Here is the second installment of the Pew-Licker Prize (it’s Mad Magazine’s version of the Pulitzer) winning series of fan fictions in which I take beloved characters from commercials and ruin them.

Commercial Fan Fic #2: GEICO

By Justin Becker

            Mrs. A scanned the crowd of students as they streamed out of the school in a snaking line. Jocks, geeks, gLeeks (tm), wastoids, sluttos, preps, stat cats, emos, fatties, snug bugs, cheerleaders, metal heads, flavor savers. Normal. All normal high school students.  He wasn’t there. Yet.

           Safe for the moment, she leaned over and dug through her glove compartment until she found her flask. She gulped from it, perhaps a little too overeager, the dark rum hitting the back of her throat with the force of a punch from Captain Morgan’s assistant himself. She reared back spluttering and as the tears cleared from her eyes, there he was. Maxwell. He grinned a little piggy grin, his snout quivering, and waived his hoof. “Hey Mrs. A. What’re you drinking?”

            “Nothing, Maxwell. Herbal tea. Pepsi cola. Doesn’t matter. Just get in the van.” She unlocked the doors with a mechanical click that in her dark mood seemed as decisive as a gun being cocked.

            “Where’s Alonso?” Maxwell asked as he climbed in.

            “It’s just the two of us today. His father decided to pick him up early and take him slot-car racing,” said Mrs. A, “father” pronounced thick with disdain.

            “Wow!” squealed Maxwell. “I love slot-car racing!”

            “Everyone loves slot-car racing, Maxwell.” Mrs. A rolled her eyes. You can magically make a pig talk, but at the end of the day he’s still just an enchanted pig.  For humans, it’s a given to love slot-car racing.

            “How was your day?” asked Mrs. A as she eased into traffic, but Maxwell was already gone. He leaned out the window, pinwheels clutched improbably in his cloven hands, screaming at the top of his lungs. Mrs. A sighed and pushed the speedometer up. She would get this over as soon as humanly possible. If she could drop Maxwell off in the next thirty minutes, that would give her a precious few hours of alone time, time which she would definitely need if she was going to see Guthrie tonight. Maybe she could squeeze in a quick ride on the stationary bike, try to pre-empt the tightness she would feel in her chest when she saw Guthrie’s face instantly go from laughing with Alonso to stone as he bid her a terse hello. Maybe she would post on a slot-car racing forum, remind herself that she wasn’t alone in the world. Though she was. So very much alone.

            “What the hell is this?” Mrs. A muttered as she turned the corner. The street was filled with cars packed bumper to bumper in a dead standstill. Mrs. A leaned out her window and craning her neck could vaguely make out balloons in the distance. She remembered instantly- the Cesar Chavez Day parade. Of course. Her irritation was mixed with a tinge of sadness. In her youth, Cesar Chavez Day had been her favorite holiday. It wasn’t so long ago that she herself would have been marching in the parade, throwing grapes to enthusiastic senior citizens. Where had that young, vivacious, girl gone? What had happened to her? What had brought her here, to this van, waiting for a parade to pass her by with a talking pig? Had she too withered to a raisin, like a grape left in a gutter?

            “What’s going on?” asked Maxwell.

            “Nothing. Looks like we’ll be here a while.”

            Mrs. A’s fingers strummed on the steering wheel, her eyes flicked to the glove box, and her minds’ eye saw her stationary bike peddling away from her, not so stationary after all, her precious slot-cars scattering in all directions, un-tethered to their slots, her alone time literally stabbed to death in an alley. “To hell with it,” she thought and unscrewed the cap of her flask.

            As she wiped the rum from her mouth, Mrs. A caught Maxwell’s reflection in the rearview mirror and her heart softened, despite herself. Maxwell was utterly engrossed in his pinwheels, softly whispering “whee” to himself. To know such a simple joy, truly that was the magic of Maxwell’s being, not his ability to talk, or levitate over short distances.  What would Mrs. A do to know such pleasure again? Perhaps she had been wrong about Maxwell. That was so like her, to only to see the bad in others. Guthrie had told her that. “Why don’t you come sit in the front seat with me?” she said and patted the seat.

            “Fun!” Maxwell squealed as he scrabbled over the seat. He promptly buckled his seat belt. Mrs. A chuckled.

            “You don’t need to buckle up, Maxwell. We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.” There was a slight slur to her voice. Mrs. A noted with only passing interest that she was drunk.

            “My mom always makes me buckle up,” Maxwell said. “Even on short distances. Even when we ride butterflies to visit my dad in the pig kingdom.”

            “Do you still see your dad? I thought for some reason that he wasn’t in your life anymore.”

            “No, we see him every weekend. It wasn’t his or mom’s choice to live in different worlds. The Pig Queen trapped him in a block of crystal as punishment for marrying a human woman.”

            “Oh Maxwell, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Mrs. A said. “It can be hard to be away from someone you love. It can be…” her voice choked off in a sob. Tears leapt to her eyes unbidden again, but this time it had nothing to do with the booze.

            “Are you okay, Mrs. A?” Maxwell asked, placing his hoof on her bare knee. She was surprised to feel how warm it was.

            “Yes, I’m fine Maxwell, thank you. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sure I was just thinking of a sad episode of Dead Like Me.”

            Maxwell nodded understandingly. His hoof stayed on her knee.

            “And you don’t need to call me Mr. A anymore. My husband and I aren’t… together anymore.” Tears threatened again, but Mrs. A forced them back, like a tear tamer at the world’s shittiest and most abstract circus.

            “What should I call you?” Maxwell asked. Maxwell was close enough that Mrs. A could feel his warm breath on her face. It smelled like sweet milk.

            Mrs. A thought for a moment. “Call me Mischa,” she said.

            “Mischa,” Maxwell said. “That’s a pretty name.”

            “Thank you, Maxwell. You’re a sweet boy.” She ruffled his tuft of hair, her hand sliding to rest on his shoulders. This she noted with more than passing interest. She was surprised.

            “I’m not just a boy,” Maxwell said, his voice growing hard.

            Mrs. A was taken aback by his forcefulness. There was a flutter in her stomach. “No?” she asked.

            “No,” Maxwell said. “I’m a pig. And a man. I’m a pig man.”

            “Yes, I suppose you are,” said Mrs. A softly. Their faces were close now, her nose and his snout nearly touching. She closed her eyes as Maxwell gently ran his hoof across her cheek. Who knew that a thick keratin nail could feel so soft? Perhaps that was another of Maxwell’s magical gifts. What other gifts does Maxwell have, Mrs. A wondered.

            “What are we doing here?” Maxwell whispered, his face moving ever closer to hers.

            “Besides waiting for the Cesar Chavez Day parade to pass, I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore,” she said as she opened her mouth to receive his porcine kiss.