating through the air.

  “MOSES…. LEONARDO…. SUPPER TIME!” Mack’s voice came ringing through the air. Not a second passed before the boys had laid their instruments at rest and were flying out the door of the old boating shed that they had transformed into their musical laboratory.

  “Coming!” Lee roared as they raced up the hill towards the house, where a grill was emitting smoke and an occasional flame. As they approached the house, Mo noticed that there was a table set up outside betw
een the house and the ocean just underneath the lone weathered tree that stood watching the sea.

  “Hope you guys are hungry, ‘cause I had to cook the rest of these pork chops before they went bad.” Mack said as he approached the crude table with a massive ceramic plate on which rested a mound of large cuts of grilled meat. As the boys sat down on the wooden chairs that surrounded the square table they eyed the pork chops hungrily.

  Before anybody touched any of the food, Mack closed is eyes and paused for a moment. Silence hung in the air as the world seemed to hold its breath. After a couple seconds he opened his eyes and the three of them tore into their meal.

  “I heard there’s a talent show at your school in a couple days, are you guys gona play?” Mack inquired between mouthfuls of food.

  “We were thinking about it but never got around to signing up. We had to do it by like last week sometime,” Lee answered. “Besides, each act only gets like ten minutes which would barely be enough time for two songs.

  “I don’t know,” Mack said thoughtfully, “I think ten minutes would be plenty of time for you guys. Isn’t the talent show supposed to be on the Pier?”

  “Yeah, it is. I donno, maybe we’ll talk to Mrs. Johnson tomorrow and see if we can get squeezed in somewhere,” Mo said as both he and Lee started into their third helping. “Now that I think about it, the Pier would be a pretty sick place to play.”

  • • •

  “Hey Mrs. J! Hang on!” Lee called after his and Mo’s study hall teacher, Mrs. Johnson. The bell had just rung and the hallways were now flooded with students making their way out of their respective classrooms, to their lockers for the collection of personal effects, and finally out the door to their freedom. The boys chased after their teacher, who was moving at a good clip down the hall. Finally, as Lee’s resounding yell reached her ears she stopped short and swung around to face whoever was calling her.

  As the boys caught up to where she stood she exclaimed, “Oh boys, I’m sorry! You wanted to see me after class! What was it that you wanted to ask me about?”

  Still panting, Mo caught his breath first and asked, “We were just wondering if there was any way that we could maybe squeeze into the talent show. I know we’re a couple days late but we were hoping that there was still an empty spot somewhere.”

  “Hmm,” Mrs. Johnson said, jogging her memory. “I think I could squeeze you in at the very end. What kind of talent will you two be performing?” As a side note she added “I assume you two will be entering together.”

  “We’re a band, I play drums and Mo plays guitar,” Lee said.

  “All right, I’ll pencil you two in for the final slot.