Back to the Future by George Gipe Read Free Book Online Page A

if he would ever get anywhere in the recording business. After twenty minutes, he got up and walked to the desk near his bed. He picked up the submissions form with R & G RECORDS on the letterhead, read it over, and put it in the accompanying envelope along with his demo cassette.
    It’s worth a try, he thought. Just send it.
    And then another darker side of him hesitated. Send it for what? Another rejection? Spend postage just so he could live with hope for another few weeks before his bubble burst once more?
    Shrugging, he dropped the cassette and letter into the waste basket and fell back into bed. His mind, occupied with depressing thoughts, eventually released him into a deep sleep that ended shortly after midnight.
    Beep. Beep-beep.
    Marty shook his head and reached for the cordless telephone next to his bed. “Hello.”
    “You didn’t fall asleep, did you?” Doc Brown asked on the other end.
    “Uh, no. Course not.”
    “You sound like you just woke up.”
    “I was thinking,” Marty said. “What’s up? I don’t have to leave for a while yet.”
    “Uh-huh,” Brown replied. “I was just wondering. I forgot my video camera. Could you stop by my place and pick it up on your way to the mall?”
    “No problem, Doc. Key still in the same place?”
    “That’s right. Under the potted plant.”
    “That’s not a very good place,” Marty said. “First spot a burglar would look.”
    “I haven’t been robbed yet. Anyway, the place looks so junky. Nobody’d ever suspect there’s a billion dollars’ worth of research in there.”
    “O.K., Doc. I’ll see you in a half hour or so.”
    “Right.”
    Marty hung up, put his shoes back on, grabbed his jacket, the skateboard and his new Walkman, which he carried with him wherever he went. Then, retracing his steps to the bed, he shoved some extra pillows under the covers to make it seem as if a body were lying there, sound asleep. Even as he did it, he wondered why he bothered. This wasn’t, after all, a prison. The guards didn’t patrol every hour making a head count. But somehow it just seemed the thing to do when you were heading out of the house late at night.
    Whistling softly, he closed the door quietly behind him and tiptoed down the stairs.
    Letting himself out the front door, Marty walked a half block before putting down the skateboard and using it. He had discovered once, to his chagrin, how much noise they could make on a quiet evening. On that occasion, about two years ago, he had been sneaking out to meet the guys when his mother heard the sound and came after him in the car.
    There was no such repetition tonight. Safely out of earshot, he whirred quickly along the back streets and around corners until he approached the dilapidated garage that was Doc Brown’s place.
    The key was in place. Marty grabbed it, let himself in and flipped on the overhead light.
    He was halfway to the workbench where Doc kept his video equipment when a sudden cacophony caused him to jump in spite of himself. Set precisely, every clock with a way to announce the hour went off together—musical chimes, cuckoo sounds, digital beeps. For ten seconds, Marty stood still, listening until the last harbinger of the hour died away. A smile spread across his face, for he never tired of hearing this strange symphony arranged and orchestrated by the world’s most fanatical timekeeper, Doc Brown.
    “Must be one o’clock,” Marty said softly. As indeed it was.
    Moving quickly to the workbench, he located the video camera, put it in its carrying case, and skateboarded out of Doc Brown’s garage. Ten minutes later, he neared the two pine trees in a row which marked the entrance to the mall. As he turned the corner, he picked out the familiar step-van and coasted toward it. The atmosphere, lit by sodium vapor lamps shrouded in fine mist, was appropriately eerie for a major scientific experiment.
    “Doc,” Marty said as he neared the truck.
    There was no answer. Einstein, Doc’s