Chapter 3 – Future Boy in 1955
Lorraine vehemently refused to believe her eyes and ears as the next part of the video cut to a darkened room, showing Marty waking up and being tended to by a young woman nine hours later. George was still wrapping his head around the fact that his own son had been the mysterious Calvin Marty Klein. Although the discovery made so much sense, it wasn't any less shocking. Any parent would be surprised to find out that one of their own children was a time-traveler of all things. Now that he knew the truth, George was very curious to see Lorraine's initial interactions with their son. He imagined that meeting a version of his mother who was the same age as him had been extremely awkward for Marty, and that was without mentioning how Lorraine had felt about him. That was such a strange thing to think about, George mused.
Marty believed his time travel experiences had been a terrible nightmare, only for his mind to be snapped back to the reality of his situation when the young woman assured him he was "safe and sound back in good ol' 1955". As the young woman turned a lamp on, Marty stared at her in disbelief, almost immediately realizing she was his mother... but as an attractive teenager!
"I'm so young!" Lorraine exclaimed incredulously in her mind, while George was also amazed by the sight of his wife's teenage self.
After Teen-Lorraine introduced herself to Marty, George found his son's stammering amusing and had to wonder if Marty was tempted to call his own mother "hot".
Hearing her younger self call Marty 'Calvin' while acknowledging the bruise on his head made Lorraine flinch inwardly. The idea that her 'dreamboat' had been her own son all along was just so disturbing. For that reason, some denial remained as Lorraine stubbornly clung to the hope that the events in the video were an elaborate hallucination and she would wake up to realize it was all a dream.
Noticing that he was in his underwear, Marty asked for his pants and Teen-Lorraine replied they were on her hope chest before telling him she'd never seen purple underwear before.
"Oh, my God, it is true! I had a crush on my own son without realizing it!" Lorraine mentally cried out. As much as she still wanted to remain in denial, it made too much sense.
As Marty wondered why Teen-Lorraine kept calling him 'Calvin', she replied that his name 'Calvin Klein' was "written all over your underwear".
It was in that moment Lorraine would've fainted from shock if not for the advanced trance-like state she was in. As it turned out, she had mistakenly believed that Marty's name was 'Calvin Klein' simply because it was the brand of his underwear. She recalled her brief flashback while buying underwear for Marty, especially when she'd seen the purple ones. At the time, she had written it off as a coincidence, but now... putting two and two together... not only did it explain why kissing Calvin, or Marty, felt like kissing her brother, but she recalled that Marty hadn't seemed as romantically invested in her as she was with him.
Meanwhile, George was stunned and amused at the same time by the realization that his wife only assumed their future son's name was 'Calvin Klein' due to his underwear. Speaking of the underwear, he wondered why Lorraine had taken Marty's pants off while he was asleep. Was it to make him more comfortable? Was it to check for possible injuries? Or had Lorraine taken her future son's pants off for a more... naughty reason? Hmmm... in any case, George had ample ammunition to use against Lorraine should she bring up his little 'peeping Tom' episode.
"Pleased to meet you Calvin... Marty... Klein," Teen-Lorraine said, sitting next to Marty on her bed.
The current Lorraine and George noticed how uncomfortable their poor son clearly was. Neither could blame Marty. If only Lorraine had known then what she knew now.
As Teen-Lorraine reached for the bruise on his head, Marty backed away from her, falling off the bed and on the floor. The current Lorraine felt bad for her son and ashamed of her teenage self's lustful behavior towards him.
Teen-Lorraine's mother, Stella, called her from downstairs and Lorraine was alarmed, urging Marty to put his pants back on. George noted amusingly that his wife's younger self was already coming onto their future son pretty strong even though she'd just met Marty. He could only imagine what must've been going through Marty's head the whole time Lorraine had been infatuated with him.
The video shifted to Stella leading Marty and Teen-Lorraine downstairs as Stella presumed that Marty was a sailor due to the 'life preserver' he was wearing. In hindsight, George and Lorraine found the comments referring to Marty's signature vest as a 'life preserver' quite funny. It was comforting knowing that, in a strange way, their old friend 'Calvin' hadn't met a tragic fate after all. He was technically still alive... as their son. Given the extraordinary situation, the McFly couple realized they couldn't blame Doc Brown for the fabricated tale about Calvin's demise.
Stella introduced Marty to her husband, who scolded the teenager for being in the middle of the street as Stella told Marty to pay no attention to Sam's harsh attitude.
"He was saving me your car, that's what he was doing," George mentally answered his father-in-law's question.
"Typical Dad," Lorraine mused about her father's verbal treatment of Marty.
Stella introduced Marty to the rest of her children: Milton, Sally, Toby, and Joey, the last of whom was in his playpen. The scene made Lorraine feel like she was reliving her youth, especially seeing her siblings as children all over again. George, too, felt quite a bit of nostalgia from the scene.
"So you're my Uncle Joey. Better get used to these bars, kid."
"Aww, he's so cute," Lorraine thought at the sight of her baby brother. However, she didn't appreciate Marty's remark towards little Joey. At that point, Joey was a just an innocent toddler who wasn't guilty of anything yet.
Stella telling Marty that Joey loved being in his playpen reminded George and Lorraine of Joey's eventual imprisonment. The thought made Lorraine, in particular, feel sad and wish there was something more she and her family could've done to prevent Joey from getting into what had led to his troubles. All she could do was keeping hoping her baby brother would one day catch a break by making parole.
As Stella offered him meatloaf, Marty was ready to go, but Teen-Lorraine urged him to sit next to her.
"All I did that evening and the following week up until the dance was make my poor boy so uncomfortable," the current Lorraine mentally noted with shame. The mother of Marty was surprised she had begun to accept the truth that the video revealed to her.
While the Baines family watched The Honeymooners, Teen-Lorraine told Marty it was her family's first television set and wondered if he had one. Marty replied that they had two television sets, which amazed Milton, who commented that Marty was rich, while Stella believed Marty was joking since no one could afford two television sets.
"Not yet," George mused.
If they could, George and Lorraine would've laughed at Marty throwing a glance at Teen-Lorraine after Stella noted that Marty looked familiar and wondered if she knew his mother.
"She definitely knows me," Lorraine thought.
Stella suggested giving Marty's mother a call, only for Marty to reply that no one was home yet.
"That's a huge understatement," George noted.
Marty inquired about the location of Riverside Drive and Sam told him it was "on the other end of town, a block past maple". As Marty realized that was John F. Kennedy Drive, Sam asked, "Who the hell is John F. Kennedy?"
George and Lorraine would've laughed at that too if they could. It was like they were watching a movie and their son was the star.
Teen-Lorraine suggested to her mother that Marty could stay with them while his parents were out of town. Stella agreed, saying that Marty was their responsibility. That made sense far more sense than Stella realized, George and the current Lorraine noted, since Marty was her future grandson.
"And he can sleep in my room," Teen-Lorraine added, grabbing Marty's thigh.
The current Lorraine cringed inwardly at her younger self's gesture.
Marty abruptly got up, ready to go as he thanked everyone and said he would see them all later. "Much later," the teenager added under his breath before he left the house.
"Way to go, Lorraine, for scaring off our son," George thought. He always knew that his wife's feelings for who they thought was 'Calvin Klein' had been intense, but it appeared in the video that she was starting to push boundaries with Marty.
"Great, I scared him off," Lorraine mused with sympathy towards her son.
As Stella remarked that Marty was a strange young man, Sam firmly stated, "He's an idiot. Comes from upbringing. His parents are probably idiots too."
George and Lorraine mentally frowned at that.
"Lorraine, you ever have a kid who acts that way, I'll disown you."
"Little did he know," George thought about Sam's statement to his own daughter.
Lorraine had always known that her father never truly meant what he'd told her. While her father had always been quite strict, despite his rough exterior, he loved her as dearly as Lorraine did her own three children.
The video shifted to Marty arriving at Doc Brown's mansion. George and Lorraine were amazed to see it again after so many years. They had visited the mansion multiple times before it was, unfortunately, burned down back in 1962. How was Marty going to explain his time travel situation to Doc? Would Doc eventually believe him? The McFly couple was ready to see how the encounter between their son and the younger version of his inventor friend would play out.
After Marty knocked on the door, Doc Brown opened it and took Marty into his mansion, instructing the teenager to not say a word. George and Lorraine were taken aback by Doc's abrupt gesture. If they didn't know the inventor, the McFly couple would've been concerned for Marty's well-being. Actually, a part of them did worry a bit, considering Doc's unorthodox tendencies and the strange metallic contraption on his head. Overall, Marty's parents were confident that their son would be in safe hands, even if the Doc in the video had never met him.
Marty tried to get Doc's attention, but Doc insisted he didn't want to know anything about the teenager and stuck a suction cup on Marty's forehead, intending to read his thoughts. The last bit made George and Lorraine briefly question Doc's sanity, but then they remembered he was the same scientist who had built a time machine... into a sports car of all things. With that in mind, was a mind-reading device that farfetched? George, in particular, wondered that.
"Let's see now, you come here from a great distance?" Doc deduced to Marty.
Thirty years in the future was definitely a great distance, George and Lorraine both noted. Did that mean Doc Brown's device actually worked, at least to some extent?
After Doc made two more deductions about subscriptions and donations, Marty removed the suction cup from his forehead. "Doc, I'm from the future. I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now I need your help to get back to the year 1985."
George and Lorraine figured it wasn't going to be quite simple for their son to convince Doc of the truth. They were proven right when Doc's response was one of frustration, believing Marty's claim was the result of his mind-reading device not working properly. Marty showed Doc his driver's license, specifically the expiration year of 1987 and his date of birth. Marty then showed Doc a photograph of himself, Dave, and Linda, pointing out his sister's sweatshirt that read 'Class of '84'.
George and Lorraine recognized the photo of their children, though there were some notable differences. While Marty looked exactly the same, Linda was wearing glasses (just like in the alternate version of their lives that was shown earlier) and Dave's clothes looked unusually tacky. There was also something off about Dave's hair.
After Doc dismissed the photo as a fakery, the inventor asked Marty who was president of the United States in 1985. As Marty answered "Ronald Regan", Doc laughed it off as a joke and sarcastically asked if Jerry Lewis was vice president. Marty then followed Doc outside to the latter's garage. Marty desperately tried to get the inventor to listen to him as Doc sarcastically remarked, "I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady. And Jack Benny is the secretary of the treasury!"
George and Lorraine found the Doc's comments quite hilarious. The inventor wasn't as bad as certain others thought of him. He was well-intentioned, but simply misunderstood.
"I've had enough practical jokes for one evening. Good night, future boy!"
As Doc shut the garage door, Marty mentioned the bruise on the former's head and recounted the same story that Doc's future self had told him.
"This oughta convince him," George thought confidently.
"Hopefully, Doc believes Marty," Lorraine thought at the same time.
"And that's when you came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible," Marty concluded, before the door swung open as Doc stared at Marty in astonishment.
"I knew it would work," George mused as he and Lorraine felt a sense of hope for their son.
The video shifted to the future site of Lyon Estates as Marty showed Doc where he had hidden the DeLorean. George and Lorraine were glad that Marty had approached Doc after his incident. Otherwise, it would've been even harder for Marty to convince Doc that he was from the future.
The McFly couple recognized the drawing of the flux capacitor as Doc showed it to Marty. As Marty turned the flux capacitor in the DeLorean on, Doc was enthusiastic over finally inventing something that worked. George and Lorraine, while amused, didn't blame the Doc for his intense reaction. Who wouldn't be excited by the discovery that you would one day invent time travel?
The video shifted to the inside of Doc's garage, showing Marty setting up the filmed video of the time travel experiment on a television, while Doc examined the DeLorean, which was parked inside, and curiously looked at the items in his future self's luggage. The main question on George and Lorraine's minds was how exactly would Doc get Marty home, since Plutonium was even harder to obtain back in the fifties than it was in the eighties. They just knew it was going to be quite a challenging task.
George and Lorraine felt like laughing at Doc's "don't they have towels in the future" and "disposable paper garment" comments while he was observing his older self's hair dryer and underwear. The McFly couple was taken by surprise when Doc ogled a Playboy magazine while remarking that the future suddenly looked a whole lot better. It turned out that even a genius scientist like Dr. Emmett Brown wasn't necessarily immune to certain human desires.
As Marty finally got the video camera hooked up to the television, he and Doc watched the footage of the latter's future counterpart introducing himself at Twin Pines Mall. Marty fast-forwarded the footage to the part where 1985 Doc explained that the time machine required 1.21 gigawatts to operate. The Doc Brown of 1955 freaked out in utter disbelief and ran out of the garage, while Marty went after him. Back in the mansion, Marty pointed out they only needed "a little Plutonium", only for Doc to respond with "I'm sure that, in 1985, Plutonium is available in every corner drug store, but in 1955, it's a little hard to come by".
That certainly would not have been a good idea, George and Lorraine mused in regard to the first part of Doc's statement.
"Marty, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here," Doc told the teenager apologetically.
Lorraine shuddered at that possibility, while George simply remained curious about whatever solution his son and the scientist would come up with.
"I can't be stuck here," Marty protested in the video. "I got a life in 1985. I got a girl."
"Such a sweet girl he has," Lorraine thought fondly. "Poor Jennifer would certainly miss Marty if he could never return home. And so would we."
Hearing the desperation in Marty's voice as he told Doc "you're my only hope" increased the amount of sympathy George and Lorraine felt for their son. Neither of them wanted to think about what would've happened if their son had disappeared through time and never came back. Granted, even if Marty was to get stuck in 1955, he would still be around in the present, but would be the same age as George and Lorraine, meaning their relationship with him would no longer be the same even if they knew the truth.
Doc sympathized with Marty, stating that only a bolt of lightning was capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, but, unfortunately, no one knew when or where it would ever strike.
George and Lorraine suddenly thought about the famous thunderstorm that happened on the night of their school dance. In the video, their son was thinking the same thing as Marty handed Doc the Clock Tower flyer. "This is it!" Doc exclaimed, eagerly. "This is the answer! It says here that a bolt of lightning is gonna strike the Clock Tower at precisely 10:04pm next Saturday night!"
But how on Earth would it be possible to get a lightning bolt, let alone the one that struck the Clock Tower, into a time-traveling car? The idea seemed highly far-fetched, if not outright impossible, but George and Lorraine trusted that Doc would do everything he possibly could to help their Marty get back to his proper place in time. Anyone who put their mind to it could accomplish anything.
Doc explained to Marty that the idea could work if they somehow harnessed or channeled the lightning into the flux capacitor. "Next Saturday night, we're sending you back... to the future!"
George and Lorraine yet again found themselves entertained by Doc's antics. It made sense why Marty was so fond of him. Doc was quite melodramatic, but in a fun and engaging way.
Marty suggested that Doc could show him around while he was in 1955, only for Doc to insist that Marty must not leave the mansion or talk to anyone, since the teenager's actions could have serious repercussions on future events.
George and Lorraine couldn't deny that Doc had a valid point. From their understanding, time travel was not without potential consequences and, thus, had to be used very responsibly. They didn't even want to imagine what would happen if someone with ill intentions got their hands on a time machine.
When Doc asked if Marty had interacted with anyone else since his arrival, Marty admitted to bumping into his parents, causing Doc to become alarmed. They took another look at Marty's photo with him and his siblings. Dave's head was missing!
George and Lorraine were stunned. That was odd. What happened to their eldest child's head? It was gone. Not scratched off the photo, but gone! Like it was never there in the first place!
"It's like it's been erased," Marty noted about his brother's missing head.
"Erased from existence," Doc whispered, exchanging a grim look with the teenager.
Erased from existence? George and Lorraine definitely did not like the sound of that. What was going on? Why was their eldest being erased from the photo? Did it have anything to do with their youngest being in 1955? They had an unsettling feeling about whatever may be happening.
The video shifted to Marty and Doc arriving at Hill Valley High as the former was amazed by how clean and brand-new the school looked. "Now remember, according to my theory, you interfered with your parents' first meeting," Doc said to Marty. "If they don't meet, they won't fall in love, they won't get married, and they won't have kids. That's why your older brother's disappearing from that photograph. Your sister will follow, and unless you repair the damage, you'll be next."
But what had Marty done that caused him, Linda, and Dave to be in danger of getting erased from existence? That was what George and Lorraine wondered until it suddenly hit them. Earlier, the video had shown them a different version of their lives, where George was still a pushover and bullied by Biff in adulthood, while Lorraine had become a depressed alcoholic who was clearly miserable with her life. Lorraine shuddered at the thought of her on-screen counterpart and felt even more appreciative of all the things, especially her wonderful family, she had in her actual life. She and George recalled that the circumstances leading to them getting together had been different in that alternate reality – specifically, according to Video-Lorraine's story, Video-George had been hit by her father's car instead of Marty. The McFly couple wondered if Marty, by saving George, had actually changed the course of their lives. If so, it was apparently for the best, since, had Marty not been there, George would've been hit, he never would've gained his confidence, and his and Lorraine's present-day lives probably would've turned out like in the video earlier. That gave George one more thing to thank Marty for.
The scene shifted to inside the school, showing Marty and Doc observing Teen-Lorraine from outside her classroom. Marty was surprised to find his teenage mother cheating on another student's test. The current Lorraine felt a round of shame towards her younger self's action, but it was in the past now and she had grown into a considerably wiser person since her high school days.
"I ended up getting an F anyway," Lorraine mused, seconds before her younger self in the video remarked the same thing to her friends.
"What a sneaky woman I've married," George mentally thought in amusement.
The next part of the video showed Marty and Doc observing Teen-George, who got kicked in the back by several students before his books fell to the floor.
"Oh, George," Lorraine thought with sympathy towards her husband's younger self.
"Thankfully, all of this comes to an end," George mused sheepishly.
As Strickland reprimanded Teen-George, Lorraine found it unfair that the principal was quick to call out her husband for something that wasn't even his fault, while ignoring the bullies who were harassing him. George, the current version, couldn't deny that Strickland did have a point in that he needed to "shape up". However, letting the other students get away with their crap while scolding the victim was uncalled for on Strickland's part.
As Doc wondered what Lorraine ever saw in George, Marty pointed out his mother felt sorry for his father because Lorraine's father hit George with the car, which Doc explained was the Florence Nightingale Effect.
"I see a lot of things in George," Lorraine thought affectionately in response to Doc's question to Marty. "He's cute, smart, kind, strong, and an all-around great husband who loves me just as I love him and gave us three beautiful children."
"It's a good thing Marty traveled back in time," George mused. "Otherwise, I would've still been every bit the pushover that I was back then, letting no-good bullies Biff and others step over me like nothing. In a way, the son was the father and the father was the son it turned out."
As Doc urged him to "go to it", Marty helped George pick up the latter's belongings and introduced him to Lorraine, who was clearly in love with 'Calvin' and concerned about his well-being while she ignored George's attempt to talk to her.
"I forgot how very humiliating that was," George mused.
"Poor George," Lorraine thought with a mix of sympathy and remorse. "He was already having a not-so-good day with those students kicking him, and now I completely ignored him like he wasn't there."
As the school bell rang, Lorraine headed to class with her friends, gushing over 'Calvin' being a dreamboat. Marty noted that his mother hadn't even looked at his father, while Doc pointed out, to Marty's shock, that the future teenager's mother was amorously infatuated with her own son.
"The fact that I was so in love with Marty must've made it even more difficult for him to get me and George together," Lorraine realized regretfully. "This is so much to process."
George mentally chuckled at Doc's remark about there being a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull in response to Marty's usual "this is heavy" complaint.
As Doc suggested that Marty must get his parents alone in order for them to successfully mate, Marty wondered what kids did in the fifties and Doc questioned George and Lorraine's common interests.
"We enjoy doing many things together," the McFly couple thought in unison as they were briefly confused by Marty responding with "nothing".
As Doc noticed a poster for the upcoming 'Enchantment Under the Sea' dance, Marty realized that was where his parents were supposed to kiss for the first time. Doc instructed Marty to "stick to your father like glue and make sure he takes her to the dance".
George and Lorraine wondered if the video would show the dance. They really hoped so, since revisiting the most unforgettable night of their lives would certainly be a magical experience.