At that very moment, a car moving quickly around the corner headed directly at the young man’s body.
Marty had no time to yell a warning. Instinctively, he threw himself toward George, delivering a neat cross-body block that sent him free of the car. Marty himself was not so fortunate. Hitting the brakes, the driver swerved to avoid the two youngsters but succeeded only in missing George. There was a loud bump as the car’s fender struck Marty’s shoulder and head.
“Crazy kids!” the driver yelled, not in anger but in horror. “They didn’t give me a chance!”
He was nearly crying as he bent next to the young man who had saved the other’s life. “Please, God,” he prayed. “Let him be all right. I can’t afford to be sued.”
| | ● Chapter | |
| | Six ● | |
| | | |
The next thing Marty saw after the shiny car bumper was a soft white lacy pattern, slightly out of focus, falling away from a table top. He blinked, looked around at the bedroom he had never seen before. Far away, a wall was decorated with unfamiliar pictures and pennants; to their right was a window, through which an outside street lamp poured sharp and painful light. He closed his eyes again.
His head was cold and felt the pressure of something resting on it.
“I think he’s going to be all right,” he heard a soft feminine voice say. It was a familiar sound.
“Mom? Is that you?” Marty whispered.
Gentle hands moved the cold object against his forehead, touched his cheeks.
“Shh. Everything’s going to be all right.”
It was his mother. Marty opened his eyes despite the pain but all he could see was a silhouette. The voice had been unmistakable, though.
“God, what a terrible nightmare,” he said. “I dreamt I went back in time…”
“In time for what?” the voice asked.
It was his mother, all right. Always so comfortingly literal. Marty started to sit up, but leaned back again when he experienced a slightly dizzy sensation.
“Take it easy, now,” his mother said. “You’ve been asleep for almost nine hours. Better not hop right out of bed. Better to take it slowly.”
“It was terrible,” Marty continued. “It was a terrible place to be. The music was awful—they didn’t have Huey Lewis. Our neighborhood hadn’t even been built yet, except for our house. Everything was so weird looking and the people acted so strange.”
“I see…You dreamed you went back to another time.”
“Yeah.”
“How far back?”
“Thirty years.”
“All the way to the flapper days? That must have been interesting. But there’s no need to worry. You’re safe and sound, back where you belong, in good old 1955.”
“Nineteen fifty-five!”
Forgetting the discomfort, he sat up and turned on the bedside lamp.
“Oh, my God!” he said.
The young woman was the same one George McFly had been spying on. But that was only part of it.
“What is it?” she asked, concerned.
“You’re my . . . my m—” Marty began.
“Your what?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
His head fell back against the pillow.
“My name’s Lorraine,” the girl said. “Lorraine B—”
“Baines,” Marty continued.
She smiled. “How did you know that?”
He shrugged. “I get around,” he said cryptically.
Lorraine lifted the cold compress. “I’ll get you some new ice,” she said.
As she stood to leave, Marty released an involuntary gasp of surprise, causing her to eye him cautiously.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that sound for?”
“It’s just that you’re so thin,” Marty replied.
“Thanks, I guess,” she said. “I’ve always been on the thin side.” She patted her flat stomach. “You don’t think I’m too thin, do you?”
“No. It looks great,” Marty said sincerely.
“Thank you, Calvin,” she smiled.
“Calvin?”
“Yes. Isn’t that your name?”
“No.”
She frowned. “That’s funny. I was sure it was. Your name isn’t Calvin Klein?”
“No. It’s Marty.”
“Then why does your under—” She blushed, looked away.
Marty suddenly became aware of his pants folded across the chair in the opposite corner. Reaching down beneath the covers, he realized he was clad only in his underwear.
“We took your pants and shirt off when we put you in bed,” Lorraine said, a trifle embarrassed. “I’ve never seen purple underwear before, much less purple underwear with a man’s name written on it.”
“Oh,” Marty replied. “That isn’t my name. Calvin Klein is the name of the underwear manufacturer.”
“And your name’s Marty?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Marty,” she said, sitting next to him on the bed. Her attitude seemed different now, much less motherly, more seductive.
“And what’s your last name?” she smiled.
The word “McFly” formed on Marty’s lips, but he managed to avoid saying it. That would have been hard to explain, McFly being a rather uncommon name. Instead of trying to deal with that, Marty winced as if a sudden rush of pain had just struck him.
“Oh, you poor boy,” Lorraine whispered. She reached out to touch him but he moved away. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he said, exhaling softly as if the pain had passed.
“Is it O.K. for me to sit here?”
Marty gulped. “Uh, sure,” he replied. But even as he said it, he involuntarily moved as far away from her as he could without falling off the bed. He held the blanket tight around his waist, his eyes apprehensive. Lorraine continued to stare at him, fascinated, apparently oblivious of his nervousness.
“That’s quite a bruise there,” she said finally, reaching out to touch his forehead. Smiling weakly, he submitted, until she began running her fingers through his hair. When she started doing that, Marty found himself inching farther and farther away until—
Whump. Suddenly he was on the floor, stark naked except for his underwear. He reached for the blanket. Lorraine giggled naughtily.
“Lorraine! Are you up there?”
The voice was accompanied by the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs outside the bedroom.
“Yes, mother,” Lorraine said.
Grabbing Marty’s pants off the chair back, she tossed them at him. Lying on his back, he struggled into them as the steps came closer.
“How’s the patient?” Stella Baines asked as she entered the room. Then, looking around, she added:
“Where’s
the patient?”
Marty looked up over the edge of the bed. Stella Baines, forty, his grandmother-to-be, stared back at him. She was pregnant and looked terribly young. If Marty remembered correctly, she was carrying her last child, the one born after Uncle Joey the jailbird. She had the same pleasant eyes as when she was older, very pale blue and rather sad.
“Marty, this is my mother,” Lorraine said, tossing him his shirt.
He put it on from a sitting position. “How do you do?” he smiled.
“Feel up to having something to eat?”
Marty nodded.
“Then come on downstairs.”
Marty found his shoes, put them on and started out of the room after her. As they walked down the hall, Stella Baines regarded him with a half smile.
“So tell me, Marty, how long have you been with the circus?”
Marty could only stare. Lorraine made a sound that was half sigh, half snort of anger. “Mother,” she said. “How could you?”
“The circus?” Marty murmured. “I’m not with the circus. What do you mean?”
“Your clothes seem so unusual,” Stella remarked. “We thought perhaps you might be with a sideshow.”
Marty smiled and shrugged. The green shoes and shirt with U.S. Patent Office facsimile probably did seem unusual to people of 1955. Rather than explain that these clothes were normal wearing apparel of the ’80s, he said: “I guess I just like strange clothes, ma’am. Sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize. We were just a little curious, that’s all.”
They entered the living room, where four children and Sam Baines, Marty’s future grandfather, were relaxing. Sam, a gruff man of forty-five, stood next to the black-and-white television set, adjusting the rabbit ears. He didn’t look their way until the picture locked in.
“Sam, here’s the young man you hit with the car,” Stella said matter-of-factly. “Thank God he’s all right.”
“What were you doing in the middle of the street, a kid your age?” Sam asked coldly.
“He’d fallen—” Marty began. Then he decided not to say that his father had fallen out of a tree. That could lead to embarrassing revelations or at the very least, suspicion. “He’d fallen…in the road,” Marty continued. “There was this other kid. I rushed over to shove him out of the way. Didn’t you see him, sir?”
“Pa never sees anything when he’s driving,” Lorraine said.
“What are you talking about?” her father snapped. “I’m a damn good driver. But there’s nothing a good driver can do when kids jump out in front of him.”
“Especially when you’re going around the corner on two wheels,” Lorraine added.
“By the way,” Marty interjected. “What happened to that other boy?”
“He just got up and left,” Sam said.
“I guess he didn’t want to get involved,” Marty murmured, thinking how much like George McFly that was. “Anyways,” Sam said, turning once again to the rabbit ears, “pedestrians got no right to be fooling around in the middle of the street. Any judge’ll tell you that.”
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Stella said. “He’s just in one of his moods.” She started to lead Marty toward the dining room, calling back to Sam over her shoulder. “Quit fiddling with that thing. It’s time for dinner.”
Sam, studiously ignoring her, continued adjusting the rabbit ears until the picture was completely unwatchable.
The dining room was already half-filled with people. Seated at the table, ready to pitch in, were Milton, twelve, who was wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin cap; Sally, six; Toby, four; and in the playpen on the floor, eleven-month-old Joey.
Stella made the introductions. Marty was utterly fascinated, seeing his aunt and uncles looking so different. Joey, about to take the first steps in a long unlucky life, was rattling the bars of his playpen and salivating wildly. Marty looked at him, shook his head. So you’re my Uncle Joey, he thought; get used to those bars, kid.
“He seems to enjoy being there,” he said to Stella. “It’s like he belongs.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, unaware that Marty was being mildly sarcastic. “Little Joey loves being in his pen. He actually cries when we take him out. So we leave him there most of the time. It seems to make him happy and certainly quiets him down.”
He’s become institutionalized already, Marty thought, laughing inwardly.
“I hope you like meat loaf, Marty,” Stella said. Some things never change, Marty thought.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“Sit here, Marty,” Lorraine offered, pulling out the chair next to hers.
“Thanks.”
Marty sat, noting that the plate in front of him was already filled with meat loaf, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and macaroni and cheese. In fact, the dinner was an exact replica of the one he had eaten the night before in 1985.
Everybody pitched in, except Lorraine, who toyed with her food. Marty wondered when she had made the switch from finicky taster to eating machine.
As the family proceeded, Stella kept yelling instructions and criticism to everyone except Marty. “Milton, don’t eat so fast! Lorraine, you’re not eating enough. Have some mashed potatoes…Sally, don’t hold your fork like that. You look like somebody who just got off the pickle boat…Don’t push everything on the table, Toby…My Goodness…Sam, would you quit fiddling with that television set? Come in here and eat…”
Her husband had no intention of giving up television watching during dinner, however. Striding away from the living room set, he soon reappeared with a brand-new set on a plywood dolly.
“Look at is,” he announced proudly. “I made the dolly myself so we can roll it in the dining room and watch Jackie Gleason while we eat.”
“Oh, boy!” Milton exclaimed.
Mrs. Baines sighed wearily. About the only time she commanded attention was during dinner hour. Now Sam had found a way to take that away from her. But she was wise enough to know she couldn’t fight it.
Sam fiddled with the rabbit ears of the new set, finally managing to bring in a rather muddy image of a cigarette commercial.
Marty watched, fascinated, as a surgeon stepped out of an operating room, lit up a cigarette, and began speaking to the audience. “After facing the tension of doing three lung operations in a row, I like to relax by lighting up a Sir Walter Randolph. I know its fine tobacco taste will soothe my nerves and improve my circulation…”
‘That’s incredible!” Marty said, in spite of himself. He had never seen a television commercial advertising cigarettes and couldn’t quite comprehend the brazenness of it.
Sam Baines thought the young man was commenting on his excellent job of fine tuning. He beamed as he said: “Yep. Look at that picture…It’s crystal clear. You’re right, boy, it’s incredible all right.”
“I meant the cigarette commercial,” Marty replied.
“What’s so incredible about that?” Lorraine asked.
“The way the doctor is advertising it. Cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. How can he do lung operations and then puff a cigarette? It’s crazy!”
“Well,” Sam muttered. “They ain’t proved anything yet. Don’t see why a doctor can’t advertise cigarettes if he wants to.”
“Because it’s immoral.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Sam’s self-satisfied tone irritated Marty. “Well,” he said, “it’ll be outlawed someday. That’s how silly it is.”
The rest of the family, except those too young to comprehend, stared at Marty incredulously. To say that one day American television would be without cigarette commercials was like saying one day Christmas would be devoid of Santa Claus. Only Lorraine looked as if Marty’s statement had any possible merit.
“Well,” she said cautiously, “it may not happen, but I think it’s a good idea. Too many young people see those ads on TV and think it’s the smart thing to do.”