October 26th, 1985.

10:27 AM.

Sleeping silently as ever on this Saturday morning, Marty was awakened by his faithful Panasonic alarm clock, which was surprisingly loud for its small size.

"Tell me, mister, where are we goin' this time? Is this the freeway, or a country road at night? All I wanted to do was play my guitar and sing. So, take me away, I don't mind, but you gotta promise me I'll be back in time!"

The Huey Lewis song had been one of two he had written for the new Michael A. Fox movie called Fast Lane To The Moon, about a guy who had a friend with a car that could travel through space. They ended up stuck on the moon with a flat tire and had to get help from various life forms they ran into. Marty had gone to see the movie this past summer, and thought of how impossible and silly the premise seemed, but loved it, as well as the soundtrack.

"OK, Huey, thanks for gettin' me up. I got one more boring day to face now, unless I can get up to the lake. Maybe I could ask Doc," he thought out loud, as he slowly got up, combing his hair by hand.

Looking down, he had a sudden change of heart from last night. After dinner, he got depressed and threw away the envelope with his audition tape of he and the Pinheads' singing a few covers and an original. Now it was laying in his garbage can, but he hoped the future Doc visited last night wasn't based on him not sending the tape in. If it was, would his older self have remembered Doc went to the future and still turned it in himself? The mere idea of time travel hurt his already stressed and full brain. However, what was 100% for sure was that he was going to take it back out and mail it in at last.

With the envelope in hand, he made his way into the same dank living room he passed every day. It was clearly out-of-date with some ancient decorations and a couple old couches that had been sat on one too many times. Even the TV was old! Biff had 'borrowed' the family VCR a month earlier, watching rented movies here was out of the question, as well.

Amongst the mildly depressing surroundings made even worse by the daylight, he spotted his father quietly tidying up a few papers at the dining room table. Hearing footsteps, George looked up.

"Oh, hey son, did you sleep well?" he meekly asked.

"Morning, dad. Yeah, good enough I guess," Marty said a bit unhappily.

"Are you feeling okay, Marty? I realize you're upset about what happened yesterday, I suppose I can't blame you, but I didn't know of anything else I could've done, and I can't have Biff angry with me. I have to go drop these off at his apartment soon, too."

It was exactly what Marty thought he'd hear. If having his own car wrecked wouldn't make him act differently sbout Biff, it was hard for Marty to imagine what would. "I know he's kinda your boss, dad, but, he was drunk. Can't you get anything to be done about that? I mean, the madman coulda killed somebody, you know!"

George understood, but couldn't convince himself to do anything about it. "Well, yes, we know that he was, but the insurance company doesn't. If I tell them that, Biff would know about it, and I can't have that. If I don't say anything, they might ask some difficult questions, or hold me responsible since it was my car. I'll just have the body shop see what they can do about it, it's just easier to do things yourself that way and not cause a fuss."

"I know, dad, but the easiest answer isn't always the best one in the long run, right? He's gonna have to learn to back off someday. You don't want him to be bossing you around when you guys are 80 years old, do you?" Marty asked, thinking of how the future might turn out, after what Doc saw.

"I doubt if we'll still be working together then. But, if the car won't work, can't you get one of your other friends give you a ride to the campsite this evening?" he asked, thinking of one reason his son wanted the car so bad.

Remembering what the 'campsite' really was, he fibbed, "Yeah, maybe, I'll ask Chris' older brother. By the way, are you sure mom will be okay with not having her own car for awhile? Besides, how am I gonna ever borrow that?"

"I suppose we'll just have to work out a schedule or something, but it should only be temporary, I doubt it will be a problem."

At this moment, Lorraine overheard the conversation as she came into the living room. "Good morning, everyone. George, where were you going?"

"Oh, I just have to drop all this off at Biff's. I did some extra work for him as a favor, since he was pretty upset last night, you know."

"Okay, but let's hope he doesn't have to borrow this car, too. He better not, since that's the last one we have left!" she said hastily.

"He said he'd be at home most of the day. I think he got back from his friend, 3D's house already. I won't be gone too long, Lorraine. I just hope it doesn't get too hard with everybody wanting the car at the same time."

Sighing, she reassured him, "It won't be, George, it's just us that will have it. Dave can't legally drive until he passes that test, Linda got too many tickets, and there's no way Marty is taking it as a party on wheels for him and his rowdy friends."

So as to illustrate he heard what was said about him, Marty did an extended, make believe coughing sound as he moved closer.

"Yes, Martin McFly, you heard that correctly. Maybe your father wouldn't have had the courage to say you couldn't go out joyriding in his car, doing 'donuts', 'cruising for chicks' and playing that 'far out' Van Halen rock and roll music on the radio," she said, overemphasizing and making fun of the slang words. "But you can't in mine, young man! I worked too hard for that, back when I still had a job."

Marty shook his head in disgust over he clear exaggeration of anything he ever did. He was a safer driver than many of his peers, certainly not a wildman or anything. He couldn't control what the guys did, but he already had a girlfriend, so he didn't do that either. It was always like this, though. He could be responsible 9 times out of 10, yet his mom would take that other one time to endlessly rub in his face and make him feel guilty.

After a pause, Lorraine continued. "Next thing I know, you and Jennifer Parker will be going on a date up to the lake."

He almost had a heart attack at this moment. Does she know somehow? Marty wondered. Was it just an unlucky guess? Either way, I better be really careful.

"Hey, not to worry, mom. I'm not going to a party. The guys are just gonna meet up at camp, we're maybe gonna go have dinner or something, than some outdoorsy stuff, that's it. Chris and Alex are at home still, I can call their parents if you don't believe me," he said, obviously already a master at B.S. It was something he did since he was a little kid to get away with stuff.

Lightening her tone, Lorraine told him, "I suppose it's okay, dear. I just worry about you kids sometimes. You'll always be my little boy, no matter how manly or old you get. It's for your own good, Marty."

He hated hearing that line, but at least she didn't seem to be mad anymore. Wanting to leave anyway, he said something that was partially true. "Yeah, you could be right. Oh, by the way, I'll be back in awhile. Before I went away, Doc wanted me to help him out with fixing up his, uhh, new DeLorean. It had a mechanical problem."

"I don't know what a 65 year-old man is doing with a flashy sports car, but I guess that will be okay. Just don't be gone too long."

Getting ready to leave himself, George asked, "Do you need a ride out there, son? I know Biff lives downtown, and it's the opposite way from JFK, but if you don't mind me stopping there first."

Not really wanting to have to depend on his spineless dad for rides anymore, he still agreed. Besides, after looking death in the face last night, he realized how much he really did love his family, even if they were depressing and losers.

"Eh, Doc just said anytime before noon, so that could be okay, dad. I'm staying in the car, though, last guy on Earth I wanna see right now is him," he added with sarcasm.

Without saying a word, George still understood. Collecting his wife's keys, he headed out the front door with Marty following close behind.

"Marty, you promise to come back before you leave tonight, right?" called Lorraine.

"Yeah, I don't think that problem should take much over an hour to check out and fix. I'll be back before 1 o'clock."

Pushing open the screen door, he walked out into the sunlight, which was pretty bright for this time of year. George - dressed in a '50s looking gray long sleeved shirt and also out of date slacks - lifted up the garage door to reveal the sad remains of the Chevrolet that was fully operational less than a day ago.

With a mixture of sadness and anger at the sight, Marty groaned and crossed the garage, which was full of packed boxes that probably still had things in them from before the family had moved into the house in August of 1966, just before Linda's birth. Narrowly avoiding some shovels and picks fastened to the wall, he got in his mom's much newer looking (but even less cool) maroon Taurus station wagon.

Backing out of the driveway, George drove slow, so as to get used to Lorraine's car, which, even after 3 years of her owning it, he didn't really drive that much.

As they turned right, out of Lyon Estates, heading toward downtown, Marty just looked straight ahead or out the side window. He didn't really have too much interest in a ride with his old man, as was often the case, but he was now more thinking of how glad he was for him and Doc to come out of last night alive. He hoped Doc wouldn't be in more danger of another attack, though, after he knew about the clever plan with giving the terrorists pinball parts disguised as a bomb!

Somewhere along the way, George ended up breaking the silence. "What's there in the envelope? Is it your band's audition tape?"

"Yeah, I'm just gonna give it a shot. If nobody at the label thinks it's any good, it's not gonna feel very good, but that's life. How am I gonna know unless I do, right?"

"That's an idea. I'm surprised you would say that, though. If you don't mind my asking, what caused you to change your mind?" wondered George.

Of course he'd never say it, but the main reason he ultimately wanted to mail it in was so he wouldn't fear failure his whole life, much like his father beside him.

"It's, uh, Doc. He just has had so many things happen in his life that are worse than just some music, and he's gotten over 'em. I mean, a lot of people think he's crazy, he's all by himself, there's almost 50 years between us, but I ended up being his friend. I'm sure if someone went back in time to, like the day before we met and told him he was gonna have some 14 year-old as his best friend, he'd have never believed it, yet it happened," he said, using a partially true, newly discovered analogy.

"Heavy, huh?"

"Yes, I have to say when I first heard about your friendship, it's not something I would've thought either. But, that could've just been a lucky coincidence. What if you had met him under different circumstances and not ended up liking him because he didn't say something a certain way, you know? Those are just things I think could happen sometimes."

It wasn't hard to see how his father had ended up this way. Those weren't exactly uncommon fears, but to never take a chance at all would lead to a pretty boring life, Marty gathered.

"I know, that's what I think too, but I'll just have to see what they say. Who knows, somebody could like it, what if one of our songs get on the radio someday? I'll never know unless I send the tape in."

Before the conversation could continue, George had already turned onto Hill Street, near the Aerobics place, to park and go up to Biff's apartment to drop off yet another report only to have one more given to him without so much as a thank you from his jerk supervisor, Biff Tannen. That was bad enough without the car incident, and now having to pay for his dry cleaning too.

Double parking and taking a folder with him, George just said, "I'll be right back, son. Do you want to use that mailbox over there?"

Marty spotted it, also got out with his tape, praying for the best.