by George Gipe
“The circus?” Marty murmured. “I’m not with the circus. What do you mean?”
“Your clothes seem so unusual,” Stella remarked. “We thought perhaps you might be with a sideshow.”
Marty smiled and shrugged. The green shoes and shirt with U.S. Patent Office facsimile probably did seem unusual to people of 1955. Rather than explain that these clothes were normal wearing apparel of the ’80s, he said: “I guess I just like strange clothes, ma’am. Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize. We were just a little curious, that’s all.”
They entered the living room, where four children and Sam Baines, Marty’s future grandfather, were relaxing. Sam, a gruff man of forty-five, stood next to the black-and-white television set, adjusting the rabbit ears. He didn’t look their way until the picture locked in.
“Sam, here’s the young man you hit with the car,” Stella said matter-of-factly. “Thank God he’s all right.”
“What were you doing in the middle of the street, a kid your age?” Sam asked coldly.
“He’d fallen—” Marty began. Then he decided not to say that his father had fallen out of a tree. That could lead to embarrassing revelations or at the very least, suspicion. “He’d fallen…in the road,” Marty continued. “There was this other kid. I rushed over to shove him out of the way. Didn’t you see him, sir?”
“Pa never sees anything when he’s driving,” Lorraine said.
“What are you talking about?” her father snapped. “I’m a damn good driver. But there’s nothing a good driver can do when kids jump out in front of him.”
“Especially when you’re going around the corner on two wheels,” Lorraine added.
“By the way,” Marty interjected. “What happened to that other boy?”
“He just got up and left,” Sam said.
“I guess he didn’t want to get involved,” Marty murmured, thinking how much like George McFly that was. “Anyways,” Sam said, turning once again to the rabbit ears, “pedestrians got no right to be fooling around in the middle of the street. Any judge’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Stella said. “He’s just in one of his moods.” She started to lead Marty toward the dining room, calling back to Sam over her shoulder. “Quit fiddling with that thing. It’s time for dinner.”
Sam, studiously ignoring her, continued adjusting the rabbit ears until the picture was completely unwatchable.
The dining room was already half-filled with people. Seated at the table, ready to pitch in, were Milton, twelve, who was wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin cap; Sally, six; Toby, four; and in the playpen on the floor, eleven-month-old Joey.
Stella made the introductions. Marty was utterly fascinated, seeing his aunt and uncles looking so different. Joey, about to take the first steps in a long unlucky life, was rattling the bars of his playpen and salivating wildly. Marty looked at him, shook his head. So you’re my Uncle Joey, he thought; get used to those bars, kid.
“He seems to enjoy being there,” he said to Stella. “It’s like he belongs.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, unaware that Marty was being mildly sarcastic. “Little Joey loves being in his pen. He actually cries when we take him out. So we leave him there most of the time. It seems to make him happy and certainly quiets him down.”
He’s become institutionalized already, Marty thought, laughing inwardly.
“I hope you like meat loaf, Marty,” Stella said. Some things never change, Marty thought.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Sit here, Marty,” Lorraine offered, pulling out the chair next to hers.
“Thanks.”
Marty sat, noting that the plate in front of him was already filled with meat loaf, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and macaroni and cheese. In fact, the dinner was an exact replica of the one he had eaten the night before in 1985.
Everybody pitched in, except Lorraine, who toyed with her food. Marty wondered when she had made the switch from finicky taster to eating machine.
As the family proceeded, Stella kept yelling instructions and criticism to everyone except Marty. “Milton, don’t eat so fast! Lorraine, you’re not eating enough. Have some mashed potatoes…Sally, don’t hold your fork like that. You look like somebody who just got off the pickle boat…Don’t push everything on the table, Toby…My Goodness…Sam, would you quit fiddling with that television set? Come in here and eat…”
Her husband had no intention of giving up television watching during dinner, however. Striding away from the living room set, he soon reappeared with a brand-new set on a plywood dolly.
“Look at is,” he announced proudly. “I made the dolly myself so we can roll it in the dining room and watch Jackie Gleason while we eat.”
“Oh, boy!” Milton exclaimed.
Mrs. Baines sighed wearily. About the only time she commanded attention was during dinner hour. Now Sam had found a way to take that away from her. But she was wise enough to know she couldn’t fight it.
Sam fiddled with the rabbit ears of the new set, finally managing to bring in a rather muddy image of a cigarette commercial.
Marty watched, fascinated, as a surgeon stepped out of an operating room, lit up a cigarette, and began speaking to the audience. “After facing the tension of doing three lung operations in a row, I like to relax by lighting up a Sir Walter Randolph. I know its fine tobacco taste will soothe my nerves and improve my circulation…”
‘That’s incredible!” Marty said, in spite of himself. He had never seen a television commercial advertising cigarettes and couldn’t quite comprehend the brazenness of it.
Sam Baines thought the young man was commenting on his excellent job of fine tuning. He beamed as he said: “Yep. Look at that picture…It’s crystal clear. You’re right, boy, it’s incredible all right.”
“I meant the cigarette commercial,” Marty replied.
“What’s so incredible about that?” Lorraine asked.
“The way the doctor is advertising it. Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. How can he do lung operations and then puff a cigarette? It’s crazy!”
“Well,” Sam muttered. “They ain’t proved anything yet. Don’t see why a doctor can’t advertise cigarettes if he wants to.”
“Because it’s immoral.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Sam’s self-satisfied tone irritated Marty. “Well,” he said, “it’ll be outlawed someday. That’s how silly it is.”
The rest of the family, except those too young to comprehend, stared at Marty incredulously. To say that one day American television would be without cigarette commercials was like saying one day Christmas would be devoid of Santa Claus. Only Lorraine looked as if Marty’s statement had any possible merit.
“Well,” she said cautiously, “it may not happen, but I think it’s a good idea. Too many young people see those ads on TV and think it’s the smart thing to do.”
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 spl
it 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.
● Chapter Seven ●
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.”