BACK TO THE PAST
Chapter Seven
When Doc came home later that day he found
out Jack and Rose had been in town, met their descendants, gotten mixed up with
a Tannen, and discovered the truth about the Titanic. But at this point he
dared not scold them even though they hadn’t listened to his very specific
orders; they were too distressed. They would have found out in due course
anyway.
And what made him think they would listen
anyway? He known them as a fun, but stubborn old couple and they were just as
obstinate as adolescents.
He let the two skulk around the house for day
and let them do what they pleased—which wasn’t much. They didn’t read, listen
to the radio, or watch the television, nothing; they barely even ate or talked.
One other thought plagued his mind as well.
What was he doing back in 1912? He knew he would build other time
machines (a nineteenth century train and now a sailboat.) And people thought
converting a DeLorean was weird. Jack and Rose had said they were on the boat.
What the hell was wrong with it? Were they stuck?
April 6, 1968
11:00 AM
Jack didn’t get a very good sleep the night
before, and the morning wasn’t looking very promising either. He did get in
about four solid hours and he would’ve slept longer if he hadn’t been shaken
out of bed.
"Jack!" said the voice ripping
through the room.
"Uh?" was his only response. His
raised his eyebrow over his one open eye and saw not the body that was now on
top of his, but a newspaper. He finally focused in on the word Memphis.
"Jack look at this!"
"Good morning."
"Look dammit!" Rose climbed off of
him and sat down next to him. "Read it." She handed him the paper.
Jack was puzzled by her excitement
considering what they went through the day before.
"What’s this?"
"Yesterday’s newspaper. I found out what
the big event was." He looked at her and she nodded insistently.
"This man is…was like no other I’ve ever known of."
He looked at the headline. Martin Luther King
Jr. Assassinated.
"Who’s that?"
"Read it! Read it!" He got through
the first paragraph when Rose ripped the paper out of his hands. "He was
brilliant! Just read his speeches." She flipped a few pages back.
"See they printed some of them here."
"Whoa, hold on a minute. You read the
article already, give me chance." He held out his hand for the paper and
she gave it up.
Rose hopped off the bed. "After you read
that come downstairs. Helga and Fabrizio came over to help with
breakfast."
"Haven’t you eaten yet? How long have
you been up?"
"Two hours, and yes, but I had Doc’s
cooking," she grimaced, "needless to say I’m still hungry." She
gave a big kiss on the cheek and skipped out of the room.
He started to read the article. Like Rose, he
became more enthusiastic about the subject as he read on. Jack came from a time
of racial tension and had lived in a world that wholeheartedly believed in
white supremacy. Jack never bought any of it. Ethnic background didn’t make a
person greater or lesser, it’s who you are. And anybody who thought that
it did was the lesser, lower person.
He was amazed that Rose had liked King’s
ideas so much. She had probably been taught that because she was white and that
she came from powerful family that she was the cream of the crop, but then
again she seemed to despise those kind of people too.
But it was true that no one of their
generation had come along that was that dedicated to racial and economic
justice and that was that successful and charismatic.
Now racial equality was a big issue, and
rightfully so he thought. Well, now they have a martyr, he thought.
And Rose was right, his speeches were
brilliant. One especially. They only printed a few, they all from a few years
earlier.
It made him angry too. A man that believed in
and promoted nonviolent demonstrations was killed by violence. Someone like
that comes along and some degenerate has to kill them. This one’s name was
James Earl Ray.
The words he spoke in his last address were
eerily prophetic: "Well, I don’t know what will happen now, but it really
doesn’t matter with me now. Because I have been to the mountaintop…I may not
get to the promised land with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as
people will."
*****
Breakfast that morning was interesting to say
the least. Before Jack came down Rose was berating Doc and the De Rossi’s with
questions like a small child. And after he came down Jack started to do the
same thing, but then fell silent.
It was the best damn pancake platter he’d had
in years…no it was the first pancake platter he’d had in years. The last
one he had was in Santa Monica when he was fifteen.
It was still hard to enjoy though, not
because of the Titanic sinking, not because of Martin Luther King dying, but
because he could not take his eyes off his best friend.
It was good old Fabri, emphasis on the old.
Same funny accent, same posture, facial expressions, same kind of humor…but it
was so strange.
He’d gone through most of puberty with this
guy…and not so long ago, especially for Jack. The only thing he didn’t miss
about home was the nickname "Babyface," and another nickname applying
to the story about his ice fishing accident, it named a certain part of the
body and what happens to it when gets very cold. Jack was one for details, but
he opted not to share that part of the tale with Rose. But he thought of
telling her about his famous nickname, if he couldn’t scare her out of jumping,
he’d try to make her laugh. Luckily for Jack, she decided to climb back over
sooner.
But Fabrizio, it was just too bizarre. He was
only older than Jack by five months. This is too strange. He reassured
himself that he’d get back home soon and he would see his friend again just as
he had left him.
Jack was brought out of his thoughts by Doc.
"So we’re all ready to send you two back
to 1912!" Jack dropped his fork. "I’ll go with you so there won’t be
any trouble this time. I’ve got everything under control."
"Jack we’re going home!"
"Get yourselves ready after breakfast
and don’t take anything out of the time machine, we don’t want to leave
anything that could cause problems behind."
*****
"What the hell happened here?" said
Rose.
The garage had been completely ransacked,
equipment overturned, windows broken, the DeLorean opened…
"Great Scott! Check the car make sure
nothing’s missing!" shouted Doc. Rose began to dig through the seats and
Doc opened up the hood to check there. Jack started to clean up, searching for
any clues.
"What was in here?" Rose called
from within the car.
"A portable cassette player with a
cassette, a baseball almanac for the years 1903 to 1993," he winced, why
had they left that in there? They should have known better, especially Marty.
It said ‘Happy Birthday Verne’ on the inside flap. Who was Verne? "an
empty can of Pepsi, a newspaper from the year 2001, a pair of mittens, and the
bag of old clothes."
"Doc what’s a cassette?" Rose
picked up the Pepsi and it dripped, she dropped it immediately. "Is this
Pepsi chemical lethal?" She asked looking at the strange container.
"No it’s a soft drink, like Coca-Cola.
And a cassette is like a vinyl record in that it plays music, it’s in a plastic
box which would be the cassette player and has head phones attached."
"Oh whew."
"They’re all there?"
"I think, hold on a minute…okay here’s
the cassette player with everything and the Pepsi can…the bag and the
mittens…oh here’s the newspaper and the…nope that’s it."
"The almanac is missing?!"
"I would guess so."
Jack spoke up. "Does this mean anything?
I found it by the door." He handed a business card to Doc.
Tannen Auto Detailing.
"Biff."
"What’s that?" asked Jack.
"Trouble. A hell of a lot of
trouble."
A knock came on the door.
"It’s your grandson! Cover the
DeLorean!"
They draped the cover over the DeLorean and
opened the door.
"Hey Gary." Said Jack.
"Hey guys, hey Doc. Listen, Rose, Jack,
me and Christine and some of our friends are having kind of an Anti-Pep Rally
get together tonight…that is if Tannen doesn’t crash it. Wanna come?"
Jack looked over at Doc and he nodded.
"Uh sure…count us in."
"Oh cool, we’re meeting outside the
courthouse, unless of course you want to go to actual pep rally?"
"Oh no, we’re not the uh pep rally
types." Said Jack having no clue what a pep rally was.
"All right then see you there. Well, I
gotta go."
"All right we’ll meet you by the
courthouse." Rose smiled.
"Later guys hope you like Hill Valley.
But I wouldn’t wear those clothes."
He left them with that.
"I like this dress!" huffed Rose.
"Let’s just hope Tannen crashes that
party." Said Doc.
"Why we would we want that to
happen?" asked Jack.
"Because Butch Tannen, is Biff Tannen’s
younger brother."
"What interesting names." Rose
mused.
"He’s no better than Butch. He once got
his hands on an almanac before and used it to make himself a millionaire,
altered the future…he’s seen the DeLorean before, if he got any reports from
his brother about you two he’ll know, after a series of incidents back in 1955
he got a little suspicious. It must be him! This a disaster!"
"I’ll try to get it myself, but if I
can’t I’ll give you his address just in case, we have to get that almanac back
no matter what."
"So we’ll steal it back from him."
Said Jack nonchalantly.
"You don’t know Biff Tannen. This isn’t
going to be easy."
"Lovely," sighed Rose, "just
lovely."
"Well, I like a challenge." Jack
said half-heartedly.
"You want to go back to you’re
time?"
"Yes." they said.
"Then we’re going to put our every
waking hour into getting that almanac."