“About what?”
“About college.”
“I’ll get to that. I’ve gotta introduce you first.”
“No,” Marty said, stopping at the edge of the sidewalk. “I’m not moving until you talk to him about college.”
“Sure…” George said hesitantly.
He walked over to his father, looked back over his shoulder at Marty. In order to make him feel more secure, Marty meandered toward the porch of the house so that he was out of George’s line of vision. He was actually closer around the corner of the house, however, and could hear the conversation quite clearly.
“Who’s your friend?” Arthur McFly asked.
“A new guy from school,” George replied. “Listen, Dad, I have an important decision to make and, well, I really need some advice.”
Only a C-plus beginning, Marty thought, although the bit about needing advice was probably good psychologically.
“Gee, son, I’m kinda busy here,” George’s father said. “Couldn’t it wait a few days?”
“Not really,” George replied. “You see, I’ve filled out an application for college and the deadline for sending it in is midnight tonight. I can’t decide whether I should send it in.”
Wrong, Marty thought, that makes it sound so wishywashy.
“Well, if you want my advice,” George’s father said, “I’d say no. College is hard, son. And there’s a lot of competition to get in. You’d be competing with the smartest kids in the state. Why would you want to put yourself through that kind of aggravation?”
“Well, I might get in,” George responded. The tone of his voice, however, was not brimming with confidence. “Son, you’re a longshot,” Arthur McFly said. “And most of the time longshots don’t work out. The chances of you getting into college are mighty slim.”
“Why?” George asked.
What a miserable counterpuncher you are, Marty fumed. Tell him you can do it.
“Why, son? Because you’ve never done anything like that before. You’re just kinda average. Now if you send this application in and get all excited about it, what’s gonna happen when they turn you down? I’ll tell you what: you’ll mope around the house, feeling rejected, and maybe your marks at school will suffer. If you want to know what I think, I suggest you go about your business and forget this whole thing.”
Instead of fighting back, George waited a long moment and then nodded. “Yeah, Dad, that makes sense,” Marty heard him say. “Thanks.”
It was too much for Marty. He sighed, put his head in his hands.
Meanwhile, Arthur McFly put the finishing touches to George’s ambitions with a rationale for failure disguised as homespun philosophy. “When you get to be my age, son,” he said, “you’ll realize that certain things just aren’t meant to be.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right,” George murmured. Marty started to walk away.
“What do you think of the car, son?” he heard Arthur McFly say.
“Looks pretty good, eh?”
“Looks real good, Dad…”
Simultaneously, a crack of thunder split the afternoon quiet and rain began to pour down. Marty broke into a fast trot.
“Good,” he said as he ran. “I hope the rain spoils his wax job.”
He was soaked by the time he arrived at Doc Brown’s garage laboratory but, underneath, Marty was still seething at the thought of George’s weakness. Doc had the Twin Pines Mall videotape running and was working on modifications to the DeLorean as Marty entered.
“How’d it go?” he asked, not looking up from his work.
“Terrible,” Marty sighed. “He’s just the same as when I knew him. A Milquetoast. He makes up his mind to do one thing and then gets talked out of it. But at least I’m starting to find out why.”
“Why the kid’s got no self-confidence?”