Taking Risks
"Still writing, I see."
George jumped, startled by Marty's voice in his ear, and snapped his notebook shut. "Yeah... uh, yeah."
"More sci-fi?" Marty grinned as he circled the wooden picnic table and sat across from George, still greatly amused by the novelty of his nervous, mousey future father writing science fiction stories that he didn't let anyone else read.
"Um, no." George blushed. "No, not this time." He hugged his precious story to his chest as Marty raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Not about aliens, George? You write about other things too?"
"Er..." George's eyes shifted anxiously to the side, as if looking for the nearest escape. Marty failed to notice this action.
"C'mon, George, let me read." Marty leaned across the tabletop, reaching for George's notebook, but the other boy held it behind his back, out of Marty's grasp. "Please?" Marty wheedled, giving George his best ingratiatingly sweet smile.
"No," George said firmly, leaning back to avoid Marty's grabby hands. He frowned. "Not this one."
"I'll bet it's good," Marty grinned, moving his tactics toward flattery. "What have you got to be afraid of? It's just me... what do you want me to do? Promise I won't laugh?" George stared at him, his eyes hard underneath his furrowed brow. Marty smoothed his face into a mask of seriousness. "Okay. I promise I won't laugh. Or even think about laughing." He lunged forward. "Now let me read it!"
In leaning even farther back to prevent Marty from getting his notebook, George tumbled backward off of the bench onto the grass. Marty jumped to his feet. "George?" He called, alarmed by the other boy's sudden disappearance behind the other side of the table. A vision of George with a cracked skull or a broken neck flashed before his eyes, and Marty's words became infused with panic for his own existence. "You okay?"
There was a moment of silence, during which Marty's heartbeat pounded ominously in his ears, and then he heard the distinct sound of someone blowing a raspberry. He ducked his head beneath the table and saw George on the other side, lying on his stomach with his arms wrapped possessively around his notebook. He flashed Marty a grin and taunted in a singsong, "You can't have it..."
Marty laughed, partly out of relief and partly out of surprise at his father's playfulness. George was usually irritatingly self-conscious and repressed, particularly when he knew other people were watching. Now he was lying in the brilliant green grass of Hill Valley Park, probably cultivating some nice stains that his mother would nag at him about when he got home. His hair was mussed and several locks had fallen across his forehead; a slight sheen of sweat glittered across the bridge of his nose in the early afternoon sun. And suddenly the gawky, pathetic dork Marty had seen being kicked at in the hallways of the school was completely gone. The slacker that Mr. Strickland saw every day had disappeared. The boy who bowed to every one of Biff Tannen's whims had left, and all that remained was a broad smile and flashing blue eyes that Marty suddenly wanted to show to the George McFly he'd left behind in 1985, as if to say, "Look at you. Look at how happy you could be."
Marty slid down between the bench and the table edge, dropping to his knees in the cool shade of the space beneath. He slipped to his belly like a snake and crawled forward slightly so that he could look George in the eye. "Comfortable?" George nodded and leaned forward with pursed lips.
"This probably looks really dumb," he whispered to Marty, his voice shaking slightly. But Marty just shrugged.
"Who cares?" He folded his arms on the ground and rested his chin atop them.
"I care," George said softly, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide. Marty decided that his mother was right: George did a very good impression of a little lost puppy dog. "I don't like being laughed at."
"So don't let them laugh at you." George shook his head.
"I don't want to look stupid."
"George…" Marty heaved a mighty, theatrical sigh. "You can't keep thinking like that! Life… life is all about taking risks." The thought of his demo tape pushed itself into the forefront of his mind, making Marty feel slightly ashamed for not following his own advice. "If you want to do anything worthwhile, you have to risk looking like a complete idiot."
"I do?" Marty nodded. George appeared to think about this for a moment, staring up at the sun and squinting in the light. Then, abruptly, he rose to his feet, brushed off the front of his slacks and squatted back down to peer at Marty, his notebook cradled delicately in the crook of one elbow. They locked eyes without speaking for a moment, both thinking difficult thoughts about their individual futures. And then George beamed. "Bet you can't catch me!"
Marty's eyes widened as George took off running across the smooth expanse of the park's center. He tugged himself out from under the table and stumbled to a standing position, his feet slipping slightly on a patch of dewy grass. However, he was a much faster runner than George, having had more practice trying to get to school on time, and quickly caught up to the other boy, occasionally reaching out to let his hands graze the material of George's jacket even as they weaved in and out of trees, bushes, and kids on scooters. They didn't stop until minutes later when several loose pieces of paper fluttered out of George's notebook to the ground. George stopped immediately to try to recover them before Marty, but he was too late; Marty had already grabbed them and raised them in triumph. George ran into Marty on his turnaround and both tumbled to the ground beside a large oak tree, slightly breathless.
"Yes!" Marty pumped one fist in the air as he sat up and crossed his legs Indian-style. He extended his arm holding the slightly crumpled papers as far out to the side as he possibly could to keep them from George, while placing his other hand on George's forehead, exerting enough force to keep him comfortably at bay.
"Marty!" George whined desperately, shaking the sweaty palm off of his head. "Please! I really mean it! Please don't read that!" But Marty had already begun to skim the papers, an unreadable expression on his face. He had caught his own name several times, buried within the even lines of handwritten text along with a few Georges and one or two Lorraines.
"This some sort of journal entry, George-buddy?" He laughed uneasily. When he realized that all protestations had ceased, he turned to look back at George; he found the other boy lying flat on his back with his legs slightly splayed and one arm thrown over his eyes. "Um... George?" George did nothing but groan softly in response and shift his arms so that both his hands covered his eyes. It vaguely reminded Marty of the "See no evil" monkey.
With an amused shrug, Marty turned back to the papers, letting his eyes fall on a stretch of dialogue cutting off hastily halfway down the page with a long scratch of the pen from when George had been startled. His eyes widened as he read.
When he was finished, he set the papers down on his lap and stared straight ahead. His stomach was twisted into knots and his head wasn't much better; he was still trying to comprehend exactly what George had chosen to put down onto paper. It had read almost like one of the romance novels his mother would sometimes buy to pass the time… except that in George's version his two starring characters were not Heathcliff and Desdemona, but Marty and George.
Marty had no idea what to make of this. It was bad enough having one parent unwittingly lusting after him while he was stuck in the past, but both of them? It was too much. A pang of guilt hit him and for a moment he wished he'd just respected George's wishes and given him back the stray pages without reading them.
But what really made him feel tight and nervous all over was that he wasn't completely disgusted by it. The very idea of his mother thinking about him in a romantic fashion made him break out in a cold sweat, but George having a little crush on him, while extremely odd in its own right, made him feel a little nervous and a little giddy. Perhaps it was because, in trying to get George to ask Lorraine to the dance, he'd found out more about him and had started to actually think of him as a real person, not just his wimpy dad in the past. Marty thought about this for a moment and decided it was as good an explanation as any he was going to get.
He glanced back down at the sentences written in tiny, meticulous handwriting, remembered what he himself had said no more than fifteen minutes before about taking risks, and began to read aloud in a voice soft enough that only George could hear. "'Wait!' George cried, catching Marty's wrist to keep him from walking away forever. 'There's something I've been wanting to say, but… I just don't think I can.'
Marty took a step forward, causing George to tremble with an exhilarating combination of excitement and fear. 'It's okay, George,' he said, his voice low and comforting. 'I know.' And then Marty—" Marty looked up. "'And then Marty' what, George?"
George sat up slowly with a sniffle, his eyes large and watery as he pointed avoided Marty's gaze. "Please don't make fun of me."
Marty leaned over the papers in his lap so that he and George were almost nose to nose. "Did Marty do this?" He asked gently and then, after a quick look to be sure there was nobody watching them, he surged up and touched his lips to George's, warm but chaste. They stayed that way for a very long moment and when Marty pulled back, George barely moved. With a little smile, Marty set George's papers atop his notebook. "Be sure to write that in, okay?" He stood and began to walk away, wondering absently whether he'd done absolutely the wrong thing in terms of George's sanity and his own future.
"Marty!" He turned when he heard his name and saw George standing seventy-five feet away where he had left him, clutching his notebook and papers to his chest again and waving goodbye. Marty raised his hand in return.
"Be ready for Saturday, George!" He called cheerfully, then murmured to himself. "It's going to be one hell of a night."