Written: Friday, February 21, 2003 - Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Word Count: Approximately 19,000 words
Background Notes: This vignette fills in the gap of time from when Marty decides to go back to 1885 and get Doc, and the point of departure at that tacky drive-in theater.
This vignette began for me on a plane ride, which is faintly weird. I flew down to Sacramento, California for a weekend in late February in order to hit a job fair near the Bay area. I stayed with a friend and her family in Sacramento -- which is cheaper to get to from Portland, Oregon, for some odd reason -- and this friend also happens to be a rabid BTTF fan like me. (Nicole and I hit L.A. last December together, for the DVD festivities with other fans; we were the two oddities, the BTTF fans who were girls.) So there was a lot of fuel for the inspiration fire that February weekend, especially since we, along with another friend of Nicole's, drove to Sonora and Jamestown the Sunday I was down there to scope out the locals of BTTF3's filming. The entire first segment of the vignette was knocked out by the time I landed in Portland on Monday night.
Why it took another month to complete, though, is due mostly to the insanity that is my life at the moment. I'm doing full time student teaching now at the time of this posting -- basically teaching all high school classes all day, but without the paycheck -- while trying to complete my second book for fall publication AND conduct a complicated job search that happens to be out of state. (Oregon is in a bad state now for teaching jobs, thus I am turning a very serious eye to Northern California. I want a change of scenery, anyway, and think of the research that could come from being in the same general area as fictional Hill Valley. ;-))
There are some parts of this vignette that I wholeheartedly admit I stole -- purposely. I like to challenge myself as a writer sometimes, trying different techniques and such to keep things interesting. So I went to an early draft of Back to the Future Part III -- admittedly my favorite of the screenplays, since I love the third film the best of all -- and lifted a subplot in 1955 that never made the final film. Specifically, that of Doc's girlfriend, Jill, and the scientist's conflict of interest with his job and her. The dialogue from those scenes is from the screenplay, though if I did a good job, you hopefully won't be able to tell where Gale's words ended and mine began. I wanted to explore this subject in more depth during the last couple days Marty is in 1955. And I think it's quite possible all of this could've happened in about 36 hours.
This vignette marks the conclusion of my so-called "1955 trilogy." It seems to be the final thematic tie to the other two I've written that take place earlier in the week, "First Impressions" and "The Space Zombie From Planet Vulcan." This also marks my longest vignette so far, at more than the same word count as "The Ripple Effect" story. (My shortest fanfic currently.)
One more note: The title of this tale was about the only one I came up with, and should not be confused with a story with the same title on fanfiction.net. They are absolutely NOTHING alike... well, aside from involving conversations about the opposite sex, I guess.
Monday, November 14, 1955
11:10 P.M.
Emmett Brown simply stared at Marty McFly for a moment after he made his shocking announcement. “You? Go to 1885? I can’t let you do that....”
“Why the hell not?” Marty asked. “I can just swing by there and pick you up, then we can both go home to 1985. It’s not like I’m gonna permanently stick around there, Doc.”
“But what if I won’t go with you?” Emmett asked. “I gave you very clear instructions to return home and to not come back for me. I don’t know if I would be very swayed by your arrival.”
Marty shrugged and looked down at the mass of research now spread out on the tables around them. “I think if I show you the photograph of the tombstone it might change your mind,” he said softly, his voice echoing faintly in the overly large space. “And there’s no way I can go home and just live my life knowing that I let you die back there, far from home, at the hands of this asshole.” He tapped a finger hard on Buford Tannen’s portrait. “Anyway,” he added, “you’d do the same for me.”
Emmett still wasn’t a hundred percent comfortable or pleased with the decision of his young friend, though the idea of dying in the old west gave him a good case of the willies. “That’s very kind of you, Marty,” he admitted. “But you shouldn’t feel such an obligation. If you wanted to return straight home, I -- I would understand.”
Marty shook his head once, his jaw set in a straight and stubborn line. “No,” he said, quite firmly. “I never really wanted to go straight home and leave you behind, Doc. This just gives me a great excuse to show up there.”
Emmett mulled the words over a moment, then nodded. “All right, if you’re sure. But if you’re not--”
“I am,” Marty said, looking him dead in the eyes, his tone indicating that the subject was now closed. “So how long do you think this is gonna take? Getting the DeLorean back into shape?”
Emmett thought about the car, which they had towed back to his mansion before heading for the library. The tires wouldn’t be much of a problem to replace, probably, but rebuilding the time circuits could be considerably more time consuming. However, with the detailed instructions his future self had created and left in the car, the time to recreate the time circuit control “microchip” would be reduced considerably.
“No more than a couple days, I don’t think,” he told Marty. “I believe I have most of the supplies on hand already; those I don’t I should be able to get at the store early tomorrow morning.”
Marty frowned, rubbing his forehead. “What day is today, anyway? This time travel stuff’s really thrown me off.”
It took Emmett a moment to figure that out himself. He checked his watch before he answered, not sure if it was after midnight yet. It was getting close. “Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” he said. “I suspect you’ll be off no later than Thursday, though I think I’ll aim for Wednesday.”
“Wednesday,” Marty repeated -- and frowned some more. “You really think that’s enough time, Doc? You’re not gonna do a rush job, are you?”
Emmett smiled faintly at the concern. “I won’t do anything that will hinder the process of time travel and create a worse situation than you have already,” he promised. “Don’t worry about that. And I’ll have your help, too.”
“Definitely,” Marty agreed. He looked down at the research spread around them. “Is there anything else we need to find out, now? I mean, we know that grave’s yours, right?”
“Yep,” Emmett said, though not without that cold feeling in the gut. “We can put everything away now -- but I want to keep this.” He picked up the photograph of his future self posing with the clock.
“Why?” Marty asked.
“This shouldn’t remain in the archives for anyone to find. That could cause tremendous problems. In fact, it shouldn’t even remain here in 1955 -- you should take it with you when you return home.” Emmett paused, considering, as he looked at the caption under the picture: The New Clock, September 5, 1885. “Of course, if you come for me before this date, I’ll never pose with the clock in the first place and this photograph will no doubt reflect the change -- just as the picture of you with your siblings reflected changes to future history.”
“Heavy,” Marty said, glancing over at the old photo.
It didn’t take the two of them very long to gather up the books and files that they had pulled and replace them back in the city archives. Once things were cleaned up, Emmett and Marty left the city hall and headed for the Packard -- the only vehicle in the parking lot at this very late hour. The security guard that Emmett was friends with, Charlie, had apparently taken off on his “lunch” break.
Neither of them spoke very much on the drive back. Emmett was beginning to feel the accumulation of the long, physically demanding day and was already busy mentally sketching out the things he needed to take care of tomorrow. Marty sat slumped in the passenger seat, watching the dark streets of Hill Valley pass by, a distant look on his face. A couple blocks from the Brown mansion, he broke the silence.
“Have you taped the letter back together yet, Doc?”
Emmett jumped a little at the sound of the voice, and the question. “Letter?” he asked, thinking of the correspondence that his future self had sent from 1885. “Why would I need to tape the letter back together?”
Marty shifted his eyes away from the window to look at the scientist. “Because you ripped it up,” he said. “Remember? At the clocktower?”
Emmett had no idea what he was talking about for a moment. Then he remembered. He turned his head to look at the kid as he slowed the car to a stop at an intersection. “Oh,” he said. “No -- I daresay I haven’t had enough time yet. And you know I don’t want to know too much about my future....”
Marty snorted softly. “Give it up,” he advised. “You can’t know much more than you do, now. And you do tape it together and read it, Doc. Or I wouldn’t be here right now, and you wouldn’t be in 1885.”
Emmett felt a brief flare of annoyance at the words; he didn’t much care for the idea that his life and decisions were so predictable and well-known to Marty. But one couldn’t really argue with a time traveler from the future. “Well, be that as it may, I haven’t had the chance to read it yet,” he said evenly. “There are some other more important issues to tend to before I do.”
Marty nodded once, yawning, as they finally pulled into the driveway of the Brown mansion. “Yeah. It’s weird how people keep trying to shoot you, though. I mean, I guess this time and last time there were reasons, but....” He changed the subject before the words could completely sink in to Emmett. “Is there anything else we can do tonight?”
Emmett frowned as he parked the Packard before the garage doors, next to the tow truck he had rented for the purpose of bringing the DeLorean out of the mine. That was yet another thing he would have to do tomorrow -- return the truck. “Yes,” he said. “Collect together the parts I already have on hand for the time circuit replacement. I’m not entirely sure what I’ll need to purchase tomorrow.”
Marty nodded, but he didn’t look entirely overjoyed by the prospect. Maybe it was a trick of the light, though; he said nothing in the form of a complaint, merely collecting the photographic evidence of Emmett’s presence in the past and bringing it into the garage lab as they went in through the side door.
It soon became clear that the teenager could be of little help with the task; Emmett was the one who knew where things were located in the lab, and what the devices and circuits mentioned by his future self were. The inventor started him out clearing the table of the improvised model from the precious week. When he had finished the chore, Marty prowled around the lab for about half an hour, carrying boxes to the table, which the scientist had designated as the main base for the repair work -- and fidgeting with some of the various devices scattered around the lab -- before finally asking Emmett if he could “go crash” somewhere. The inventor gave his permission without looking up, too sidetracked with the project at hand.
About a half hour after that, Emmett decided to call it a night himself. He left the lab and went into the house, but before he headed upstairs he veered off to his study, where he recalled last seeing the coat he wore on Saturday night. It was draped over one of the armchairs near the fireplace. Emmett reached into one of the pockets, scooping up the handful of torn papers that he had slipped in there during the chaotic moments on Saturday night, as the storm drew closer and the cable had separated from the clocktower.
“Might as well see what all the fuss is about,” he murmured aloud. “Unless I want to drastically alter the course of future history.”
Although exhausted, Emmett brought the papers into the dining room, setting them down on the table for a moment while he fetched some scotch tape. Assembling them to their original state didn’t take too long -- perhaps fifteen minutes -- and when he had finished, he sat back with a half sigh, reading the message Marty had struggled to communicate to him all during the previous week.
On the night that I go back in time at 1:30 A.M., you will be shot by terrorists. Please take whatever precautions are necessary to prevent this terrible disaster.
Your Friend,
The videotape from the future suddenly flashed back in his mind, with his cryptic statement, “Oh my God, they found me. I don’t know how, but they found me.” Emmett shook his head once and stood, the words of Marty from earlier that evening returning to him again: “It’s weird how people keep trying to shoot you...” He wasn’t entirely surprised by the contents of the letter -- not really; on some level he had known since he had first seen the abrupt end to the video transmission.
Emmett headed upstairs, intending to put an end to the overly long day, but he paused once more in his journey at the closed door of the room where Marty was staying. He tapped once on the wood, very softly, then eased it open several inches. The room was dark, but a shaft of light from the hallway lamp at Emmett’s back slipped into the space, allowing him to see Marty sprawled across most of the bed, still fully clothed, on top of the covers. That seemed to be a bad habit of his. Marty didn’t react to the faint sound of the door opening, nor the soft light that fell into the room and on part of his face; it was clear he was already sound asleep, as worn out from the long day as the inventor.
Emmett stood there a moment, thinking, then decided to leave him alone. There was really no reason to wake him. “Thanks for the warning, kid,” he whispered softly, then pulled closed the door and continued on to his room. Tomorrow was going to be another long day.
Dear Dr. Brown,
Marty
Tuesday, November 15, 1955
9:55 A.M.
The old west looked just like all those movies he’d seen -- the ones with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in them. Marty smiled as he stepped into the street, a six shooter on his hip, and a cowboy hat on his head. He knew this wasn’t a pleasure trip, though -- that there was something he was looking for, something he needed to find....
“Marty.”
The teen turned around and saw Doc standing behind him on the raised porch, right before the swinging doors of a genuine old west saloon. For some reason he wasn’t dressed quite right for the period, wearing one of his typical Hawaiian shirts and cargo pant ensembles instead. Marty thought it was weird for only a few seconds, then realized that it made some sort of sense; Doc never dressed real conventionally to whatever time he was in. He seemed most comfortable in brilliant colors and clothes that had more of a dual functionality to them.
“Hey,” he said to the inventor, pleased by his appearance. He realized that Doc was whom he had been trying to find. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’m not surprised,” Doc said, folding his arms across his chest. “You don’t belong here, though.”
“Neither do you,” Marty said. “That’s the point. In fact,” he added, remembering a big reason why he was there at all, “you gotta come back with me, to the future.”
Doc blinked once, quizzically. “Why?”
“Because--”
“No, wait! Don’t tell me! I shouldn’t know anything about my future!”
Marty frowned at the words, which he felt he’d heard way too much the last week or so. “But I came from your past! I need to go back to the future -- and so do you!”
Doc frowned. That was about all he had time to do because then, from out of nowhere, came Biff Tannen. Except Biff was dressed up like a cowboy. It was both comical and frightening to Marty: comical to see Biff wearing a ten gallon cowboy hat and the old west duds; frightening because the guy had two guns in hand, and no good could ever come from an armed Biff. Marty had almost been shot by him, after all, in that frightening alternate 1985 world.
“Say your prayers, Brown!” Biff chortled before, shockingly, firing a couple rounds into Doc’s back. The scientist was thrown forward, right into Marty, who managed to catch him. The teen was stunned, only then remembering why he had come back to 1885 in the first place. He lowered the scientist to the dusty ground as Tannen laughed and strolled away.
“You owe me eighty dollars, butthead,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
“Doc!” Marty said, staring down at his friend. Doc’s eyes were still open, and he appeared to be breathing, but there was a look of pain etched into his features. “Oh, damn, I was too late!”
Doc smiled -- a curious expression, considering the circumstances. “No,” he said softly. And with that, he sat up and unbuttoned his shirt to show Marty the bullet proof vest he was wearing underneath. “You’re not the only one who knows about the future.”
Marty blinked a couple times then smiled himself, albeit more cautiously. “Really? Good. Then let’s get the hell outta here.”
The two time travelers stood to go down the street. Marty was stopped one step into his journey by the most badass cowboy of them all -- the guy looked just like Clint Eastwood, in one of those Fistful of Dollars movies! He was standing in the middle of the street, smoking a cigar. At the sight of Marty, he flicked his stogie away, to the ground.
“You feelin’ lucky, punk?” he drawled, his hand drifting to one of his holstered guns.
Marty smiled. “Go ahead -- make my day,” he said. He looked at Doc. “Better back away,” he added.
Doc frowned. “This isn’t a pleasure trip, Marty. Having a showdown with firearms could seriously alter history!”
“But I’m not letting someone call me a punk! Not even Clint Eastwood. This’ll just take a minute, Doc.”
Doc opened his mouth to probably protest this, but Marty stepped forward to face up to the challenge thrown down to him. “Let’s get this over with.”
Eastwood didn’t crack a smile, simply standing there and staring at Marty. The teen looked around him, noticing all of the sudden that the entire population of the town seemed to be watching them, crowded on the porches and in the doorways and windows of the buildings that lined the street. Above, the sun burned down, providing him an excellent guess at the time. High noon. How fitting.
Eastwood’s hand twitched towards the gun, but Marty’s reflexes were faster. He was younger -- and he was a Crack Shot at Wild Gunman. He whipped his gun out and shot. Eastwood went down before his own weapon could clear the holster. Marty smiled, satisfied, as the body hit the dust. He took a moment to show off, twirling his gun and blowing the smoke off the mouth before putting it back in the holster. Around him, the town people were silent.
“Dude,” one of them said as the teen walked over to Doc. “You just shot the sheriff!”
“But I didn’t shoot the deputy,” Marty deadpanned. He looked to the inventor, who was staring at the prone figure of Clint Eastwood with a completely unreadable expression on his face. “C’mon, Doc, let’s go home.”
Doc opened his mouth to say something -- but before he could, the sound of clock chimes split the air. Marty looked up, searching for the source of them. He glimpsed the clock tower at the end of the street -- and then the whole scene swirled and dissolved around him. There was a moment of gross confusion -- What the hell? -- and then he felt the blankets under his cheek and a numbed, leadened sensation weighing his limbs down. It took his brain a moment to catch up with the rest of him, and realize that he was lying on a bed, not gunslinging it in the old west.
A dream, Marty realized, groggy. And yet the sound of the clock continued on, apparently anchored in the real world.
Marty opened his eyes slowly. He was lying on his side, his face turned in the direction of the door of the guest room that he had been using during his stay in 1955. When he had stumbled into the room the night before, sometime around one in the morning, he had closed the door at his back. Now, it was cracked open about six inches, allowing the sound of a grandfather clock out in the hallway to freely drift into the room. Marty counted the chimes without thinking about it, adding the ones he had consciously noted to his already fading memories of the ones he had heard in the dream. The numbers didn’t seem to add up past ten, though he had no idea if that was a good guess or not.
Marty yawned and let his eyes close again, his mind drifting ahead to the chores of the day. Just thinking about the list made him exhausted, but he had a feeling that Doc was going to get the shorter end of the stick when it came to being busy. Marty wasn’t going to be the one actively assembling the new time circuits together; if he did anything, maybe it would be putting new tires on the car. He’d had to change a tire for practice in driver’s ed the year before, so he knew he could do that.
“Marty? Are you awake?”
Doc’s voice came in clearly through the ajar door, brisk and businesslike. Marty responded without moving or opening his eyes.
“Mmm, sorta,” he mumbled.
“It’s ten o’ clock,” Doc said, providing the information without waiting for the question. “I’ve already gone to the hardware store and collected all the parts I need for the time circuits. I also managed to pick up some new tires for the DeLorean, return the tow truck, drop of the camera film for development, and even locate you clothes to wear in the old west.”
Marty opened his eyes in surprise, looking at Doc for the first time. The scientist was leaning into the room, staring at him. “You did all of that already?” he asked, raising his head up. “And it’s ten A.M., right? Not ten P.M.?”
Doc nodded once. “I’ll be out in the lab, getting the new tires on the time machine. Why don’t you get dressed, have breakfast, and meet me out there -- and then we can get to work on the time circuits. I’d like to see if we can send you off tomorrow.”
Marty blinked once. “Okay....”
The teen couldn’t help shaking his head as he sat up a minute later, amazed that Doc had already gotten everything he had out of the way. He wondered if the inventor had even gone to bed the night before.
After a shower, a change of clothes -- the same ones he’d worn the day he had tried to teach George how to fight -- and a quick breakfast of cold cereal, Marty joined the scientist out in the garage lab. He brought with him the morning newspaper, which had been lying on the long curved driveway, en route to the other building on the property. He couldn’t resist checking the headlines on the front page as he went, and was still scanning them as he walked into the lab and passed Doc, kneeling next to the DeLorean and installing one of the new tires. The top story made him smirk a little: LOCAL FARMER PERSISTS CLAIMS OF SPACE ALIENS; Otis Peabody under evaluation by county asylum. There was a photograph of Peabody being showed to a van outside his home by a policeman, his mouth open in what was no doubt a plea for his case or for his innocence. Apparently the farmer’s claims of aliens and saucers were the cause of some concern.
“I haven’t read the paper in days,” Doc admitted, glancing up and noticing the periodical in Marty’s hands. “What’s going on in the world?”
Marty shrugged, not sure if he wanted Doc to see the lead story. That could bring about a long lecture, though the teen knew the more recent sightings of the “alien” were due to Doc himself flying the DeLorean around on Saturday night . “Just ancient history,” he said vaguely.
Marty wandered over to one of the less-cluttered tables next to the window and set the paper down. He was about to turn away when a small six-by-eight framed photograph caught his eye. The teen probably would’ve paid it little mind, except it wasn’t of a famous scientist or a bit of scenery; it was of a woman. Doc with a woman, to be more exact. She looked like she was around thirty or so, posing prettily on a beach somewhere with an arm around a grinning Doc. Both were clad in bathing suits that looked like they were in the current 50’s style. Written in neat cursive, on the photograph, were the words: “Emmett, we’ll always have Pismo. Love, Jill.”
Marty’s eyes widened so much they nearly toppled out of his head. As much as he wracked his brain, he couldn’t remember any mention of anyone named Jill -- not in the past or the future. He glanced over his shoulder at the inventor, who’s attention seemed pretty well occupied by the changing of the tires. Maybe this was a good thing; he could catch him off guard again, like last night’s question about the letter of warning.
“Who’s Jill, Doc?” he asked as casually as he could manage.
Doc paused in whatever he was doing, turning his head to look at Marty. The teen held up the framed photograph, showing him just who he was asking about. The inventor smiled, a warm expression that Marty hadn’t quite seen before -- anytime.
“Oh, that’s Jill Wooster: the dean’s daughter. We went to Pismo Beach last summer and we....” Doc’s voice faltered and he looked almost embarrassed -- like a blushing schoolboy, Marty thought with great amusement. “Well, she and I are sort of....” He cleared his throat, still clearly uncomfortable. “Well, you know what they say: ‘Man does not live by science alone.’”
Marty couldn’t stop from grinning at the news, shocked as he was by the confession. “Hey, that’s great, Doc! I never knew you had a girl.”
Doc smiled again, though he continued to look oddly embarrassed or uncomfortable. Maybe he wasn’t used to ever talking about things like personal romantic relationships with anyone. Marty was curious, though; he’d bent the scientist’s ear enough in the future with stuff about Jennifer. Now it was payback time... even if it was in the past. “Well, I confess I’ve never been much for biology, but Jill’s different,” he said. “She’s the only woman I ever met who enjoys reading Jules Verne novels.”
Which, obviously, every girl should, Marty thought, smirking to himself. He opened his mouth to ask his friend for more details -- like how long they had been seeing each other, among other things -- but he was cut off before he could begin by a knock on the door. Marty jumped at the sound, and Doc dropped the metal tool in his hand to the cement floor. Their eyes met for a moment, both wide and a little uneasy. The teen remembered all too well who had been on the other side of the door when this had happened the week before.
Oh, man, the last thing I need now is for Mom to change her mind about Dad again!
“Doctor Brown?” someone -- a man -- called from the outside. “Are you there?”
Doc leapt to his feet and hurried over to one of the windows, peering surreptitiously through the crack between the shade and the windowsill. “Great Scott, speak of the devil!” he hissed. “It’s Dean Wooster, from the college. Quick, cover the time vehicle!”
Marty hurried to the task, helping Doc pull the same tarp that had concealed the car from Lorraine last week over the DeLorean. “I’ll be right with you, sir!” the inventor called out as they made sure no anachronistic part of the car was showing. Once things were concealed, he stepped over to pull the door open.
Three men stood on the stoop, all dressed in suits with almost identical crewcuts. One of the three wore thick, black frame glasses that reminded Marty of his father’s set in the future... before The Change, anyway. He was clearly the leader; he was older than the other men, probably in his late fifties or early sixties, and stood before the other two. He regarded Doc without cracking a smile -- or any other facial expression for that matter.
“Why, gentlemen, this is unexpected,” Doc said, stepping aside to allow them in.
The older man snorted softly. “Unexpected? We made this appointment two weeks ago, Dr. Brown.”
Doc blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “We did? Then I apologize. I’ve been having problems keeping track of time.” His eyes slipped over to Marty as he said the words, and he suddenly seemed to remember the teen’s presence. “Oh, gentlemen, may I introduce... my, uh, nephew. Marty. Marty, Dean Wooster, Assistant Dean Cooper, and Dr. Mintz, head of the science department.” The inventor gestured to each man as he introduced them. Wooster was the older guy with the glasses; Cooper was a blond guy around Doc’s age, who had a briefcase in one hand; and Mintz was shorter and stockier than the other two, with a mustache.
Marty smiled at the introductions, a bit uncomfortable. They simply glanced at him, nodded once to acknowledge his presence, then found their attention drawn elsewhere -- to Doc’s cluttered lab, which was even more disorganized than usual with the time machine repairs underway, and the events of the previous week. Wooster frowned, his face darkening; the expression was echoed by the other two men. The inventor didn’t notice.
“I hope there’s nothing wrong...?” Doc said, sounding nervous. “Your daughter...?”
“Jill’s fine,” Wooster said curtly. “I’m fine. I trust that you’re fine. And Dr. Brown,” he added, turning his eyes away from the messy lab to look at the scientist directly, “let me say that we’re extremely satisfied with your performance as a physics professor at the college.”
Doc smiled faintly, but said nothing. Marty couldn’t remember seeing him look as ill at ease as he did then; he clearly didn’t hang out with these men outside of an academic setting.
There was a moment of awkward silence in the room following those words -- so long that Marty was tempted to break it. The dean finally did the honors himself, clearing his throat before speaking once more.
“Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, all colleges need money. Including ours. Now, certain corporations are willing to provide grants or to associate themselves with us in exchange for services, research, endorsements.”
Cooper broke in, speaking succinctly. “We’d like you to volunteer for one of these projects as a way of enhancing the prestige of our institution, and helping us to procure this additional funding.”
This was clearly the purpose of the visit. Doc shook his head once at the words. “Sorry, but I’ve already had an experience in extracurricular large scale projects,” he said. “Now I simply want to pursue my own interest. And I barely have enough time for those as it is. I don’t even have time to read the newspaper!” He picked up the periodical that Marty had brought in with him, holding it up to illustrate his point.
The blond assistant dean looked unworried. “We would be willing to lighten some of your professorial duties.”
The scientist shook his head again without hesitation. “That would be unfair to my students.”
Dr. Mintz, who had remained quiet so far, decided to speak up then. “Emmett, there are other professors capable of handling your classes.”
“Then have them get involved in these corporate projects,” Doc said, unmoved.
Wooster sighed, looking faintly perturbed. “You’re the one that they want,” he said. “Your past involvement with the Manhattan Project gives you impeccable credentials.”
Marty’s jaw dropped as he heard those words. Doc? Involved with the development of the atomic bomb? The scientist had never mentioned that to him before! Man, in the last ten minutes, I’ve learned more about the guy than I ever did in the years I knew him back home, he realized.
Cooper set his briefcase down on the hood of the concealed DeLorean and popped it open. “At least look at some of these proposals,” he said, taking out a few folders. “There are some exciting things happening out there... things that may change the face of the world.”
Doc reluctantly accepted one of the folders held out to him. “Engineering... Ford Motor Company,” Cooper explained as the inventor opened up the file and scanned the contents inside. “A breakthrough in automotive design: Project Edsel.”
“Just what we need,” Doc half muttered, closing the file. “Another car.”
The assistant dean gave him another folder. “Chemistry,” he said. “A new, more effective defoliant agent to be used in warfare.”
Doc looked horrified. “Absolutely not!” he said, not even bothering to crack this one open.
Cooper persisted. “But there’s an added bonus on that project. They’ll name the final chemical agent after you: ‘Agent Brown.’”
Dr. Mintz leaned towards his colleague. “Jerry, I think Dr. Richard Orange just signed on for that one. But look at this one, Emmett,” he added, scooping another file folder out. “A small company, just starting up. They’d make you a partner.”
Doc took the offered folder and looked at the label on the front. “The X-Rox corporation?”
“’Zerox,’” Mintz corrected. “It’s pronounced ‘Zerox.’”
The scientist snorted. “If it’s ‘Zerox,’ they should spell it with a ‘Z.’ I’m not getting involved in something you can’t even pronounce.”
Marty felt he had to say something then; he couldn’t let his friend flush an opportunity like that away! “Uh, Doc, you actually might want to look at that one....”
Doc looked skeptical, but he flipped open the folder and looked at the papers inside. “Copying machines?” he said incredulously. “Why, this is the most ridiculous one of the whole lot.”
Marty shook his head minutely, trying to catch his friend’s eye, but Doc wasn’t paying him any attention. Mintz looked rather insulted by the inventor’s snap judgment. “Ridiculous? This could be a great boon to all of us. Think of it,” he added. “The ability to make copies of any type of printed matter. Without carbon paper.”
Doc shrugged, looking as if he could not care less. “And what will that get us? More paper. And when you have more paper, you have more paperwork. And that means you need more people to do the paperwork, so you end up with a bunch of people who do nothing but keep track of all the extra paper you now have coming out of these paper copying machines.”
The inventor shook his head at those ideas. “No, I’m against defoliation in all of its forms. And I’m not interested in this ‘X-Rox’ or any of these proposals.” He shoved the files into Coopers hands, clearly eager to be rid of them.
The dean sighed. “Dr. Brown, I’m afraid you don’t quite understand what we’re saying here. As part of our faculty, we expect you to ‘play ball.’”
“Science isn’t a sport, gentlemen,” Doc said, insulted. “Neither is life. I do what I do because I believe in it.”
Dr. Mintz nodded. “That’s fine, Emmett,” he said, his tone almost patronizing. “But sometimes you have to consider what other people think. And, quite frankly, there are a lot of people who think that you’re... well, a bit strange.”
Marty bristled a little at the polite insult. Had these guys not been so much older than him, and coworkers of Doc’s, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say something in defense. Doc rose nicely to the challenge, though, turning his head to look the man dead in the eye. “I don’t care what they think!”
Wooster stared at him, speaking in a low voice. “But we care what they think.”
Marty scowled, the expression unseen by the three visitors -- or Doc, for that matter, who’s attention was fully focused on the college faculty.
“For example,” Cooper said to the inventor, “this weather experiment you were doing Saturday night, in front of the courthouse?” He made a face. “People are saying that you’re responsible for lightning hitting the clocktower.”
The dean nodded once, his face grim. “So helping the college like this is a way to neutralize those opinions,” he said, taking a step closer to Doc. “You let everyone know you’re just a regular guy, a team player.”
“And you’ll integrate yourself with a lot of important people,” Mintz added.
This was starting to sound like something from one of those old gangster films. The similarity continued as Wooster picked up the photograph of his daughter and Doc. He stared at it a moment, his mouth tightening into something more akin to a grimace than a smile, then looked up to the inventor.
“Just think about it, Dr. Brown. Consider all the implications.”
There was another uncomfortable moment of silence. Cooper broke it. “I’ll leave these files here for you to peruse at your leisure,” he said, setting the folders down on the table. “And if you have any extra time: your paper,” he added, dropping the periodical down next to the stack. Doc had accidentally passed it over when he had handed the folders back to the assistant dean.
Wooster nodded once as his men headed for the door. “We’ll talk again soon,” he promised, setting the photograph down next to the newspaper.
Marty watched them leave, then shook his head, disgusted. “I don’t get it, Doc,” he said. “Was that some kind of threat?”
Doc shrugged. “Or a bluff,” he said, sounding completely unworried. “I’ll find out soon enough.” He picked up the photograph and studied it a moment, his forehead furrowed. Marty’s eyes fell on to the stack of folders, and the one with the “X-Rox” information, on the top.
“Uh, Doc, you know, they may not be entirely wrong about considering what other people think of you... and the Xerox thing and all....”
Doc looked up from the picture and leveled an unmoved gaze on him. “Marty, if I based all my decisions on what they thought I should do, on how they thought I should behave, well, I wouldn’t be me anymore -- I’d be them.”
Marty thought about that for a moment, then nodded, though it pained him to think of the riches Doc would be throwing away by not being open to the Xerox company. “Yeah, Doc, I guess you wouldn’t look good in a suit and tie all the time.”
“Or worse: one of those haircuts!” In spite of the quip, the inventor’s face remained serious as he looked at the photo once more.
“So what are you gonna do?” Marty asked.
The inventor didn’t answer right away. “Fix the time machine and get you to 1885,” he said, finally setting the photo down.
Marty opened his mouth to pry further, then closed it before a whisper of noise could escape. If that wasn’t a deliberate change of subject, he didn’t know what was. So he let it go; it really was none of his business and since he wasn’t even supposed to be here now, he could seriously mess something up if he convinced Doc to go for something he had originally declined.
Prying about Jill, though, didn’t seem too forbidden. “So what’s the deal with you and this Jill, Doc? How long have you guys been seeing each other?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Doc said, glancing at the photo again. “A while. I’m afraid I haven’t been keeping very careful track of such things.”
“A while, huh?” Marty asked as the inventor turned his attention back to the time machine, and began to roll back the tarp covering it. “Like, a year? Two?”
“I’m not sure, Marty. A couple years, maybe. I met her at a faculty dinner; her father introduced us. We sat next to each other and got to talking and found out we had a great deal in common,”
“Yeah, yeah, the Jules Verne stuff.” Marty watched his friend uncover the car, thinking. “You never mentioned her to me before; you never mentioned any girlfriend to me before.”
“Well -- perhaps I didn’t see the point. It wasn’t anything that has come up so far while you’ve been here, after all.”
“Maybe,” Marty muttered, thinking. He was ninety-nine percent positive, though, that this Jill was long out of the picture by the time the teen had met the inventor in the early eighties. Unless Doc had some kind of double life going on. “I just never knew you to date anyone in the future.”
“That doesn’t mean that I never dated in my past,” Doc said, ignoring the very obvious implication in Marty’s words that he and Jill were no longer together in 1985. “I escorted many young women about town in my youth.”
“Really?” Marty asked, skeptical.
“Yes. This was the thirties, before the second World War. Of course, many of those ‘dates’ were arranged by my parents. And the girls were only interested in one thing.”
“Sex?” Marty asked, the word popping out before he could stop it.
Doc’s head snapped up to regard him with a look of great confusion. “What?”
The teen realized that, again, he was in a time grossly different from his own. And that the 1930’s were by no means like the 1980’s. He smiled weakly. “Um, what were they interested in?”
“Money,” Doc said, succinctly.
Ah yes -- that other thing that girls are after.... “Oh.... And I guess that was, what, during the Great Depression?”
The inventor’s head bobbed once as he knelt down to return to the chore of replacing the DeLorean tires. “Yes. My parents were quite successful -- as I’m sure you’ve gathered after seeing this estate.”
“Yeah,” Marty said. “But you’re just living out here, in the garage, when I met you.”
Once again, the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Marty clamped his jaw shut and looked at the floor, pretending to miss the astonished look on Doc’s face as the scientist glanced up once more. He didn’t ask for more details, though.
“Well -- none of the ladies I met through school or through my parents were really interested in who I was as a person. They didn’t understand my love of science or my dreams of creating devices to better mankind. They were much more concerned with my financial status as the only child of a physician and nurse.”
“That’s lame,” Marty said. “I never knew that. So people only treated you nicely because you had money?”
“It was my folks’ money, not mine. But, yes, that’s why those coeds were interested in me. Of course, this all ended around the time of the second World War.”
Marty circled the car and knelt down to help his friend with the tire changing chore, realizing he’d better put himself to work before Doc had to ask. The inventor handed him some screws to hold. “Was that because you were involved with the Manhattan Project? I didn’t know that, Doc! That’s way cool....”
Doc grunted softly, a vague answer. “I can’t talk about that, Marty. Perhaps that’s why. The less said about that, the better.”
“I guess,” Marty said, disappointed nonetheless. “I’m surprised you couldn’t get plutonium through those connections, though, instead of using terrorists. But I guess it’d been forty years or something by then....”
Doc didn’t look at him as he set the new tire -- a very fifties-looking thing, with white walls -- onto the car’s axle. “I read the letter last night,” he said, rather abruptly. “I suppose I should thank you for that warning.”
Marty shrugged. “I just wish I could’ve told you sooner,” he said. “I wanted to, all last week, but you kept cutting me off before I could even start.”
“Yes -- but after everything you went through then, and over the course of returning here, you should know how dangerous any knowledge of the future can be.”
Marty’s mind drifted back to the horrible hell of that alternate 1985 he and Doc had witnessed -- all due to a bit of misplaced future knowledge in Biff’s hands. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know. But you know you can’t ignore that letter now, Doc -- or you’ll be screwing up the future and make right now impossible.”
The scientist nodded once. “I won’t neglect to take the proper precautions,” he promised. “And even if you weren’t here now, to remind me about the letter, I gather that I pieced it together and heeded the warning anyway.”
Marty assumed so. He rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead, not wanting to think too deeply into these cause and effect cycles of time. It could really give him a headache if he dwelled on it too long. “Do you want me to do this?” he asked, gesturing to the tire Doc was installing on the car. “I’ve changed tires before. I can handle that part fine, unless there’s some weird difference between a DeLorean and a regular car’s tire.”
Doc paused a moment, frowning thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Sure, I can’t see any problem with that. I’ll get started on the time circuits, then. And with any luck, you can be on your way tomorrow.”
* * *
The phone rang around three o’ clock that afternoon, shattering the relative tranquility of the garage lab. Marty jumped at the shrill, unexpected sound, nearly knocking over the box of glass fuses from the table where Doc had established the bulk of the time circuit work. The inventor’s reaction was no less dramatic, having been in a deep state of concentration over the assembly of the replacement circuit for the time machine. The directions his future self had provided were clear to the younger Doc, but Marty was mostly baffled by them. As most of his job was delegated to consulting the instructions and answering the scientist’s questions about the assembly when they came up, this required frequent translations on Doc’s part as to what, exactly, his future self had meant by a specific word or phrase or schematic symbol. And when such translations occurred, work would pause, at least for a minute or three.
It was slow going, but Doc still seemed optimistic they might finish the project later that night. By dawn, he said, at the very least.
While Marty started and bumped the fuses at the sound of the phone, scooting them close to the edge of the table, Doc let out a gasp and snapped his head up so quickly he grimaced in pain. Although as thoroughly caught off guard as Marty was, he reacted quickly enough to make his way over to the telephone extension by the second ring.
“Since when do you have a phone in the garage?” Marty asked, surprised. While it was true Doc had a phone out here in 1985, he never really figured that would be the case now, not with that mansion still standing.
“I had a line installed several years back, when I began using this for a lab and spending considerable time out here,” Doc explained. He scooped up the phone halfway through the third ring. “Hello?”
Marty watched Doc’s face carefully, trying to figure out who the caller was. He hoped it wasn’t those goons from the college, calling to nag the inventor about the project proposals some more. Doc’s eyebrows shot up in a look of astonishment. “Jill! I was going to call you....”
The teen directed his full attention to the phone call, suddenly very interested. Doc frowned, now. “What, right now?” There was another pause as the woman at the other end appeared to be speaking. “All right, fine, you can come over and we can discuss it. Three-thirty? All right, I’ll be expecting you.”
Marty stared at him quizzically as Doc hung up. “What was that about?” he asked.
“Jill,” Doc said, his gaze suddenly distant as he ran a hand back through his unkempt hair. “I mean, that was Jill on the phone.”
“Is your girlfriend coming over, now?” Marty asked. When Doc nodded once, still seeming rather distracted, he grinned. “Cool! I’ve gotta meet her....”
Doc blinked, his eyes snapping back to the moment at hand. “No! Absolutely not!”
The teen frowned, disappointed. “Why not, Doc? I met her dad.....”
“Yes, but that was rather unavoidable. Jill doesn’t often show up like this; whatever she wants to discuss with me is going to be important.”
Marty got the drift. “Oh, okay, I see. You guys need to be alone. But maybe I could wait in the next room or something....”
Doc shook his head. “No, Marty. You’d be better off waiting out here. I -- I’ve got to change,” he added, glancing down at his bold patterned shirt and wrinkled slacks. “Jill would be more impressed if I’m in a suit and tie. And I should fabricate some refreshments....”
The scientist left the muttering to himself, leaving Marty standing near the worktable with a crooked frown on his face. The teen suddenly, inexplicably, had a bad feeling, based only on his own experiences with girls over the years. Any time they wanted to sit down somewhere and talk privately, without warning, it was never a good thing. Add that to the almost ominous visit from Doc’s boss at the college, and the parting words the man had exchanged with him about “considering all the implications”....
This wasn’t going to be good.
Marty didn’t spend a lot of time idling away in the garage. He wasted little time, in fact, before going to one of the windows that faced the street and beginning a vigil of sorts. About twenty minutes after Doc’s departure, a light colored sedan pulled into the curving brick driveway. A woman with medium length blonde hair stepped out, her face angled away from Marty, and walked briskly up the brick steps to the Brown estate.
The teen waited until she had gone inside, met by Doc at the door, before leaving the garage and sneaking up to the house to the windows. He prowled the exterior as slyly as he could, peeking into windows until he finally sighted Doc and Jill in the study at the back of the house. Once they were spotted -- just as Jill was sitting down and Doc, dressed neatly in a conservative suit and tie, a sight that surprised the teen because it made his friend look so... different -- Marty ducked low. A part of him felt guilty for staying there, watching through the glass, but he wanted to know what was going on... and Doc wasn’t exactly a kiss and tell type.
“I just hope this doesn’t get too ugly,” he murmured under his breath.
“Emmett,” Jill began, almost tentative, as the inventor poured her a quickly brewed cup of tea. “My father’s very concerned about you; about us.”
Emmett swallowed hard as he set the teapot down on the small table nearby. “So he told you about his little visit....?” he asked, hoping he sounded far calmer than he felt.
Jill nodded once, her golden hair catching the sunlight falling through the window. “He thinks you’re going to turn him down,” she said softly, staring at him with a wide, blue-eyed gaze of hope. Hope that her belief, and her father’s belief, was wrong, Emmett saw right away.
“Jill, you know that I can’t live my life according to your father’s values,” he said, matching her soft tone, though his words were uttered with far more urgency -- an urgency that she see things his way. Conformity was not for him; it never had been. And if he had to do that -- if he had to play by their rules every single day for the rest of his professional life -- he would be completely miserable.
Jill sighed. “And I wouldn’t want you to, Emmett,” she said. The inventor started to smile, surprised, hopeful. He took her hand in his and she gave him a warm squeeze. “But surely,” she added, “there must be room for a little compromise.”
Emmett blinked, taken aback by the last sentence. “He’s asking me to do something I don’t want to do, solely because it will enhance his own reputation,” he said. “That’s not right.”
Jill appeared faintly wounded at the expressed view. “And he feels you’re insulting him by refusing to be a part of his team,” she said, making it sound far worse than it should to the inventor’s ears.
Emmett sighed. “Jill, my opinion of your father and his ‘team’ has nothing to do with my decision.”
The blonde sniffed softly. “Well, maybe it should.” She lowered her eyelashes a moment, her gaze drifting down to their paired hands, then looked up into his dark eyes. “Oh, Emmett, if you won’t do it for him, or for the college, then do it for me,” she implored, a faint note of pleading in her voice. “Please?”
The scientist felt his hand involuntarily tighten around Jill’s as he sensed the edge she had backed him up against. “Jill, what are you saying?”
Jill looked at him steadily. “I’m saying that if you really care about me” -- she leaned forward, her voice as soft as her hair -- “you’ll find a way to make it work.”
Emmett managed to find his voice after a moment. “And if I can’t?”
The blonde abruptly leaned away and dropped his hand from hers. She turned her face away from his, towards the window. Emmett followed her gaze and, for a moment, swore he saw Marty’s face goggling at the both of them through the window. When he blinked, however, and focused a closer look on the pane, it was empty. “Then it might be better for both of us if we stopped seeing each other,” Jill concluded crisply.
The inventor shook his head faintly, both in response to the statement and in the misguided, unconscious hope that it might banish the idea from his girlfriend’s head. “Jill, if you really care about me, it shouldn’t matter what I decide, as long as it’s from my heart.” He reached out and touched her shoulder, but she stiffened up and drew away, her spine as straight as a yardstick.
“But it does matter, Emmett,” Jill said, glancing at him for a moment before she turned her face back to the windows. “It matters a great deal.”
Emmett couldn’t think of what to say for a very long moment. He felt confusion more than anything else; why on earth would Jill, the one person he felt had truly understood him and cared for him, be giving him such an ultimatum?
“You’re asking me to choose between you and being true to my own self, my principals and ideas,” he murmured softly.
“That’s not so,” Jill said, lowering her head so that her hair shielded her face from the inventor’s view. “I simply think you could bear to compromise this once -- for me.”
Emmett sighed, lowering his own head to stare down at the swirls of color on the rug under his feet. For a moment he entertained the notion of saying yes to her, of letting her win this battle -- but then a quick parade of images danced in his mind of forthcoming years. He loved Jill, yes, but the idea of becoming a man like her father, of giving up his farfetched dreams and ideals to go along with things simply because it was easier and conventionally accepted made him feel physically ill. He couldn’t live like that; he couldn’t be happy like that. It would be as confining as a prison sentence.
How can she even ask me to make a choice like that? he wondered, faintly appalled.
“Jill,” he began softly. “I do care about you a great deal. And I would never want to see you unhappy. I would hope that your feelings are reciprocated to the same degree. You don’t want to see me unhappy, do you?”
Jill sighed. “You won’t change your mind, will you?” she asked, her voice oddly flat.
“No,” Emmett said, not backing down from the decision. “I’m sorry, Jill. This shouldn’t come between us, though; this matter is between your father and me.”
Jill shook her head, standing quickly. “You don’t understand, Emmett,” she said, looking at him -- but with such a cold gaze that Emmett felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. “You don’t seem to care about my feelings at all over this matter. Or what people think about you. And about us.”
“What should it matter what people think?” Emmett asked. “I don’t care.”
Jill blinked once. “But I do,” she said. “I’ll let my father know of your decision with the college -- and I’ll let myself out. Good-bye, Emmett.”
She turned and hurried from the room. Emmett hesitated a moment, then went after her. “Wait!” he called. Jill’s stride didn’t falter. She continued down the hall, opened the front door, and stepped onto the porch. Emmett heard the clatter of her heels on the brick porch as she hurried down the steps towards her parked car. The inventor didn’t stop his frantic journey at the door, following in her footsteps down the porch stairs just a few paces behind her.
“Jill, please, can’t we discuss it?”
Jill stopped when she reached her car, turning to regard him once more. “There’s nothing more to discuss!” she said sharply, her voice as chilly as her eyes had been in the house, a moment before. “I’ll return your Jules Verne books tomorrow.” She sniffed, opening the car door and rolling her eyes. “I never liked them anyway!”
Emmett’s mouth dropped open in hurt and surprise at the words, but he said nothing. He wasn’t given the chance to; Jill slammed her car door shut and started the vehicle up, driving off in a hurry. The inventor watched her go, moving out of his life as fast as she could. When the car had turned onto the street and the last sound of the engine had faded, he heaved a sigh and sat down on the last brick step of his home, letting his head drop into his hands.
Just like that, it was over.
* * *
Marty waited for a couple minutes after Jill’s departure, not sure if it was a good idea to approach Doc then or not. The scientist didn’t move from his seat on the bottom step of his porch, his blond head bowed in a gesture of grief or depression. Maybe both.
He can’t sit there forever, the teen thought. Especially not if he wants to finish the time machine repairs today.
Slightly guilt-stricken for having such a selfish thought, Marty nevertheless emerged from around the corner of the house and headed for the older man’s side. Doc didn’t seem to hear his approach or notice the teen’s presence until Marty was standing just a foot away.
“She broke up with you, didn’t she, Doc?” he asked softly.
Doc didn’t answer for a moment. “It was more of a mutual decision,” he finally murmured.
Marty sighed, dropping down to sit next to his friend on the step. “Is that why she left like a bat outta hell?”
Doc raised his head, his eyes staring out across the expanse of green lawn before his home. “She made me choose,” he said sadly. “I think I made the right choice.”
Marty frowned. He hadn’t been able to hear a thing from his outside vantage point, of course. Everything he had so far gleaned -- aside from the snatches of conversation outside -- had come from what he had seen through the window. Of course, that alone had told him a lot; Jill was the one who looked cold and uncaring, and because she was the one who had come over to speak with Doc in the first place about something, he could only assume she was the one who threw the first punch.
“What did she make you choose between?” he asked tentatively.
“Being true to myself -- or living a lie,” Doc said. “She came only with the latter choice, and I couldn’t do that. Is it so wrong to hold fast to my principals and ideals, Marty?”
“Noooo,” Marty said slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Y’know, that’s what I liked about you so much, when I really got to know you. You didn’t give a damn about what people said behind your back, or what people would think about whatever you did. I think that’s brave, Doc.”
Doc sighed, rubbing his forehead as he continued to stare straight out towards the empty street. “Or foolish.”
It was unlike his friend to be so pessimistic, and Marty couldn’t say he liked it. “Look, Doc, a lot of those people that everyone thought were crazy turned out to be geniuses later. Half of the people you seem to admire seem to be on that list, I think. And,” Marty added, completely serious, “I definitely think you qualify as a genius. You invented a time machine for Godsakes! That’s huge!”
“I haven’t yet,” Doc said morosely.
“But you will! And you already know it works!”
“But will everyone else know?” Doc asked, turning to look at Marty for the first time. Before the teen could even think of an answer to that question, the inventor shook his head. “No, after everything I’ve witnessed in the last week with that device, and your troubles with it, I can’t imagine I would be candid enough to reveal it as public knowledge. I don’t even think I could reveal it to the scientific community with an easy conscience.”
Once more, Marty thought about that horrible alternate reality and couldn’t resist a little shudder. “I’m almost positive you won’t,” he said. “Especially since you wanna destroy it, now, remember? And at this point, I don’t blame you. But does that really matter to you, Doc? If you really cared what people thought about you, you’d do all those projects at the college, right? You wouldn’t be the same person; I don’t think you would’ve even tried to make a time machine.”
“No, probably not,” Doc said, his voice sounding far more stable than it had just a minute before. “Time travel is considered lunatic fringe, at best, in the mainstream scientific community. You’re right with all those points, Marty. Thank you.”
Marty shrugged. “I’m sorry what happened to you, Doc,” he said sincerely. “I got dumped a couple times before I started dating Jennifer. It sucks.”
Doc drew in a deep breath then let it out. “Well. There are more important things to think about now -- like finishing the time machine repairs. I’ve nearly wasted an hour already.”
The scientist stood and headed out for the garage, already working his hands at undoing the tie he had put on. Marty followed him, wondering if that was it, if that was all Doc was going to share about the matter. The inventor didn’t say anything more until he had gone inside the lab and paused at the table where the snapshot of him and Jill resided. He picked up the picture a moment, and studied it with a completely neutral expression on his face.
“And I thought she was different,” Doc muttered with a half sigh, turning to toss it into the trash can nearby. Marty jumped at the clatter of the object as it fell into the metallic container. “Well, like I said,” he added, yanking the tie off the collar of his shirt and dropping it down on the table. “Biology isn’t my subject.”
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right girl yet,” Marty said, though he honestly couldn’t imagine what kind of girl would be compatible with Doc, and vice versa. “And, you know, there was a woman mentioned on your tombstone. A Clara, remember? ‘Beloved Clara’?”
Doc frowned. “That probably means nothing,” he said. “That woman could simply be a kind local who decided I needed a proper Christian burial.”
“Then why would it say ‘beloved Clara’?” Marty countered. “It wouldn’t say that if it was some random stranger who took pity on you having no family around.”
The inventor shrugged as he slipped off his sports coat and let it fall beside the discarded tie. “The idea of me involving myself with some pioneer woman in a time that I decidedly do not belong in is absolutely ludicrous. It’s completely irresponsible.”
Marty lifted his shoulders in a shrug, smiling crookedly at seeing his friend get so worked up over this. “Well, you were there for nine months. Maybe you charmed the pants off one of the local ladies.”
Doc looked indignant as he rolled back his shirt sleeves. “I would hope that I have enough intelligence to realize that 1885 is not the time or the place to begin a relationship of any kind. If I was smart, I would keep as much of a distance as I possibly could from the townsfolk. The future -- my future -- could be at risk.”
“Why?” Marty asked. “You said that your family wasn’t around, then. It’s not like you could marry your future grandma... right?”
“Perhaps not so with the Browns, but my mother’s family was settled in Hill Valley by then,” Doc said, the news surprising Marty. “The Lathrops. Although... let’s see, my mother was born in the early 1880s, if I’m remembering correctly. I don’t think there will be any possibility of me getting involved romantically with her, thank God, but there are other ways I could endanger my future existence.”
“Like what?” Marty asked, not seeing any connection.
Doc picked up the diagram for the time circuits and studied it for a moment. “The letter said I was a blacksmith, didn’t it?”
“Uh... yeah, I think so.”
“Well, then: what if I shoed a horse or repaired a wagon for my grandparents -- and committed an error? What if there was then an accident that killed my mother as a little girl, directly due to my repair, or lack thereof? I would never be born, and if I was never born then I could--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, a paradox, life as we know it would be destroyed. I get the idea. But, Doc, seriously -- what are the odds of that happening? And how does this have anything to do with the Clara? You’re changing the subject!”
Doc sighed as he lowered the diagram, exchanging it for some of the tools. He bent over what he had so far assembled, the tabletop illuminated by a brightly burning gooseneck lamp. “It’s a ridiculous idea, even suggesting that this Clara and I are romantically involved. You’ve just witnessed what the general outcome of such relationships are now for me; what on earth makes you think someone from a time so far removed from mine would find me attractive in any way? Better yet, what would I find so attractive in a girl back then? I like smart, educated women that I can hold intelligent conversations with; pioneer women were rarely educated in matters of science, not to the same degree as the men, anyway.”
Marty shrugged honestly. “I dunno. Maybe it was love at first sight....”
He meant it as half a joke, but Doc missed the note of teasing in the teen’s voice. He snorted. “I’m even less inclined to believe that way of thinking.”
“Aw c’mon, Doc.... You didn’t feel anything like that with Jill?”
“No,” Doc said flatly. “I thought she was pretty, but I didn’t find myself having any amorous feelings for her until after I got to know her a bit more. We shared common interests... or so I thought,” he added, not without a trace of bitterness.
The teen decided to steer the subject off the very recent ex-girlfriend. “Well, maybe things are different with this Clara person. We could go to the archives and look her up, maybe....”
“Without a last name?” Doc asked. He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t matter. And, regardless, there’s not the time to spare, not if we want to finish this by tomorrow. Let it go, Marty; I’m sure when you arrive in 1885 and locate me, I will be able to tell you just exactly who this mysterious Clara is. Further speculation now is a waste of time and energy better directed elsewhere.”
Marty wasn’t so sure about that, but he was aware that the subject of the opposite sex was a current sore point with his friend. He let it drop and went back to his assistant duties with the repairs -- but the second he was back in 1885 and saw Doc again, he vowed, he was going to find out just who “beloved Clara” was.
* * *
After the untimely interruption in the afternoon, Emmett quickly fell back into the routine of assembling parts, of piecing together the instructions his future self had created to make a successful replacement part for the time machine. He was rather happy for the work; it took his mind off the situation with Jill, which still stung. He was hurt; he was angry; and he even felt a little foolish that he had been suckered in by her so well. Emmett really had believed she was different from the rest, that her interest in him and in Jules Verne had been completely genuine. What did he know?
Apparently little; his judgment of character had some serious flaws -- at least when it came to women. That mysterious other gender, who possessed an ability to cloud the otherwise rational thoughts of a man. Maybe that was why the subject of this mysterious, “beloved Clara” bothered him so much. It reminded him he was never too old to be suckered in by the fairer sex.
Although it does suggest that this Clara wasn’t quite like the others -- not if she bothered with the trouble of erecting a tombstone and calling herself my beloved. She could have quite easily not done a thing after my death. And I doubt I had much money or material items that she was after.
Still -- Emmett didn’t want to think about it any more. And so he wholeheartedly charged ahead with the time machine repairs, determined to meet the self imposed deadline of late that night.
Midnight, however, came and went, and things still weren’t done. Marty stayed out to help, having a decidedly vested interest in seeing the completion through. As the hour grew later, though, what conversation there was began to fade out. Emmett turned on the radio he kept out in the garage, mostly to entertain Marty, but the look on the kid’s face was akin to a grimace at the sounds that emerged.
“Jeez, why does everything they play here sound so shitty? It’s worse than Muzak.”
Emmett didn’t quite get it, though he had gathered that music tastes and styles had -- or would -- change drastically in the next thirty years. Marty had said as much to him the week before. “It’s the contemporary styles,” he said. “I’m sorry if it’s not what you’re used to, but we don’t have to listen to the radio. If you’d like to turn it off, go ahead. I don’t care either way.”
Marty sighed, but he didn’t bother to touch the dial -- not to turn it off, anyway. He fiddled with the radio’s turner for a few minutes, searching for something he no doubt felt more comfortable hearing, but the choices were few and far between in a place like Hill Valley. The seventeen-year-old finally resigned himself to the same station that the device had been tuned on in the first place, though not without some muttered curses and gripes.
By three A.M., as Emmett was preparing to move the more-or-less completed replacement board of tubes and fuses and wires to the car -- and was trying to figure out where, precisely, to install it on the vehicle; the cab was too small -- Marty’s energy was starting to fade out. He sat in the old armchair in the garage next to the TV, the faded paper instructions on his lap, with a heavy-lidded, glassy look to his eyes.
“You can go to bed, you know,” Emmett said as he glanced over at him, surprised to find him still awake, though it was clear that the kid was fighting a losing battle. “I’ve got everything pretty much under control here, and you’ll need your energy tomorrow if we’re sending you to 1885. And I’m still confident we can pull that off.”
“No, I’m good,” Marty said, even as he stifled a yawn. “I’m not gonna let you deal with this all by yourself; you’ve already done enough.”
Maybe that’s because you lack the knowledge I have and need, Emmett thought, not speaking the idea aloud. It certainly wasn’t Marty’s fault; in fact, unless there was another version of himself that he had ended up stranded here, there was really no one better to have help out.
A memory suddenly surfaced from a few nights ago, almost forgotten under the glut of other recent concerns from the last couple days. He had been making the preparations in the courthouse square after Marty had already left for the dance in his car to pick up his mother. And someone had approached him, someone who had seemed awfully familiar....
“Marty?” Emmett asked a moment later as he studied the hood of the DeLorean, considering that as a possible location for the replacement circuits.
“Huh?”
“Were you and... myself in the courthouse square on Saturday night? This second time?”
“Uh... I don’t think so. I wasn’t there until I ran up to you after you sent me back to the future that first time.” There was a pause as Marty yawned again. “But maybe you were. We were kinda separated most of the day.”
Emmett frowned, recalling the encounter with the stranger in the hat and dark coat, on the bike. He never saw the man’s face, but there was something about him that made him do a doubletake after their encounter. Maybe it was the muttered farewell on the stranger’s part; to Emmett’s comment of “Maybe we’ll bump into each other in the future,” the inventor could’ve sworn he heard the man say, “Or in the past.”
But if that was my future self, I really shouldn’t be overthinking it. If I have to have the encounter from that side of things in thirty years, knowing for certain or having that ability to foreplan could make the meeting as I remember it completely different or impossible!
If it was him, though, the thirty-years-older version of Emmett Brown, the here and now Emmett couldn’t help wondering what he might’ve done if he had seen his face. Surely he would’ve recognized it; he had seen his older self in the video last week at least a half dozen times. Perhaps it was a very good thing that his future self had kept his face turned away from his eyes, considering the way the scientist had reacted when Marty had approached him later that night. Fainting dead away then, when so much still had to be done for the time machine’s departure, would have seriously skewed history.
Of course, in that sort of situation, I dare say anyone else wouldn’t react much better. I had just seen the kid leave with my own eyes, after all....
Emmett’s mind continued to go through the encounter as his hands opened up the trunk of the car -- located, oddly enough, under the front hood, not in the back -- and his eyes ran over the possibilities of rigging the replacement time circuit controls in that area. It couldn’t be simple coincidence that the stranger had known just what size wrench to use on the bolts, that he had, in fact, corrected Emmett about the matter, not the other way around.
With effort, he dragged his mind away from the subject. The inventor scrutinized the trunk’s interior, then did a quick check on some of the connections in the cab where he would have to tap into the rest of the time machine’s system. The hood seemed like the best possible place to put it in, and he commented as much to Marty, interrupting the soft flow of music from the radio.
“I know it might be unconventional, but what about erecting this on the hood of the car?” Emmett asked as he looked over the front of the car one more time. “It seems to be the only location on the vehicle that has enough space for it, and it shouldn’t obscure the view through the windshield... not that I can see, at any rate. And since my future self has apparently seen fit to expose other parts of the time machine to the elements, it doesn’t seem as if the weather is a concern. Has the exterior of the time machine gotten wet before, Marty?”
There was no answer.
“Marty?” Emmett asked, turning around, wondering if the kid had somehow slipped out while he’d been deep in thought. It wouldn’t be unrealistic to think so; the inventor possessed a talent -- or curse, depending -- to shut out the distractions of the real world when properly engaged or involved in anything. Sometimes he wouldn’t even hear the phone ring, or the oven timer buzz to let him know that dinner was ready.
But Marty hadn’t moved from the chair, Emmett saw. He had simply, finally, conked out, his head lolling against the back of the armchair, his arms folded across his chest. Emmett stepped away from the car, over to the chair to pluck the directions from the kid’s lap. He studied them a moment, then smiled, satisfied by what he saw. He glanced at Marty as he set the paper aside on the table, next to the almost-completed device. The kid was already starting to snore softly; the scientist didn’t have the heart to wake him.
“Get some sleep,” he murmured needlessly. “I’ll have this finished by dawn.”
Wednesday, November 16, 1955
7:27 A.M.
Once more, it was a showdown at high noon. Marty wasn’t completely sure how he had gotten himself into this mess; probably the dude standing at the other end of the street had insulted his gunslinging or horse-riding prowess. Or maybe his nerve and manhood. All of those were cause for a bit of ass kicking -- or gun slinging as the case was.
Marty smirked at the shadowy figure, adjusting the brim of his hat to cut a bit of the sun’s glare. Lines from a song, popular from a couple years before and appropriately titled “I Wanna Be a Cowboy,” ran through his head: “Lookin’ like a hero.... six gun at my side... chewin’ my tobacco....”
Well, okay, maybe not everything about this moment was completely authentic; the idea of chewing that crap made him want to gag.
“Dude,” a voice called at the end of the street, with a sort of western drawl. “Let’s get this over with. I got five more people to shoot today.”
“No problem,” Marty answered, flippantly. He took his gun out and spun it easily on his index finger, showing this punk cowboy what he was up against. Now if only he could see the guy’s face, or even something more than a dark shadow....
“Marty!” someone called from nearby. The teen turned his head to see Doc standing on one of the raised porches before the saloon. A saloon girl who looked just like the inventor’s ex-girlfriend, Jill, stood at his side, clinging to him rather possessively. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Marty asked. “I’m gonna have a gunfight. I gotta defend the honor, you know? And who’s that?”
Doc smiled -- no, grinned. “This is Clara,” he said. “My beloved Clara.” The blonde Clara lifted a hand to wave lazily to Marty before replacing it back on Doc’s chest. “She likes Jules Verne and biology!”
“Better stand back,” Marty told the both of them. “This could get messy.”
Doc frowned, but he did take a step back, taking Clara with him. Marty turned his attention back to the immediate matter. He squinted at the other figure, but still couldn’t discern any details. For some reason the matter unnerved him.
“Ready?” the voice called from the other end of the street.
“Wait,” Marty said, surprising himself. “Let me see your face.”
“Why?” the stranger asked. “You’re not supposed to shoot me there -- shoot me in the chest!”
Marty frowned. He took a few steps forward, doing his best to keep his eyes in shadow from the sun overhead. “Come closer.”
There was a laugh. The voice sounded only slightly familiar, if that. “And give you the advantage? No thanks...”
Marty frowned some more, advancing few more steps. And then, finally, he could see the face.
“Old Man Peabody?” he said, surprised. “What the hell....”
“You killed my pine!” Peabody sputtered -- for some reason wearing long flannel underwear and a bathrobe. Well, hell, Doc wasn’t wearing western clothes, either. “I demand satisfaction!”
“What was I supposed to do?” Marty asked, now remembering the encounter. “It was a stupid place for a tree.” And no match for a stainless steel DeLorean, he added to himself.
Peabody cocked his shotgun. “Then you’re gonna pay for it with your life,” he said, dead serious. “Unless you’re chicken.... Draw!”
Marty immediately bristled, offended by the diss, and reached for his gun. Someone grabbed his shoulder before it could pull the weapon out.
“Marty!”
The teen blinked at the sound of Doc’s voice. The western setting was abruptly, jarringly, replaced by the interior of the inventor’s lab. He thought he was home again, back in 1985, and had just accidentally crashed in his friend’s home; it had happened before, much to his parent’s annoyance... at least Before. (“You could have at least called to let us know where you were!” “Ma, it’s not like I planned to fall asleep....”) The illusion lasted until he saw Doc’s face bending over his. It was way too young for him to be back home. He was still in 1955.
“I stayed up all night, but it’s finished!” Doc announced as soon as he saw Marty open his eyes. “The new circuitry’s installed, and according to my calculations, it’ll do everything that this ‘microchip’ could do!”
The scientist handed him the blackened remains of the part. Marty accepted it, still dazed from his abrupt return from dreamland. He squinted fuzzily at the microchip in his hand, then moved his eyes to the device now mounted on the hood of the DeLorean, taking up at least a third of the space. He had to blink a couple times, not sure if his eyes were betraying him. While it was true he had seen the thing slowly evolve the day before, he hadn’t really stopped to think that all it was really replacing was a circuit less than a square inch big.
Marty shook his head in wonder at how far things had come -- or, were going to come. No wonder Doc couldn’t really make the time machine work before 1985! “It looks... good, Doc,” he managed with a straight face, only because he was little more than half awake.
Doc smiled, pleased. “I know what you’re thinking -- but it won’t obstruct your view through the front windshield at all. I made sure of it.”
“That’s... great.” Marty yawned as he set the shorted out microchip aside. “What time is it? You said it was morning?”
“Seven-thirty A.M. on the nose. You’ll be able to leave today -- by noon, in fact. I’ve got it all planned out, and even selected a sight for your departure.”
Marty blinked once. “Not the Peabody farm, is it?” he muttered, remembering his crazy dream.
Doc gave him an odd look at the question. “No -- the Pohatchee Drive-In. It’s perfect.”
The teen had to think about it for a moment, scanning his memories for such a place in his own time. “Where is it?”
“Several miles outside the city limits.... It’s quite possible it doesn’t exist in your time, or else the name changed. It’s the most ideal place for the send off. Now,” Doc added, changing the subject before Marty could ask anything more, “we’ve got to tow the time machine out there. Wouldn’t do to drive it in broad daylight down the road. And there are some minor automotive considerations to take into account, too.”
Marty stretched as he stood from the armchair, trying to get a kink out of his neck. “What about breakfast?” he asked. “Do you think I could get something to eat before going back in time?”
Doc looked taken aback by the question. “Oh, certainly. I’d better have something myself, come to think of it. It’s funny how something like hunger can be completely overlooked in the pursuit of science.” He smiled, looking much more awake than Marty was still feeling -- and he’d been up working all night! The teen shook his head as the inventor turned and headed for the door, once more amazed at Doc’s stamina.
Marty wasn’t much of a morning person, especially after only a few hours of accidental sleep, and so he said very little during one of Doc’s improvised bachelor breakfasts. (Toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs.) Doc’s overwhelming energy stood in sharp contrast to Marty’s more groggy state of mind, and while the teen was taking a shower and getting dressed, the inventor drove into town and rented a flatbed trailer to tow the DeLorean.
The clothes Marty changed into that morning were not his mysterious period clothing -- yet. It was simply another fifties outfit from the week before, as the inventor didn’t want to have him in the western clothes until the last possible moment, just in case they were spotted by anyone. The teen couldn’t resist pulling on his Nikes, though. He was sick of the stiff fifties shoes, and he figured no one was gonna see his feet on the drive over to the departure site. Doc himself didn’t seem to notice the small anachronistic detail.
It wasn’t too difficult to get the car rolled onto the rented trailer, and subsequently secured. After doing a quick check of the mansion and the garage, tossing items that had come with Marty and the DeLorean into the Packard to be sorted through on the drive over, they set off. It was just after 9 A.M. by the time they left the Brown property.
The drive to the outdoor theater helped wake Marty up more; Doc kept the top down to enjoy the sunshine, in spite of the cool morning air. The teen sat shotgun, tightly hugging the same borrowed coat he’d worn during the mine excavation over the short-sleeved shirt he’d put on.
“Are you feeling all right?” Doc asked as they left the more suburban streets of Hill Valley, taking a highway that was surrounded primarily by farmland.
“Fine,” Marty said, reaching out a hand to the vent and wondering if he could turn on the heat; would such a thing even be remotely logical in a convertible?
“You’re not having any second thoughts?” Doc asked. “Any nerves? You’ve been awfully quiet this morning.... I could understand if you were having doubts, now, Marty.”
The teen looked at the driver in surprise. “No, I’m fine. I’m just tired... and cold, now. Is there any way you can turn the heat on?”
Doc -- who, inexplicably, was wearing nothing heavier than a short-sleeved silk shirt, decorated in a kind of western motif -- reached out to the dash and cranked the heater on, aiming the flow of air directly on Marty. “Better?” he asked.
“Give it a few,” the teen said softly.
The inventor looked at him again, his eyes narrowed in scrutiny. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he persisted. Before Marty had a chance to answer, Doc added, “You know, you don’t have to do this, Marty. You can simply drive right back to 1985. I would understand.”
Marty didn’t hesitate at all with his response. “No way in hell, Doc! It’s all my fault you’re stuck back there in the first place, and I’m not gonna live the rest of my life knowing you’re lying across town in a grave. I’m not having any second thoughts. Actually,” he admitted, “I’m kinda looking forward to this. I think it’ll be interesting to see the wild west in person.”
“Yes,” Doc said, sighing rather wistfully. “It’s sad I’ll have to wait thirty years for that experience. But I suppose I’m still more fortunate than anyone else. Most will never have such an experience at any point in their lives.”
“I wonder how much it’s like the movies,” Marty said, half to himself, thinking of his weird western dreams of the last few days. Seeing an honest-to-God western gunfight could be really interesting....
“That probably depends on what films you’ve seen, and how much they do or do not exaggerate,” Doc said. “I wonder if my future self made such comparison observations during his time there, perhaps keeping a journal of sorts? But you know you shouldn’t linger too long in the past, Marty,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “Your goal is to locate me and take me back home.”
“I know,” Marty said. “And believe me, I understand why it’s bad to hang around a different time too long... but maybe you could take me on a quick tour before we leave?”
“That probably won’t be too problematic,” Doc mused. “What was the date on my tombstone again? September seventh?”
The scientist had picked up the developed photos that morning, when he had rented the flatbed trailer for the time machine towing. Marty grabbed the envelope from between the two of them and shuffled through the DeLorean excavation pictures until he came to the one of Doc’s grave. Even in a photograph, in stark black and white, it still disturbed him a little. He figured it had to have the same effect on Doc, and wasn’t looking forward to showing it to his friend. Which brought up an interesting point....
“It’s September seventh,” he confirmed. “Hey, Doc, if you’re learning all this stuff now, shouldn’t you already know it by the time I meet you?”
There was a lengthy pause from the scientist, who looked thoughtful as he stared out through the windshield. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “In the future, did I mention to you anything about my memories of the previous week?”
“Well, yeah,” Marty said, thinking that was a weird question.
“Then I suppose it would stand to reason that I would remember the last couple days by the time you reach me in 1885.”
There was still a clear doubt in the statement. Marty frowned. “But you’re not sure?”
“Well... no. In spite of what you may think, time travel is still a fairly new subject for me right now. It’s been less than two weeks since I conceived of the flux capacitor, after all.”
“But wouldn’t the fact you remembered the lightning bolt at the clock tower and all that other stuff when I saw you again in 1985 be proof that you’ll remember this stuff when I meet you in 1885?”
“Perhaps yes,” Doc said. “But it stands to reason that there is the possibility of memories being like photographs -- influenced by the ripple effect. My modified memories had only to travel thirty years forward -- not thirty years forward, then seventy more years back. Does that make sense?”
“Um... no, not really.”
The scientist was quiet a moment as he clearly thought about another approach. “It could take time for the events and actions of right now to catch up to the me of the future. It may not be instantaneous. How are your memories, Marty? I never asked....”
The teen frowned, but Doc was right -- the inventor hadn’t asked, and Marty hadn’t felt the need to offer the information. On Sunday, while preparations were being made to retrieve the DeLorean from the mine shaft on Monday morning, Marty had mentioned that his dad hitting Biff Tannen at the dance had had nothing but positive changes to the future. He rattled off his experience after waking up on Saturday morning at home, the day after that first time travel experience, and Doc seemed relieved, but no more had been said. And, frankly, Marty had been preoccupied with a lot of other things to really concentrate on something like memories.
Now that it was brought up, though, he couldn’t help thinking about that. “I remember the way things were before,” he said slowly. “With my dad being bullied, and my mom hitting the bottle. Should I remember things differently?”
“Maybe; maybe not,” Doc said. “Perhaps when one is traveling outside of their own time when history changes they only remember the way things were originally. Or perhaps your memories will gradually evolve to your past life with your more successful and happier parents.”
This was all getting pretty heavy. Marty rubbed his forehead, not sure he understood what Doc was saying. “So my memories might never change?”
“It’s possible; I don’t know for sure, I can only theorize.”
The teen wasn’t sure if he liked that or not. It kind of freaked him out to think of his memories of past experiences completely changing to something he sort of knew he never even did, but it also disturbed him to realize that he might have no recollection at all about life with the “improved” Mom, Dad, Dave, and Linda. And, Marty wondered, only now, what else would be different? If his parents, brother, sister, and Biff Tannen were so completely changed, did that mean other parts of his life were the same? Did he have the same friends? The same grades? The same interests and hobbies?
Doc seems to be the same... Jennifer seems to be the same... and my room looked exactly the same when I came in Friday night; I didn’t even know anything changed ‘til I went into the living room and kitchen. But what if the other Marty McFly was still different in some way? He’d have to be, if he had a different upbringing with different kinds of parents... wouldn’t he?
“Marty?” Doc sounded concerned. “Are you okay, kid?”
“I think so,” Marty mumbled, still a bit dazed from the things only now occurring to him. It was giving him a nasty headache, trying to sort it all out. “God, do you think my whole life is different back home? I mean, if my family’s different, and Biff’s different, and I have a car of my own.... I didn’t see anything else outside my house after I came back, before you picked me up again. Well, except for the mall’s name being different....”
“I wouldn’t worry about that right now. And, in fact, my future self may be much more capable at answering your questions than I am. I believe he’ll have much more experience and education at time travel than I do now.”
Marty hoped so. Now that Doc had brought all this up, he couldn’t help thinking about it and worrying. Dammit; as if he needed one more thing to trouble him.... The teen stopped his questions, though, since the scientist couldn’t quite help him out, but he continued to brood over it, lapsing into another period of silence and completely oblivious to the concerned looks Doc cast his way over the rest of the drive.
About a half hour after leaving the Brown mansion, they arrived at the Pohatchee Drive-In. Marty gawked a little as Doc pulled off the highway and into the large, deserted parking lot. No, definitely, he knew he’d never seen this place before back home! It was so gaudy and tasteless that the teen couldn’t imagine it surviving into the Eighties without severe vandalism or a complete remodeling.
Plus, it was a good haul from Hill Valley.
“How far is this from town?” he asked as Doc stopped the car near the snack bar.
“Twenty miles,” the inventor said.
Marty wasn’t sure he heard right, though enough time had definitely passed to make the supposed milage relevant. “Twenty miles?”
“Yes -- southeast of Hill Valley.” Doc changed the subject before Marty could really question why, exactly, the inventor had been possessed with the idea to go so far out of the way for his departure. “Why don’t you help me get the DeLorean off the trailer before you change? It shouldn’t take too long, but it will be considerably easier with two people working at it instead of just one.”
Getting the time machine down proved to be a much easier chore to do than getting it up. After Marty climbed into the car, released the parking break, and shifted it into neutral, Doc undid the chains securing the vehicle and gave it a push. The car rolled back off the metallic ramps to the gravel lot, coming to a stop a few feet away. Doc then pushed it until it was pulled up parallel to the Packard before allowing Marty to put it back in gear, securing it from rolling away, just in case there was any kind of slope to the seemingly flat lot. By the time the teen took care of that and left the DeLorean, Doc was already pulling out the boxes and bags from the Packard’s backseat, which contained the teen’s thus-far-unseen old west costume.
“Here,” the inventor said, handing the packages to the teen. “Everything you need is in here, and you can just put your Fifties clothes in the bags. I’ll take care of them.”
Marty glanced around the sunny, empty lot. “Where can I change?”
Doc pointed to the building nearby. “The restrooms are in the back,” he said. “Behind the snack bar. I don’t think they’ll be locked -- I don’t recall ever seeing any doors -- but if they are, I suppose you could go around to the other side of the building and exchange clothes.”
The teen looked at the snack bar building a moment before turning back to the scientist. “Have you been out here before?”
The older man’s head bobbed once. “Yes. Last time was over the summer, with Jill.” His voice faltered a bit on the utterance his ex-girlfriend’s name, though his face remained carefully composed. “We saw a new comedy... thought I can’t recall the name, now.”
Marty remembered his own experiences with drive-in movies on dates and smiled slyly... until he thought better of it and schooled the expression down to a more appropriate solemnness. “I’m sorry, Doc,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring that up today.”
Doc snorted softly. “It’s not as if she has died.”
“Well, it is the death of a relationship, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m sorry. Forget about her. Forget about girls. They’re nothing but trouble, right?” At the faintly confused look the inventor cast on him at the last bit, Marty elaborated a little. “You told me that the last time I got dumped.”
“Oh. Well, sounds like my future self had no better luck in that area, then.”
Marty smiled faintly at a sudden memory surfacing. “Actually, I think you mentioned something about looking into ‘the other great mystery of the universe’ after destroying the DeLorean.” At the completely baffled look Doc cast on him, the teen added, “Women, y’know?”
“Ah. Well, yes, I can definitely see my reasoning there. I wonder what the me of the future has in mind with such a study.... You’d better get changed,” Doc added abruptly. “I can get the time circuits warmed up and the vehicle prepped for departure on my own. I’m not sure how long we’ll have the luxury of solitude, and I would very much prefer to send the time machine off without any sort of audience.”
Marty couldn’t agree more. He hustled over to the men’s room -- labeled “Braves” in order to keep with the Indian-theme -- and found that the inventor’s guess had been correct; there was no door locked to bar entrance. Unafraid of someone walking in on him as he changed -- they had the place pretty much to themselves, and a visitor would have to pass by Doc to reach the restrooms -- Marty set the bags down on the floor near the sinks and eagerly dug into them. He was curious to see what Doc had selected for him. Maybe it would look just like one of Clint Eastwood’s outfits....
The smile on his face faded the moment he pulled out the first piece of the costume from the top box’s tissue paper. It was a shirt, in such a hideous, loud pink color that Marty actually cringed. The blue color from the chest up, as well as the tan-colored fringe and white pearl buttons, didn’t help. But what seemed to be the most obnoxious aspect was the decoration on the chest, shoulders, and cuffs, embroidered on the blue fabric, a design that resembled nothing less than exploding atoms.
This is the most tacky, Godawful thing I’ve ever seen! B-movie westerns would have better stuff!
Marty was almost afraid, now, to see what else Doc had selected. He pulled out the other articles with considerably less enthusiasm. Maroon colored pants trimmed in white piping; boots of the same color, with elaborate stitching all over; a belt with a buckle the size of his palm... and with a sunburst thing that actually spun; a brown bandana; and a blindingly white cowboy hat.
Maybe this will all look a lot better when it’s on me, Marty thought, trying to be optimistic.
After he changed, though, he wasn’t feeling any better; instead, he felt worse, and not just because the boots seemed to be a size too small. (After a minute of wearing them, he went back to his much more comfortable Nikes.) He looked ridiculous, more rodeo clown than tough gunslinger. Surely there had to be a mistake, here.
“The clothes fit?” Doc asked from outside, perhaps concerned by the long silence from within.
“Yeah, everything except the boots, Doc, they’re kinda tight,” Marty called back, picking up the painful footwear. He cast another look at his reflection in the mirror and grimaced. “I dunno, are you sure this stuff is authentic?”
“Of course!” Doc sounded beyond confident, and not the least offended by the question. “Haven’t you ever seen a western?”
Marty sighed as he headed out to face the world, taking the boots with him. “Yeah, I have, Doc,” he said as he left the restroom. “And Clint Eastwood never wore anything like this.”
Doc gave him a thoroughly blank look at the name as he came over from the DeLorean, pocketing a tire pressure gauge. “Clint who?”
Marty glanced back at the ancient movie posters tacked on the wall nearby, only then realizing that the scientist was justified in his confusion. “That’s right, you haven’t heard of him, yet,” he said, half to himself.
Doc didn’t seem to hear him, or care. “Marty, you have to wear the boots,” he said, stopping the teen as he headed for the waiting time machine. “You can’t wear those futuristic things in 1885. You shouldn’t even be wearing them here in 1955.”
The teen sighed inwardly, not looking forward at all to the idea of pinched toes and blisters. He looked at his sneakers a moment, then at the boots in hand. “All right, Doc, look, as soon as I get there, I’ll put them on -- I promise.”
If Doc doubted his sincerity in the vow, he didn’t say. “Okay. I think we’re about ready,” he added, darting ahead to the Packard. “I put gas in the tank. Your future clothes are packed.” He reached into the front of the Packard and pulled out the two way radios. “And, just in case, fresh batteries for you walkie-talkies.” He ran them over to the DeLorean a few feet away, opening the passenger door. “Oh,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “What about that floating device?”
“Hoverboard,” Marty supplied, reaching into the Packard to fish it out from the backseat.
“All right,” Doc said, dropping the walkie-talkies onto the passenger seat of the car as Marty brought the board over. The teen handed him the “floating device” and dumped the boots onto the seat next to the radios, then took a few steps away to peer at the barren, desolate landscape.
“You know, Doc, it’s gonna be a hell of a long walk back to Hill Valley from here,” he said, bringing up the point he had meant to earlier.
Doc closed the passenger door of the car. “It’s still the safest plan,” he said. “After all, we can’t risk sending you into a populated area -- or to a spot that’s geographically unknown. You don’t want to crash into some tree that once existed in the past.”
Or into a scarecrow and barn, Marty thought, remembering his first transit through time.
Doc turned and headed out towards the front of the drive-in screen. “This was all completely open country,” he explained, waving his arms around to emphasize the point. “So you’ll have plenty of run out space when you arrive. Remember where you’re going there are no roads. And there’s a small cave over there which will be a perfect place to hide the time vehicle,” he added, pointing to the left, past the snack bar building. Marty glanced in the direction, but couldn’t see anything; the fence was probably blocking it from view. He had to wonder, though, how Doc knew about a detail like that; maybe it was another Jill-related story.
The scientist turned around to regard the front of the DeLorean, running his hands around on the new device mounted on the hood of the car. “Well, the new time circuit control tubes are warmed up.” He headed for the driver’s door of the car before Marty could react, opening it up and dropping down to sit in the seat. “Time circuits on,” he said as Marty came over and leaned forward outside the car to watch. “I wrote the letter on September first, so we’ll send you back the very next day, September second -- that’s a Wednesday. September second, 1885, eight A.M.,” he rattled off, punching in the date as he spoke. “I got shot on Monday, the seventh, so you’ll have five days to locate me. According to the letter, I’m a blacksmith, so I probably have a shop somewhere.”
The inventor climbed out of the car and handed Marty the photograph they had swiped from the archives, of Doc posing with the clocktower clock, as well as the one of his tombstone. He turned and pointed to the movie screen. “All you have to do is drive the time vehicle directly towards that screen, accelerating to eighty-eight miles per hour!”
Marty didn’t like that idea so much, seeing a very immediate problem. “Wait a minute, Doc -- if I drive straight towards the screen, I’m gonna crash into those Indians.” He gestured to the elaborate mural of charging Pohatchee warriors painted underneath the movie screen.
Doc kind of smirked at the statement. “Marty, you’re not thinking fourth dimensionally,” he chided. “You’ll instantly be transported to 1885, and those Indians won’t even be there.”
Marty leaned to the left to peer past the scientist at the mural once more. “Right,” he said slowly, still unable to completely banish the feeling of disquiet. Maybe the clothes were still nagging at him, or it was just some pre-time travel jitters.
The inventor was once more oblivious to whatever thoughts were going through the teen’s head. “Well,” he said, clapping him gently on the shoulder. “Good luck -- for both of our sakes. See you in the future.”
Marty managed a smile in return. “You mean the past?”
Doc grinned. “Exactly!”
The teen turned towards the car, taking off his hat and stuffing the photographs into it for safekeeping. He tossed it onto the other loot on the passenger seat, climbed inside, and was reaching up to pull the door shut when Doc stopped him. “Wait, I almost forgot,” he said. “Here -- you might need this.”
Marty glanced at the object the inventor was holding out to him and frowned. It was a gun -- a real six shooter from the looks of it. For some reason the idea of taking it made him distinctly uncomfortable, never mind his showdown dreams. “No thanks,” he said honestly. “I don’t know if that would be such a great idea....”
“Firearms aren’t seen as they are now -- or may be in the future,” Doc warned. “They’re much more common in the past. Most men in 1885 will be armed -- it might be useful for your own protection.”
“Yeah -- but I’m just going back there to pick you up, remember? Why would I need a gun?” Unless you’re completely wrong about the clothes, that is... he added to himself.
Doc shrugged. “It’s your choice,” he said. “You sure you don’t want to bring it with you? Just in case?”
“No, I’m okay,” Marty said. He once more reached up to close the door, but the inventor stopped him again, a hand on his arm. The teen turned to look at him quizzically. Doc’s face was suddenly deadly serious.
“Marty -- I know I’ve cautioned you about interfering in events in the past... but if for some reason you fail, and I end up getting shot in the back...” Doc’s voice faltered a moment at the thought. “Get that son of a bitch who does it.”
The teen blinked, surprised at the request. It wasn’t entirely characteristic of Doc to seek out revenge -- but maybe the scientist Marty knew better in the future was past such petty things. Still, it wasn’t like Doc was trying to get back at some punk kids who pulled a prank on him. This was a matter of life and death -- and involved a Tannen no less.
Marty smiled at his friend’s concern, not worried about that fate coming to pass. “I won’t fail, Doc,” he promised.
The scientist stared at him a moment, then nodded once, managing his own faint smile in return. He stepped back, finally allowing Marty to close the door and start the car. After seventy years, the engine caught without a hitch. The teen revved it a moment, then shifted into reverse to back up for the maximum amount of room for acceleration. Doc stood off to the side, next to the snack bar.
“Ready, Marty?” he called out, loudly enough for the teen to hear him over the sound of the car.
“Ready!” Marty yelled back, wanting to get on with it, now.
Doc raised the gun he had offered him a moment before. The teen could see him mouth the word, “Set?” though he was unable to catch it from inside the DeLorean.
“Hi ho silver,” he muttered as he shifted the car into first gear.
The gun went off, the sound making him jump in spite of the anticipation. Marty floored it, still slightly uneasy about there being enough room to reach eighty-eight before hitting the Indians. His eyes darted between the digital speedometer and and windshield. Fifty... sixty... He passed Doc, who was shouting something the teen couldn’t quite catch, firing the gun once more. Seventy... seventy-five.... eighty..... eighty-five.... The mural was oh so close, now.
Eighty-eight! Marty thought, just as the number clicked over. For a split second he panicked; nothing was happening! But all doubt vaporized a moment later. Doc had done his job well; there was a brilliant, almost familiar, now, flash of white light.
Bye-bye ‘55, Marty thought as he was kicked back in time.
* * *
Emmett watched with a smile as the DeLorean vanished in an explosion of white-bright light. Fire trails raced towards the film screen, stopping just shy of the mural; a good thing, as the inventor didn’t want to be responsible for the destruction of the Pohatchee Drive-In. The sonic boom hit a moment later, echoing widely across the plain and nearby canyons, making Emmett’s hair stand on end. He stared out at the spot where the time machine vanished, watching the fire trail evidence burn itself out -- then sighed heavily.
The experiment was a complete success, as far as he was concerned. Marty was now in the past, saving the scientist’s neck -- or back, as the case may be -- from a bloody, violent ending.
So why did he feel so sad?
It didn’t take his PhD to see why. For a week and a half, now, Emmett had been blessed with a houseguest -- a friend. Never mind that this friend wasn’t his, per se, but during that time the inventor had gotten to like Marty McFly in his own right. It had been nice having someone around to talk to, as well, who didn’t grow bored or deride his fanatical ideas. And working on a real time machine, something he would someday create.... Well, nothing could compare to that!
Now, however, it was all over. Unless Marty found himself stuck in 1955 again. Emmett’s eyes darted around the deserted drive-in for a moment, but the place remained silent and still. There was no Marty running up to him this time, begging for help. It was over -- and that was probably a good thing. For Marty’s sake as well as the space-time continuum’s.
Emmett turned away from the screen, looking over at his toolbox nearby and the empty gas can next to that. All that remained for him now was a bit of housekeeping. Collecting the equipment up, the clothes Marty had left behind in the restroom, and driving back to his house. Copernicus would be there to meet him; the dog would probably be relieved to have his master’s undivided attention once more. Certainly he was one of the few beings around now that the scientist could count on. Especially since Jill’s ultimatum from the day before. He should simply resign himself to being alone, now, with only his dog for company. Animals were much less judgmental.
Yet perhaps that would change in his future.
A Beloved Clara, Emmett thought, recalling the tombstone’s inscription once more. Could it be possible? In my twilight years, could I really find a woman who was genuinely interested in me for me? Who stayed by my side even after my death, and cared enough about me to erect a lasting monument, proclaiming her loyalty and love?
It was an overwhelmingly tempting idea. He hadn’t wanted to think about it much yesterday, mostly because the wound from Jill was so fresh, and he had been eager to complete the repairs to the time machine for Marty. As much as he didn’t mind having the teen’s company around, he knew that Marty was eager to get on with it and go back home. Emmett could understand that, especially since it sounded as if the teen hadn’t had much of a choice in visiting 1955 each time. Circumstances far beyond his control had conspired to strand him there.
“Well,” Emmett said softly as he looked around. “I suppose time will tell who she is -- and what she is to me, and I to her.” He sighed again, wistful, wishing that the next thirty years were already past. “Maybe I do indeed solve the other great mystery of the universe -- eventually.”