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When PJ was twelve, he tried to swap dads with Max.
It was stupid, and kinda childish, but he was jealous of how proud and openly supportive Goofy was of Max. He hated spending time at Max’s house, then going home again to his horrible father and his insults. So he wanted to swap.
Max stared at him when he said he wished he had Goofy for a dad. For a very long time. So long, in fact, that he didn’t actually respond before they were interrupted.
His ‘chance’ came on a camping trip a few days later, when Pete and Goofy irritated a river troll by fishing in its lake. The troll tried to drag them both into the river, but Max got Goofy out of the way, only to get snatched himself. So, for the two days it took for Max to escape the troll’s lair (with Pete in tow) and Goofy and PJ to find them, they essentially swapped fathers.
Max, it turned out, had done well. He was better at manipulation than Pete, so all Pete’s tricks got turned around on him, and he was even impressed when Max tricked the river trolls and allowed them to escape. And when people hurt Max, he bit back, so all Pete’s insults that usually cut PJ to the core and kept him in line just made Max more stubborn and angry, which made him smarter and more manipulative.
Not that either of them really talked about it, but PJ got the impression later that, at some point, Max had been perched on Pete’s chest, gripping his collar and snarling into the old man’s face about what they were going to do, how they were going to do it, and why Pete should just shut up and go along with it.
Pete was stunned to silence by the time they were ‘rescued’.
PJ, on the other hand, learned his lesson. After the third time Goofy nearly killed himself by walking, PJ was flinching at every outreaching stick and loose rock. When they got stuck on the edge of a waterfall because Goofy had been sure they’d make it, he’d barely staved off a panic attack. It was almost worth it, because of the warmth and kindness, but he got over that when they were running for their lives from a puma that Goofy had kicked off a cliff.
“What was a puma even doing in the middle of the woods?” PJ demanded of Max, who had just shrugged and smiled.
“Maybe it was on vacation too!”
But, when he’d calmed down, and thought about it years later, he realised he’d maybe learned a lot about Max, that weekend.
He was thirteen by the time he met the extended family.
Technically, he was part of it himself, because Pete was too. But Pete had always done a good job of keeping that life separate from this one. PJ had never made the connection between the cranky man he saw on those old Mickey Mouse movies and the cranky man sitting behind him. When Goofy showed up, he also never made the connection between that weird guy named Goofy and the slapstick superstar from the Goofy movies.
“Home movies,” Max corrected wearily one day, when PJ was sitting in shock at the huge secret he’d never known. “Kinda. Uncle Mickey just sets up a bunch of cameras and then some weird guys in suits edit them together into a movie.”
He even found some old movies with Goofy’s son in them, though Max explained it wasn’t actually him. “Mom didn’t want me in them,” he said, and PJ flinched. It was the first time he’d ever heard Max talk about his mother. He’d almost forgotten Max must have had one. “They got a different kid in, a professional actor. His name’s Benny. He was cool. He was five the last time I saw him, but still cool!”
It was weird to meet them. Weirder still to discover they were exactly like they came across in the movies. Mickey was nice enough for the most part, but he could also be a royal jerk, particularly to Minnie. She was sweet, but also stubborn. Daisy was… amazing. Cool, calm, confident, and full of what could only be described as sass. Donald was hilarious, flying off into a rage at the slightest thing, but he seemed like he always wanted to do the right thing.
The triplets, who Max introduced PJ to from the bottom of a duck dogpile, his ears held at a painful angle behind his head and yanked every time the triplets didn’t like what he said, were just that tiny bit evil. Huey, Dewey and Louie. Good guys, Max insisted, but PJ didn’t see it. They were insane and just seemed to like causing trouble, more than anything.
It was even weirder still when PJ dragged Max along to a Goofy movie the next summer and realised he remembered the events. They’d just been very skilfully shot and cut together to remove any sight of Max, PJ, Pistol or Peg. Max took him home and pointed out the cameras one by one.
It took a long time for PJ to be comfortable in Max’s house or even his own backyard, after that.
Max was good at fitting in, which was really pretty impressive when you considered what a klutz he was. He was really good at running into poles, tripping over his shoelaces, and just generally making a fool of himself.
It was also weird, because when he wasn’t being a klutz, he was a superstar. If he was on any kind of wheels, or if you put him on a stage, or he needed to get his way for whatever reason, he was amazing. Until he started trying too hard, at which point the clumsiness became epic. When Max failed, he failed hard.
But still, his manipulation skills were impressive even when he was covered in tar and feathers, and so he managed to inflate himself from noticeable geek to… just another nobody.
And he hated it.
For PJ, who thought of himself as fat, stupid and slow, not least because his father had spent most of his life telling him so, being just another nobody was better than he could have ever dreamed.
Before Max came to town, PJ had been a loner, because no one wanted to play with a kid who wasn’t allowed to touch his own toys and lived in fear of his father. He’d been made fun of for everything. And he hadn’t really understood his schoolwork, but he was too scared to speak up in class and ask questions. He’d been miserable.
But then Max showed up and found ways around Pete. He helped PJ with his schoolwork (or… tried to, anyway. Sometimes he just made it worse), and gave him the confidence to ask questions. Max even inspired him to get on his bike and realise he could do this sport thing. And so things got better.
He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why Max wanted more.
When Max got his license, he and Goofy started leaving town during the holidays, working at a cabaret club called the House of Mouse. Goofy had figured, Max explained, that since Max was so interested in Hollywood, they should go be part of the limelight.
Max didn’t mind, because it was good money for only a few hours work each night, but he still had a minor panic attack every time someone from home found out about it. He absolutely freaked out when Roxanne wanted to have a date there.
When PJ finally talked his dad into letting him go, he began to realise why.
He’d never really spent much time with the extended family. Even the triplets, who Max sometimes hung out with anyway, were people he knew on the sides. So he’d never really known how they… well… saw the world.
How they saw Max.
Or, as they knew him, Goofy’s son Maxikins! Who was just as much of a klutz as his father, but cuter. Who was just delaying the inevitable until he too joined their ranks as a slapstick comedian, though he’d be different, because he always looked so upset when these things happened. So he would be a great moral character for kids to identify with. A character that learned from his mistakes, see?
And while Mickey explained this to PJ, Max stood behind Minnie’s chair and beat himself in the head with a menu.
“I’m not one of them!” Max snapped, when they were back in the hotel that night. “I can do more with my life than have people laugh at what an idiot I am! That’s how they make their billions of moolah, Peej! By having people laugh at their mistakes. At their screw ups! I’m not a screw up! I’m not!”
It was about then that PJ, who had spent his whole life being told he was fat and stupid, stopped finding Max’s life so funny.