Back to the Future (13 page)

Sam couldn’t really argue with that so he decided to turn the topic in another direction. “Why would anybody want to go to the movies when you can see this in your own home—free?” he rhapsodized.

“Do you have a television set?” Lorraine asked, looking at Marty warmly.

“Yes,” he replied. “Two.”

“Wow! You must be rich!” Milton gushed.

“They’re in color, too,” Marty added, before realizing that was not too smart a thing to say to a 1955 family.

Milton’s eyes widened. “Bull,” Sam Baines scoffed.

Stella smiled condescendingly. “He’s teasing you, Milton,” she said. “Nobody has two television sets…in color, yet.”

She looked to Marty for confirmation.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he nodded. “I was just pulling your leg, Miltie.”

The commercial break was over and
The Honeymooners
began. Marty recognized the segment immediately as the classic “Man from Space” episode. Almost without realizing he was doing it, he began saying the show’s lines a split second before the actors said them. Everyone at the table regarded him with varying degrees of amazement. Lorraine laughed every time he did it; her father scowled.

“How come you know the lines?” Milton asked.

“Because I’ve seen this one before,” he replied.

“What do you mean, you’ve seen it?” Milton asked. “It’s brand new.”

“I saw it on a rerun.”

“What’s a rerun?”

“You’ll find out.”

“O.K., smarty,” Milton persisted. “Tell me what happens next.”

“Sure,” Marty said. “This is a good one. Ralph dresses up as a ‘man from space.’”

“Quiet!” Sam ordered. “I want to see this!”

The family was silent for perhaps a minute. Then Stella looked at Marty closely. “You know, there’s something very familiar about you,” she said. “Do I know your mother?” Marty couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, I think maybe you do, he replied, glancing sideways at Lorraine and smiling weakly.

“I’d like to give her a call,” Stella said. “You know, to let her know that you’re all right.”

“Well, you can’t,” Marty blurted.

“Why not?”

“Uh…She’s not home yet. Nobody’s home.”

“She works?”

“Not exactly,” Marty hedged. “Uh, both my folks are sort of away.”

“I don’t understand— “

“It’s all right, Mrs. Baines,” Marty assured her. “My Mom’s used to my staying out late. She won’t even miss me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, ma’am. I could be away for the next thirteen years and she wouldn’t notice.”

The remark obviously tickled Milton, for he giggled hard enough to lose some of his food.

“Isn’t anybody watching this show?” Sam muttered irritably.

Another minute of silence followed. Then, as a new series of commercials started, Marty remembered that he wanted to look up Doc Brown. “Uh, could anybody tell me where Riverside Drive is?” he asked.

“Riverside?” Sam replied. “Sure. It’s on the east side of town, a block past Maple.”

“A block past Maple?” Marty repeated, puzzled. “But that’s JFK Drive…”

“J.F. what?”

“John F. Kennedy Drive.”

“Who the hell is John F. Kennedy?” Sam demanded.

“Uh, never mind.”

“Just keep heading east until you come to Maple,” Sam said. “Then the block after is Riverside.”

“Thank you.”

“Mother,” Lorraine said. “With Marty’s parents away, don’t you think he should spend the night here? I’d hate for anything to happen to him with that bruise on his head. He could faint or something…”

She directed a slightly flirtatious smile at Marty, who smiled back weakly.

“Marty, maybe Lorraine is right. Maybe you’d better spend the night. After all, Dad ran into you. That means you’re our responsibility…”

“Not legally,” Sam interjected hotly.

“Maybe not, but morally he is,” Stella retorted. She looked at Marty for a response.

“I don’t know…” he temporized.

“You can sleep in my room,” Lorraine suggested. 

“Lorry’s got a crush,” Milton taunted. “Lorry’s got a crush…”

Lorraine straightened up in her chair and glared imperiously at her little brother. “I’m just trying to be hospitable,” she said.

No one really believed it, least of all Marty. He glanced at his watch, pushed his plate away. “Uh…if you’ll excuse me, I really have to be going,” he said.

“But there’s pie—” Stella protested.

“I’m really sorry,” Marty said. “I’ve got an appointment with this man…”

He got to his feet, nodded at Sam and the rest of the kids, all of whom continued eating. “Thank you for everything. I’ll see you air later. Much later.” A moment later, he was gone.

Lorraine sighed. “I wonder what we said to make him act that way,” she said.

“He’s a very strange young man,” Stella murmured. “He’s pleasant enough most of the time, but other times he just seems to drift off into another world.”

“He’s an idiot,” Sam Baines amended. “It comes from his upbringing. His parents are probably idiots, too, and maybe even his grandparents. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole family’s nuts.” He looked darkly at Lorraine. “If you ever have a kid who acts that way, I’ll disown you. That goes for all of you.”

Having restored his suzerainty in the household, he loaded his fork with a huge mouthful of instant potatoes and returned his attention to Jackie Gleason.

Doc Brown adjusted the instrument on his head, shuffled the deck of cards, and once again picked one. Placing it face down on the table, he twisted the series of dials which activated the contraption on his head. A crackling noise filled the room and a quick vision of a jack of spades passed before Brown’s eyes.

“Excellent!” he cried.

He turned the card over. It was a three of diamonds. “Damn,” he muttered.

He tried once again, and once again failed to identify the correct card.

Leaving the latest of his inventions on his head, he got up and paced. Where had he gone wrong? Was it the machine or himself? A slight twinge of pain in his head reminded him that the fault could be in his own mind. That morning, while hanging a clock in the bathroom, he had fallen from the toilet and sustained a violent knock to the skull. The brain being a complicated mass of electrical impulses and energy, it was indeed possible that the blow had caused a short circuit powerful enough to make his tests invalid. But the day hadn’t been a total loss. The fall generated something going in his mind which prompted him to write for several hours. When he was finished and reread the notes, he was sure a breakthrough had been scored in the realm of time travel. Excitement over that new project might also have interfered with his experiments in mind extension.

As he paced, he caught a picture of himself in the mirror. He was forced to smile. How outrageous he looked with this conglomeration of vacuum tubes, rheostats, gauges, wirings, and antennae on his head. It was, he was inclined to admit, the perfect stereotypical image of the mad scientist. But no matter. If the device proved practical in the area of mind reading, it wouldn’t matter what it looked like.

While he studied himself, wondering whether or not to continue work for the day, Copernicus started barking. The dog, third in a line of pets named after famous scientists, raced from the kitchen into the living room, arriving there just as the rap sounded.

Without removing his headgear—it was so much trouble to hook it up—Doc Brown strode to the door and opened it. A young man of perhaps seventeen was there. His appearance caused Brown to almost clap his hands in sheer delight, for he was clad in a shirt that was illustrated with a blowup of a patent office entry. How this appealed to the heart of a frustrated and neglected and much maligned inventor can be easily imagined.

In this happy frame of mind, Doc Brown decided to continue his experiment. He turned the switch on, waited for it to warm up, pointed his finger at the young man, and said: “Don’t say a word.”

The young man obeyed, his mouth closing before he could get his first words out.

“I’m going to tell you your name,” Doc Brown said. “Think of your name.”

Marty did so. He was happy to note that Doc Brown seemed to be the same old guy, much younger looking to be sure, but with the same mannerisms and expressions. It was nice to see him again, even though they had been apart only a day.

“Peter Danforth,” Doc Brown said.

“No.”

“Evan Wentworth…Junior!”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Melvin Petrucci.”

Marty shook his head. “But my first name does begin with an M,” he added encouragingly.

“That’s not good enough,” Doc Brown murmured.

“Maybe it’s not so good with proper names.” Flipping another switch on his “Brainwave Analyzer,” he closed his eyes and cogitated once again.

“Let’s see now,” he said finally. “You’ve come from a great distance…”

“Yes!”

“…because you…want me to buy a subscription to the
Saturday Evening Post.”

“No…”

“Colliers…”

“No. It’s—”

“Don’t tell me!” He threw back his head and thought for another moment. “Peanut brittle!” he fairly screamed. ‘That’s it! You’re selling peanut brittle for the Boy Scouts! How silly of me not to have said that right away!”

“No.”

Doc Brown was crestfallen. Marty wished he could have given him better news, but lying wouldn’t have been any benefit to his friend.

“Are you here because you want to use the bathroom?” Brown asked, considerably subdued.

“No, Doc Brown,” Marty answered. “But I am here for a reason that’s very important to both of us.”

“What
are
you selling?” Doc asked. “That’s how all sales pitches begin.”

“I’m not selling anything. Listen: I’m from the future. I came here in a time machine you invented—and now I need you to help me get back.”

“Back to where?”

“Nineteen eighty-five.”

“Incredible,” Doc Brown breathed. “My God, do you know what this means?”

He paused dramatically, then began to remove the complicated contraption from his head.

“What does it mean?”

“It means this damned thing doesn’t work at all!” he yelled, throwing the machine to the floor. It broke into several pieces, glass and plastic flying everywhere. “Six months labor for nothing! Where did I go wrong?”

“Please, Doc,” Marty urged. “Forget the mind-reading machine. You’re never gonna make it work.”

“Who says so?”

“I do. Listen: Your big breakthrough will come with the time travel machine. Instead of fooling around with that other stuff, you should figure out how the time machine works…Because…I need your help. You left me stuck here in 1955.”

Doc Brown knit his brow and rubbed a bandage on his head.

“What are you talking about, time machine?” he demanded. “I haven’t invented any time machine.”

“No, but you will,” Marty said. “And I’ll be the first one to use it, except for your dog Einstein.”

“My dog’s name is Copernicus.”

Marty nodded. “That figures. You name your pets after great scientists. So isn’t it logical that some future dog will be named Einstein?’

“Makes some sort of sense,” Brown admitted. “But how do I know you’re from the future? There’s a lot of folks around here who think I’m a crank and a pest. Maybe they sent you as some kind of twisted joke.”

“I’m not a joke,” Marty replied. “And I can prove it to you.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet.

“Look,” he said. “Here’s my driver’s license. Examine the dates on it.”

He handed the card to Doc Brown.

“See that expiration date?” Marty said. “Nineteen eighty-seven. See my date of birth? Nineteen sixty-eight.”

“You mean you haven’t even been born yet?” Doc Brown asked. He turned the license over and over. “It sure looks authentic, all right,” he muttered.

“It
is
authentic.”

Searching deeper into his wallet, Marty withdrew a library card with a 1986 expiration date, a new piece of money, and a family picture. One by one he held them up for Doc Brown’s examination.

“Look at this twenty-dollar bill,” he said. “Series 1981…And here’s a picture of me, my sister, and my brother…”

“So?”

“So look at the girl’s sweatshirt. Class of ’84, it says, right?”

Doc Brown nodded, then shrugged. “Pretty mediocre photographic fakery,” he said. “It looks like they cut off your brother’s head.”

Growing increasingly irritated, Marty thrust the picture back in his wallet without bothering to look at it. If Doc Brown didn’t believe his story, who would? It was both ironic and annoying that the man behind his dilemma would not believe his own success.

“Please, Doc,” Marty said passionately. “You’ve gotta believe me! I’m telling the truth.”

Doc regarded him through narrowed eyes. “All right, future boy,” he smiled. “Let me give you a little test. Who’s going to win the 1956 World Series?”

Unfortunately, Marty had no encyclopedic knowledge of sports events, although he was as interested as most young men his age. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “That was almost thirty years ago.”

“No, it’s one year in the future,” Doc Brown said quickly before realizing they were approaching the date from different perspectives. “All right,” he continued. “I’m a Brooklyn fan. How many pennants and World Series do they win during the 1960s and ’70s?”

“I don’t think they win any,” Marty replied. “Brooklyn’s not even in the league.”

Doc Brown laughed derisively. “No Bums?” he said, shaking his head. “No Brooklyn? I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s crazy. Who wins the pennants then?”

“The Miracle Mets won an exciting World Series in 1969,” Marty said. “But I’m a San Diego Padre fan. I like the Chargers, too.”

“Mets?” Doc repeated. “Who are the Miracle Mets? And San Diego? Are you kidding me?”

“No. Teams get changed around a lot.”

“Yeah, but not that much,” Doc muttered. “I haven’t recognized a team you mentioned. Who are the big teams in football?”