Back To The Future

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

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

? Chapter Seven ?

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

“Excellent!” he cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Peter Danforth,” Doc Brown said.

“No.”

“Evan Wentworth…Junior!”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Melvin Petrucci.”

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

“That’

s not good enough,” Doc Brown murmured.

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

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

“Yes!”

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

“No…”

“Colliers…”

“No. It’s—”