1925
The next second, Marty Jr. was seeing that the sky had magically turned from day to night. Not sure what had happened, he screamed and bumped into the tops of some trees, losing control of the train. He managed to steer and crash-land into an empty clearing in the forest. The boy stumbled out of the train and looked around. He had no idea where he was. He pushed on through the trees until they thinned into an open field. Just beyond, he could see the lights of a house. Suddenly, another light appeared in the darkness (Marty Jr. guessed it was a flashlight) and then a sudden gunshot. More shooting? Marty thought as he yelped and began to flee across the field, going wide and ignoring the shouts of a man as he made his way to a fence, scaled it and took off down the dirt road beyond.
Once he had determined he was safe, Marty Jr. continued along that dirt path. He walked all night, too frightened to even think about sleep. As the sky began to lighten, he saw a sign…that wasn't floating the way he thought it should. Planted firmly in the earth, it read, "Hill Valley, 1 mile."
Frowning, Marty Jr. continued until the skyline of the town could be seen. He stumbled around the town and was immediately in for several shocks. First of all, there were no flying cars. The cars looked ancient and had buttons for the horns! The museum was gone and in its place stood what looked like a schoolhouse. The 80s Cafe was still a cafe but looked very different. African Americans could be seen working the place. Marty Jr. soon found a newsstand and got a newspaper. The headlines and type never changed! Then, he looked at the date and almost fell over. The date on the paper read: October 25th, 1925.
90 years. The train time machine had propelled him nearly a century into the past! Hoping that he could find some more answers, Marty Jr. went into the cafe across the street. The bartender came up to him. "What'll it be?"
"Can I have a Pepsi Perfect?" The bartender looked at him curiously.
"What the hell is that?"
"Oh, um, I mean… I'll just have a Coca-Cola then." The bartender gave him another look before getting the drink. Then, he hollered to one of his workers. "Hey, Goldie! Clean that up right now, you stupid nigger!" A thin-framed African American man had just spilled a bucket of suds on the cafe floor. Marty Jr. blinked in shock at the sound of the racial slur and blurted out, "You can't say that word! It's a curse!"
The bartender spun to face him. "What, nigger? No it isn't! That's what we always say for those people!"
"Sorry, Mas'r Jim, sah," said Goldie. "Poor Goldie Wilson doesn't know where to put his feet, sah." Marty Jr. stared.
"But, you're Mayor Goldie Wilson's grandfather!" Goldie blinked, puzzled. "Who?" But before Marty could cover, Jim let out a bark of laughter.
"Mayor? Of Hill Valley? Whoever heard of a Negro mayor?" (This was, in fact, a valid question of the time, since the first African American elected as mayor of a significant U.S. city would not happen until the late 1960's). The slur angered Marty yet again.
"There are lots!" he spat. "Why, we even have a black President of the United States!" Jim hooted louder.
"A Negro President! That'll be the day! Son, I don't know what planet you're from, but here in reality, our President is a white, God-fearing Christian: Calvin Coolidge!"
Guess I really am in 1925, Marty Jr. thought as Jim walked into the back of the cafe, laughing and staring at him, amused. Goldie, meanwhile, approached the boy.
"You has better get out of here, young sah," he said. "You go talking about Nergo Mayors and Presidents like that, you liable to get lynched! Don't matter if you're white. Nigger lovers ain't welcome here."
Marty Jr. didn't say anything. Instead, he slipped out the front door and made his way down the street as calmly yet as quickly as possible. He didn't know where he was going to find any sort of help (he had already learned enough to get plenty of answers as to where and when he was), but help surely wouldn't come if he talked about things of the future. A sudden thought made him look down at himself. Not to mention these clothes! He must have looked like an alien to Jim and Goldie; no wonder Jim had wondered what planet he was from! That meant he would have to find some way to get a change of wardrobe. As he passed into a section of neighborhood, he looked up to see a young man perched in a tree. He had a pair of binoculars. The face looked strangely familiar….then it hit Marty Jr. like a bolt of lightning. He had seen an older version of that face only in photographs. It was his great-grandfather, Arthur McFly! He was probably 23 at this point. Following the young man's gaze, Marty Jr. saw he was observing a woman undressing. "He's a peeping Tom!" Suddenly, Arthur slipped and fell out of the tree and into the dirt road…where a Model T car was approaching!
"Great Pop!" Marty shouted and ran into the street, pushing his great-grandfather out of the way. The Model T made to swerve around the boys, but it was too late. Marty Jr. got hit and he fell back into the road, unconscious. Meanwhile, Arthur got to his feet and bolted before the driver could ask him questions.
Marty Jr. woke up in a dark room. He groaned and then heard rustling from somewhere in the darkness.
"Mom," he groaned.
"Sssh. Just lie quiet. You have a nasty bump on the head there," came a female voice. Still disoriented, Marty Jr. kept rambling.
"I dreamed I went back in time. This crazy old guy…Brown or something….he put me in this flying train and it took me back in time."
"Well, you're safe and sound now, back in good old 1925."
"1925?!" Marty Jr. sat bolt upright as a lamp turned on, illuminating the room. A woman sat before him, one whom Marty Jr. recognized instantly: Mum-Mum McFly!
"Oh my God! You're my…my…great-grand…ma…" he breathed. The girl did not pick up on this.
"My name's Sylvia. Sylvia Miskin. That's a real nasty bump you've got there, Ralph." She reached out to touch his forehead but Marty squirmed away.
"Ralph? Why are you calling me Ralph?" Sylvia blinked, confused.
"Well, that's your name, isn't it? Ralph Lauren? It's written in your polo shirt." She pointed to a garment draped over a chair in the corner of the room. That's when Marty realized and he dared to look under the covers. "Ahh! Why did you take my shirt off?!" he shrieked, starting to get creeped out. "Sorry, Ralph."
"Well, actually, people call me Marty." Just then, a voice called from downstairs.
"Sylvia? It's time for supper!"
"Ohh, that's my mother! Quick, put your shirt back on!" She threw it at him and before Marty could say anything else, she was out the door.
Following Sylvia downstairs, Marty met some of his maternal ancestors: his great-great grandmother and grandfather and Sylvia's siblings. He could still detect their Canadian accent, a sign of where they had previously lived. They had moved to Hill Valley a few years prior when Sylvia had begun attending college there; she had since graduated the previous spring. At the dinner table, the adults asked Marty Jr. questions, which Marty tried to field and lie so as not to reveal he was from the future. This was met with limited success, when at one point, Marty asked about directions to Riverside Drive. He had found an "Emmett Brown" in the phone book upstairs while getting dressed.
"Oh, sure," said Mr. Miskin. "It's on the other side of town, block past Oak."
I know where that is! Marty thought. Then, he remembered. "Wait, Oak? No, that's Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive." The Miskins stared at him.
"Who the hell is Franklin D. Roosevelt?" Mr. Miskin asked. Sylvia then tried to persuade her parents to let Marty spend the night. "And he can sleep in my room," she said, giving his leg a squeeze under the table. Marty leapt to his feet, grossed out by the fact that his great-grandmother clearly had a crush on him. He left and proceeded towards Riverside Drive.
When he got there, he found the Brown house…and with it, Dr. Emmett Brown. Or at least, an 11-year-old version of him. Marty Jr. tried to explain to the already-budding scientist that he was from the future.
"Now I cam here in a time machine that you invented. And I need your help to get me back to the year 2015." Emmett still did not believe him.
"Well, then, tell me, Future-Boy , who is the President of the United States in 2015?"
"Barack Obama."
"Barack Obama? Is that a Negro? And who's his Vice President? A woman?" Marty was about to give the correct answer (Joe Biden) but thought better of it and instead followed Emmett down to the barn that doubled as his lab, as the young scientist mocked him.
"And I suppose an Indian is the Secretary of State? And a Hispanic is the Secretary of the Treasury?"
"No, Doc, you don't understand!" Marty growled in frustration. Giving up, he grabbed Emmett when he came out of the lab and dragged him out of Hill Valley and back up the dirt road…
Marty Jr. showed Emmett the Time Train. The budding scientist was fascinated. After some examination, he seemed to figure out what was what, how it worked and believed that Marty Jr. was indeed from the future. He showed Marty Jr. the Flux Capacitor, which made Time Travel possible. Unfortunately, it was powered by steam and electricity and the Flux Capacitor was broken. Emmett said he could build a generator powerful enough to kick-start the Time Train, but it would need to be a big one. Until it was ready, Marty Jr. would have to stay in 1925. To this, Marty Jr. agreed, once he learned that the young Doc could make the generator in a week. I can last a week in 1925, the boy thought.
Marty Jr. soon found that harder than he had previously imagined. He could not shake Sylvia's obvious attraction to him, and any attempt to get her and Arthur to meet did not work. To make matters worse, Marty made enemies with Griff's ancestor, Kidd Tannen, who happened to want Sylvia's affections.
All of these problems culminated at the cafe after school one day in the middle of the week. Kidd was bullying Arthur for being in the cafe at all, and talking to Sylvia, no less (the latter of which had been at Marty Jr.'s urging). Enraged, Marty Jr. purposefully tripped Kidd as he walked by. When Kidd rounded on him, Marty Jr. found the courage he had seemed to never have when around Griff, and punched Kidd. Running from Kidd and his goonies, Marty Jr. whipped out his hoverboard and began to fly around the square, chased by Griff and the others in a Model T. Suddenly, Griff pinned Marty Jr. to the front bumper and sped up, intending to ram the boy into a manure truck just ahead. Thinking quickly, Marty used the rushing air coming from underneath the speeding car to propel his Hoverboard higher into the air than would normally be allowed. He flew right over the heads of Kidd and his gang, leaving them no time to avoid crashing headlong into the manure truck! Marty Jr. now had the attention of the entire of Hill Valley, and had only solidified Sylvia's admiration of him. This later became apparent when he discovered she had followed him back to Emmett's place and asked him to the Halloween school dance that Saturday night. Marty had no choice but to agree, as both he and Emmett knew the generator would not be ready before then. Though Marty begged Emmett to speed up the construction, it was not possible.
On Saturday night, Halloween 1925, Marty Jr. drove Sylvia in Emmett's father's Model T to the school dance. The last few days had been a flurry of activity, as Marty had come up with a plan to make his great-grandparents fall in love with each other once and for all. He would fake making advances on Sylvia, and then Arthur would come at a designated time and punch him, knocking him out. Sylvia would thus admire Arthur and fall in love with him.
However, not everything went as planned. Sylvia got herself drunk and then kissed Marty Jr. (much to his repulsion). Then, Kidd appeared and handed Marty over to his goons, who locked him in the car of the Negro band playing the dance that night. Meanwhile, Arthur arrived at the appointed time. Thinking the struggling in the car was Marty and Sylvia, he threw open the car door and told the occupants to "get your damn hands off" each other…only to discover that it was Kidd! Kidd threatened Arthur, but when Arthur refused to leave, Kidd put him in an arm lock. Summoning long overdue courage, Arthur used his free hand to punch Kidd square in the nose, knocking him out cold and saving Sylvia. Marty Jr. was freed from the trunk of the other car to discover that all of this had transpired and that his great-grandparents had fallen in love. After saying goodbye to them, he made his way back to forest that hid the Time Train, where Emmett waited with the generator. The generator fed steam and electricity into the flux capacitor, and Marty Jr. drove the train into the air. Speeding it up to 88 MPH, he waved goodbye to Emmett before disappearing back to 2015.
Back in the present, Marty Jr. returned slightly earlier than the time he had left. Leaving the train in a hidden area, he stole his father's hover car and drove to the outskirts of Hill Valley. He arrived just in time to see the Arabs approaching his other self, the other Time Train and Doc. He then hid his face and used the car to shield Doc from the bullets. In the confusion, he did not notice Doc fall down anyway and his other self escape in the Time Train, headed for 1925. When Marty Jr. found Doc, he realized that a bullet had still hit him, but had been deflected just enough so that the injury was not fatal. Marty had him healed at a nearby, automated doctor's office and then took Doc to the other hidden Time Train he had returned in. Introductions were made on both sides, and Doc did not seem fazed that he had mistaken Marty Jr. for his father, or that the former had been sent back nine decades. Then, Doc disappeared in the Time Train to times unknown.
The next morning, Marty was taking a walk around Hill Valley, when he suddenly saw the Time Train appear in the sky. It landed near him and Doc stumbled out, wearing freaky and flashy clothes.
"Jr.!" he cried. "You've gotta come back with me!"
"Where?"
"Back to the future!"
"But what happens to me in the future?"
"You turn out fine! Live a long and happy life! It's your great-grand kids, Jr.! Something has got to be done about them!"
The pair hustled into the train and it rose back into the air, stopping in front of a building.
"Wait, Doc, we're gonna have to go higher. We don't have enough sky to make it to 88!"
"Sky? Where we're going, we don't need sky!" And with that, the Time Train gathered speed. As it neared 88 (and the building), Marty Jr. saw a portal open up in front of them. He could only see darkness beyond. I have a bad feeling about this, he thought, as the Time Train whooshed into the portal and then disappeared in a flash of electricity and flame…