This Is Who We Are

By Matt Christiansen

A literary tribute to the turn of the century’s pop punk revival bands, this collection of original short stories more closely resembles a musical album than a traditional novel. Jump in for a light, self-sufficient story or read its entirety for the complete underlying narrative, following two adoptive brothers on their adventures up and down the rugged Northern California coast.

Moses and Lee, accompanied by their trusty mutt, Killer, stand fearless in the face of conflict, but life is beginning to change. With the influx of danger and new threats on the horizon, it’s only a matter of time before the boys discover their limits...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matt Christiansen
• Release date: May 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311035844

Matt Christiansen

I'm a professional graphic designer turned youth ministry coordinator currently living in Rapid City, SD. While earning my Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art, I began to understand that my love of writing gave me yet another artistic outlet. I'm an extremely visual person and my writing style might be best described as drawing with words. Drawing inspiration from everything from Shakespeare to the early American authors (such as Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne) to the modern-day punk rock scene, I've developed the jumble of machinations in my head into a series of short stories that blend my varied artistic inspirations into something that makes sense.

Book preview

The Legend of NoCal

This Is Who We Are

By Matt Christiansen

Copyright 2014 Matt Christiansen

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

- Table of Contents -

Intro

The Moonlit Hills

First Impressions

The Island (Part 1)

California Paradise

Follow The Leader

El Monasterio de San Jamie

The Kings of the Pacific

Regime Change

The Graveyard of the Pacific

Origins (Part 1)

The Blood Diamond

The Author

- Intro -

The Legendary West Coast: the golden baked shores where the rocks and the sand blaze orange in the late afternoon sun. The focus of the shallow dreams of many, southern California has taken on a false sheen; its former glory and raw beauty decayed by years of gluttonous use and consumption. The Pacific Northwest, contrarily, is constantly shrouded in clouds imposing an industrial endurance.

Where the endless shine of the southern sun meets the enduring strength of the north, where sunny pop punk meets heavy metal, lies NoCal. A hybrid exists, embodied by Northern California, that lies on the fault line between the up-beat SoCal punk rock and the heavy bass ridden rock that seethes from the Pacific Northwest.

Among the less densely populated coastal shores of Northern California, there is no light pollution to shroud the skies after the sun has fallen, blazing, into the ocean. There’s no smog to clog the lungs of the inhabitants as they rise to meet the day. The sun still streams over the wooded foothills and pristine coasts more often than not, but there’s a durability and a reality that can no longer be found in California’s southern extremes. It is this coast, sun soaked and lasting, that provides the setting of the Legend of NoCal.

A man called Mack lived in Northern California with his two sons, the likes about which legends are told. The first son was named Moses. Just as at home in the water as on his feet, Moses was, at first glance an ordinary fourteen year old boy. There was nothing extraordinary about his appearance; he had long, shaggy blond hair, was most comfortable in cargo shorts and flip flops, and was laden with crudely fashioned wrist, neck, and ankle fixings, featuring minute magnetic black beads. Moses possessed a sort of hidden toughness, in the same way that a dog looks hardly fearsome when relaxed. What Moses lacked in strength he made up for with his uncanny degree of luck. His loyalty and relentless persistence could only be ascribed to that of a guard dog.

The second son was not, like Moses, a native to the coast. Lee was, in a sense, rescued by Mack from the African Congo. The bastard son of an Italian explorer and a member of an indigenous tribe of the Congo, his full name was Leonardo (which had been shortened to Leo, and again after his adoption to Lee). Upon his birth, Lee remained a part of his mother’s tribe for the early years of his life. At eight, he was left alone when his village was razed to the ground in a tribal skirmish. On his own and educated by the harshness of the African wilderness, he made his way to the capitol city of Brazzaville where he was taken into an orphanage and eventually adopted.

Lee had an otherworldly physique, toughened beyond imagination by his savage trek. With dreadlocks of assorted blacks, browns, and deep reds falling past his shoulders and a broad noble face, he embodied the courage and indomitable spirit of a lion. Fourteen years old and ferociously educated in the ways of survival, Lee stood fearless in the face of just about anything that this golden coast had to muster.

The two sons, individually, were merely remarkable boys. But together, the pair was as unified as a single solid stone. They had, as they soon discovered, entered the world on the exact same point in history on the opposite side of the globe. Bearing the same birthday, the two brothers seemed to have been drawn from across space and time, laughing and bleeding together through thick and thin. The boys were delivered time and time again through countless adventures and close scrapes, both on the ocean and among the ranging foothills.

Perhaps more incredible than the bond between the two was their indistinguishable taste in music. From birth, Moses had always had an artistic touch, and was introduced early on to the guitar. He had immediately taken to it with all the passion of a dog ripping into a steak. Now, at only fourteen, he had all but mastered his own unique instrumental style. In the same way, Lee had a way of striking up the most complex beats and rhythms upon anything and everything within his grasp. Having grown up in the heart of the Congo, Lee was first introduced to the modern drums upon his arrival in the states. In a few short years he had thoroughly mastered his drum set and could keep up with Moses without so much as missing a beat. The minute the two were united, their heartbeats synchronized; and so was formed NoCal, a specific brand of rock which embodied both melodic and rhythmic punk with spine shattering breakdowns and abyssal thunder.

These stories follow the boys and their adventures on and around the golden coastal region of Northern California.

- The Moonlit Hills -

The last rays of daylight were streaming through the window of the ocean-facing second story bedroom shared by Moses and Lee. The room, like the house, was small, but not cramped. The house was old, but not decayed. Rustic, but not rusting. The tile shingles were a burnt brown orange, especially when they were ignited by the setting pacific sun. The ceramic roofing, rather than decaying over time and sun soaked wear, was strengthened and hardened each day.

The wooden walls of the house were of a simple nature, though not alluding to poverty. There were only a few essential rooms to the house, the first floor of which consisted of a den, combination kitchen and dining room, a bathroom, Mack’s office, and his studio. Mack was a ceramic artist and sculptor, and his studio consisted of various woodworking tools, a ceramic throwing wheel, and a carving bench. The second level of the house contained Mo and Lee’s room, the master bedroom, a guest bedroom, and another bathroom.

Since Mack was a sculptor, the house and property were riddled with small knickknacks inside, as well as larger carvings outside. Perhaps the most interesting of these was the weathered woman’s face carved into the lone oak tree at the edge of the bluff upon which the house stood. Facing the open ocean, the forlorn face had a decided expression that seemed to watch the sea with a wisdom existing outside of time.

At the foot of the tree was a rough and worn path that cut diagonally down the face of the cliff and led to a natural beach. The beach was also accessible less directly via the large slope that wrapped around the back of the house. The small cove formed by the layout of the coast provided a shelter from the winds that swept across the vast expanses of water but allowed the waves to continue into the bay. For this reason, Mo and Lee spent countless hours surfing and exploring not only the small inlet that had become known as Mack’s Cove but also the surrounding coast. The house was situated on an 80 foot stretch of grass between the sun soaked coast and the wooded foothills of the mountainous region inland.

Back at the house, the light was fading from outside the window. The small room was lit by multiple candles and a large tribal head, which Mack had carved out and fashioned into a lantern. On the table in the middle of their room, Mo and Lee were pouring over a map of the physical landscape of the surrounding foothills.

Okay, the cave is right here so if we cut around the first peak we should be able to surprise them, Mo said, stabbing a knife into the map and sticking it to the table.

Lee nodded his approval and, with the faintest African accent, said, This time we’re gonna catch them off guard. They won’t stand a chance.

As the boys creaked the ancient oak front door shut behind them, the light was just leaving the western sky, which was now governed by an enormous full moon. Once out of the house, they made their way directly eastward when Mo stopped short and paused. Hey wait Lee, we should bring Killer. Mo cupped his mouth and shouted with surprising volume C’MON, KILLER!

In a matter of seconds the brush in the nearby woods rustled and from the craggy depths launched a dog. The mutt was a medium-sized mix of golden retriever and what the boys expected was either wild coyote or fox. Though Killer was not legally owned by anyone, he always hung around the woods by the house and the boys had him trained to respond to his name. Although named by the boys’ violent and youthful imaginations, Killer was actually quite a tame animal and could have passed quite convincingly to any stranger as the boys’ pet.

With their companion by their side, the boys set out into the woods. They walked slowly, talking as they went. They crept through the 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.