The Ambitious Dream

Off of a somewhat windy mountain road, just outside a somewhat successful small city were three buildings: One condemned, one a mini-mark/gas pump, and basically a shack.  The shack is the home of our hero and heroin, Clive and Janette.  Think of Jack and Jill except with a lot more dirt on their faces, as life goes. I mean we are talking picture perfect cute little blonde hair, blued eyed kids, with Clive being about 7 and Janette tagging closely enough being at 5. Now before you think we are going to watch these kids “come of age” or magically transition to adulthood, we're not.  We are simply going to see Ambition through their eyes.

It was a few hours after dusk when Clive and Janette’s mother is attempting to round them up for bed, with freshly brushed teeth and resistant dirt still on their faces.  She’s tired.  The mother has worked a long day, then made dinner, finally finished folding the laundry that was washed three days ago, but mostly just tired.  One day B.C. (Before Children) she was a reasonably good looking woman always for a good time. Now she was tired.  Time had worn on her skin and the grind of daily life had added to her figure.  But you do what you have to do, and at this moment it was time to tuck the usually darling rascals into bed. Leaning over them, you would think the mother was cruel with how timid the children were acting as she pulled up the top two blankets to just below Clive and Janette’s noses. Their mother loved them very much.  But the mother is also her own person who had wanted so much from life, and was now looking around at so little. In spite of her care and attention to her darlings, they could see that her longings were the predominate thoughts on her mind at that moment.

With very Hollywood timing, the long forgotten boyfriend rides up on a well maintained but otherwise mishandled cruiser. The road noise was nothing special so this went unnoticed for a time. He probably isn’t the father to our hero or heroine, but as far as we know, no one ever asked.  After all, it’s not like Clive and Jeanette are partially interested in history checks or resumes.  Mr. Hollywood Man, otherwise referenced as Matt, was what we refer to as down on his luck and looking for a soft place to land.  Windy mountain road still exist in the time of Facebook and the mother’s shack seemed like as good a place as any on the way to the unnamed city up the road.

It has been a long ride and all Matt really wanted was a beer. And a job. Which needed to come with a decent paycheck, meaning it needed to be enough to support general pleasantries. These are the things on Matt’s mind when he walks up the mother’s door. 

She’s not amused. All she can see is an old bow that never calls and is now asking for yet another favor.  Still, she said “sure” when he asked via the internet, as having someone to share a six pack with was a more compelling argument then even she would have thought.  The Budlight is already cold in the fridge.

Unfortunately for our tired mother, this is where the story gets more exciting.  As far as Clive and Janette know, their mother never got to drink that beer, being the little rascals that they are.  As Matt stepped into the doorway the kids went bizzerk. As the Clive and Janette were screaming in terror and trying to hide unsuccessfully due to the resulting ruckus, Matt just stood there, regretting his decision to come here.

Being actually a rather impressively able person, the tired mother managed to get Matt in the door, hand him a beer, and get her kids to stop screaming all in the matter of seventeen minutes.  I realize this does not sound impressive to some… But to others, no further explanation is necessary. Once Matt had a silent moment to sip his beer, he allowed himself to focus on the moment, which of course involved properly introducing himself to the kiddos with a series of funny faces and hearty smiles.  In that moment Matt was just Matt, the tired mother disappeared probably to brush her own teeth having given up on a beer, and the Clive and Janette were calm but increasing fussy with the late hours.

By the time coffee time rolled around the still tired mother was enjoying tolerating Matt’s monologue about the job he needed to get, how he was qualified for x pay grade because of y and z, and the general unfairness the world toward him. As morning time raced by as morning hour time always does, Clive and Janette still had not entered the kitchen, or gotten dressed, or brushed their teeth or hair.  As a matter of fact, Clive and Janette were terrified again. At this point the mother was out of patience, which she actually had a lot of, and late for work, which she also did a lot.

So her and Matt struck a deal.  Matt would stick around for “a bit,” utilizing her place as a crash pad for his job hunt in the city, and Matt would take the kids with him so they won’t be left alone.  Seeing as this was summer and there wasn’t much else to do with them as far as supervision.  Per usual, our tired mother seems to be at the loosing end of the bargain.  One does what one must, and losing a day of work because one’s kids are acting weird seemed like a worse bargain.  So a deal is a deal, and our tired mother disappeared to work.

Matt on the other hand, took his sweet time getting out the door. Apparently 2pm sounded like a good time to start the job hunt. See, Matt’s problems were two fold: He was too good looking for his own ego, and he was too smart for his lack of work ethic.  He worked hard when he worked, as long as he felt like the work was worthy of his time.  Consequently Mr. Hollywood has a gorgeous resume, and has been unemployed for a while.  However, seeing has he had been ‘saddled’ with his friend’s kids, clearly today was just a warm-up day.  So he bribed the kids onto the bus with the promise of ice cream and off to the city they went.

Funny thing about buses:  No matter where you are, or where you are going, buses are always full of characters.  Clive and Janette wondered at all the unique creatures that surrounded them, as if they were at the zoo, but very close to the exhibits so they needed to be very quite and very good.  Matt, on the other hand, saw people. Lots of people thinking they were coming from some place or that they were at least going someplace.  Mostly, Matt just saw people.

Matt did the door-to-door thing, favoring the some-what glamorous places such as bars and the finer restaurants.  Meanwhile Clive and Janette waited outside, unsupervised, eating ice cream, then hard candy, then a hot dog for ‘actual food.’  By late afternoon Matt was chilling in the park checking e-mails and LinkedIn on his phone while the kids played on the swing set in the small and only park in town.  Clive and Janette started playing a make-pretend game in which Clive was a knight in shinning armor, Janette a talking lioness and Matt was a shape shifting dragon. Matt really wasn’t the bad guy, if for no other reason because he really wasn’t playing along, but he went along with the storyline to keep the kiddos amused. In spite of himself, Matt had taken to Clive and Janette and their childish version of the world.

By the time Matt figured it was time to get home for a beer it was after 8pm.  Clive and Janette were half asleep on the bus and their tired mother was texting Matt words she didn’t want her kids to hear. When they finally walked in the door, Clive and Janette didn’t see the furry on their mother’s face, but the talking Lioness that Janette had imitated earlier that day.  All smiles, Clive and Janette talked over each other to update their mother candy bar by candy bar about their day.  Meanwhile, Matt helped himself to a beer, the one that our tired mother has still not gotten to drink. Not convinced that the kids weren’t done needing supervision, the mother let this slide.

Later that evening, once the kids were asleep, our mother joined Matt on the couch to watch the second half of some black and white movie.  She used to do this all the time.  She used to watch old movies late at night and go out to see new ones opening weekend and drink smoothies for breakfast and take shots of tequila on Fridays.  Now she watched the second half of whatever was already on. Still, she did enjoy the dialogue in those old movies.  And they had great character names, such as Clive and Janette.

Seeing as there wasn’t any point to staying mad at Matt, she went back to pleasantly tolerating his monologue about the job hunt. He has such potential.  He is smart, personable, experienced and just generally well received. And they did have good times--And a lot of fights.  A lot of fights. She definitely hadn’t forgotten that.  Although, Matt seemed to have forgotten about that part of history.  Mathew D. McMahn:  That was the header to his resume. It looked good, too. She hoped he’d find something soon.

The next morning was a repeat of the last, as was the morning after that. Not exact replicas, but close enough.  The day after that Matt got a call to come in.  So the shapeshifting dragon bribed the kids onto the bus and off to the city they went. The thing about dragons is they care most about gold, but don’t’care much about anything else.  Still, Clive and Janette had grown on Matt.  Feeling confident about his manhood with the promise of work starting next Thursday, Matt was partially jovial today, and his scales were slick and shinny for the interview.

Matt D. Mcahn got the job.  Of course he got the job.  He is quite the talker.  So the dragon took Clive and Janette out for ice cream Sundays and a movie.  The movie didn’t actually end up happening once Matt was looking at the kid friendly listings and decided he just couldn’t do it.  But another bribe later Clive and Janette seemed less than disappointed.  You see they were soaring with the dragon now, through the city streets, explore this and embracing that. The gold furry aside, dragons are beautiful creatures.  And all things that fly fascinate us land creatures.  Clive was fascinated enough that he was getting confused.  He was beginning to think that we should play a shape-shifting dragon instead of the knight in shinning armor.   Bribes seemed like a much easier way to get through life alive.

When Matt decided it was beer time, he and the kiddos headed back to the crash pad.  Exhausted by the day, Clive and Janette curled up in front of a movie and passed out within minutes of walking in the door.  The post-sugar-high clearly aided their unconsciousness.  Meanwhile Matt had decided it was a Heineken day and was five deep with our tired mother finally walked in the door.

Another monologue later, trouble was brewing.  Our tired mother was over Matt’s company and his daily regal yet again did not include his soliciting his own accommodations.  Tired by tactful, our tired mother attempted to strongly suggest he do so soon, as move-in dates are not always immediate.  Matt’s complete disregard for this resulting in an elevated volume in both of their vocal projections. Clive and Janette were now awake in the corner, concerned for their fierce Lioness against the seemingly larger Dragon.

It wasn’t often Clive and Janette heard their mother addressed by first name, but Matt seemed to be unaware of his lack of priority in repeatedly using it: Leona. Our tired mother had a name, a drive, and a fire.  Her fire was now better known as Clive and Janette.  Funny thing about names—they are within themselves meaningless and yet titles come to identify the whole, whatever “the whole” may be.

See, in Clive and Janette’s eye, within their childish perspective is a clarity lost through time, data, and disappointment.  Our tired mother battled more than we can know, a fierce protector of her cubs.  The greedy and lazy dragon plays at striking awe within the young and the weak.  But the young grow up and as long as we have Lionesses and a Child’s Clarity within this world, it will always manage to be a beautiful one.  All fantastical, complex and sometimes overrated creatures considered—May the Lionesses rule.

Dedicated to Our Tired Mother, also known as Valerie.

Edited at of 5/19/14... But reserve the right to tinker with it :)