One to Two in Time
Jan. 19th, 2012 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethanys_hexTitle: One to Two in Time
Summary: Yet another stereotypical Marty first meets Doc story. It's the summer of nineteen eighty. Marty McFly is twelve going on a hundred and his gang are doing a dare-fest that will lead him straight to the door of Crazy Ol' Doc Brown.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: WIP
“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
Two can be as bad as one,
it’s the loneliest number since number one.”
Three Dog Night.
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
Dozens of adolescent voices sang out across the play ground, gaining pitch and volume with each second. Boys and girls dropped their basketballs, jumped off swings and ran for the growing circle of shouting students. Several boys climbed up the chain link fence and started rattling it in encouragement. Their zeal was broken only seconds later as one of the fighters crashed headlong into the fence and knocked the other kids off their perch.
Marty McFly bounced off the fence like a boxer in the ring and flew at Stinky McGuilly in a head on tackle. He slammed the other kid into the asphalt and the two grappled on the ground trying to get in the first punch, egged on by the surrounding cheers and screams for blood.
McGuilly took a couple fists in the nose, and then wormed an arm around the back of Mcfly’s neck. Marty found his face pushed into the object of Stinky’s nickname, a sweaty armpit putrid enough to wilt sour grass, and gagged audibly. Stinky pummeled his ribs a few times before he wiggled out of the hold and slammed his knee into McGuilly’s stomach. The other kid groaned and rolled over on the ground.
Marty was on him in a second and slamming his enemy’s head into the pavement. He had his fist raised to exact his final and just revenge when the back of his shirt was snatched from behind. His fist swung down on air as he was dragged bodily away from the now cowering Stinky by a balding man with a severe frown.
A small part of his mind recognized the man as Mr. Strickland and wondered what bad luck had him visiting Hill Valley Elementary; but most of his brain was occupied by the surmounting space imposed between him and the McGuilly kid. His collar stretched into a thin line against his throat, nearly gagging him as he strained to reach his enemy who was being hauled to his feet in Mr. Strickland’s other hand and kept well out of arms reach.
A hush spread through the crowd, and Strickland looked out over the heads of suddenly silent children. He scanned each face for a sign of insubordination, one hint of a giggle, one whisper of scorn, and when all was quiet he turned on the two slackers in his grasp.
“Who started this?” Strickland demanded, his voice echoing off empty basketball courts. No one in the crowd raised a voice, and the two opponents were too busy glaring at each other in hatred to pay attention. The pattering of dress shoes sounded over the pavement and the long stringy form of Hill Valley Elementary’s principle reached them. Once more a minute late and a dollar short, Marty thought with disgust and sneered at Stinky as the kid wiped a hand across his dirty nose.
“Who was it?” Strickland shouted again, this time shaking the two early delinquents in his grip. Neither boy answered. Stinky spat a blob of snot and blood in Marty’s direction and muttered something about chickens. Marty lunged forward with renewed vigor, shouting obscenities that would make his mother seizure if she heard them coming from his mouth. Strickland gave him a violent jerk on the collar to stop the stream of cursing, and rounded on their Principle who was adjusting his undone tie.
“If this his how you run your school,”
“Oh no, no, no, Mr. Strickland I assure you this is a very rare… we don’t usually… what I mean to say is…”
“Stop jabbering you idiot. The entire schoolyard is at the scene before you. You might as well start cleaning out your desk now, but I suggest you do something with these two slackers first!” He gave Marty and Stinky another shake for good measure and turned away from the principle’s white face. Then Marty and Stinky were marched off the yard with the principle trailing behind them and Strickland informing them they’d both be in a penitentiary before twenty.
But right then Marty didn’t care. He didn’t care about the kids watching, or about school, or Strickland or the Principle. All he cared about was Stinky Mcguilly and what he’d said to him out on the play ground. That Marty’s dad was a loser who let people walk all over him, and so Marty had to be a loser too. A scrawny, stupid little chicken-shit. Just like his old man.
His rage had been unparalleled. Even now the sight of Stinky walking just out of reach and smirking made Marty feel rickety; as if his body was a glass carrying some dangerous chemical and the slightest jar would cause him break, shatter and explode. He felt for sure he should have a yellow “hazardous materials” sign stuck to his forehead. Maybe then Stinky would get the hint.
It was the last day of school for the year, but Marty was still held after for fighting. Supposedly so the principle could “have a word” with his parents, but they didn’t show up because they never picked him up from school. Something that Principle Egg Head, as Marty had named him, predictably forgot. He tried to tell them all that he could just skate home himself, but Mrs. Van Bullen, the office secretary, said if he moved his butt one inch out of that seat he’d never drop a pair. So Marty sat still.
Stinky got picked up at three with all the other kids, but Marty had to wait, and wait, and wait. He sat on the under-stuffed office chair with a bag of ice on his cheek, swinging his legs and watching the tick, tick of the clock. Bored out of his mind he cursed Stinky until the ice in his bag melted and turned warm. At 5:35, Principle Egg Head finally emerged from his office. He came out in his coat with brief case and keys, and jumped sky high when he saw Marty’s bruised little face glaring at him from across the room; obviously forgotten long ago.
Marty zoned out the man’s flustered talk until he heard the words “run along.” Then he ran from the room like he had fire in his pants. He grabbed his skateboard and backpack, never so grateful to be given so little attention. Maybe, if he was lucky, the Principle had forgotten to call his mom too. Although he couldn’t help feeling a sting of resentment at that as his skateboard hit the curb and he watched the Principle’s convertible chug to life and drive away.
Adults, he snorted, they were all alike. But what the hell. He was free. School was out, and he wouldn’t have to deal with any adults for three whole glorious months!
~~~
That was the start of the summer 1980. The famous heat wave swept across central and eastern America. Pink Floyds “The Wall” spent 15 weeks atop the US charts, and Led Zepplin was doing their fourth European tour. It was a great time to be young and while it wasn’t a stirring year in the news it would turn out to be the most important summer of Marty’s McFly’s young life.
He had just turned twelve and was still glowing along with the other sixth graders with the pride of being the oldest (if not the biggest) kids in school. Next fall he’d be in junior high, and a whole new set of rules about who beat up who would come into his life. But for now, he and the other sixth graders were the biggest, the meanest, the smartest and the bravest of all the kids they knew. They were on top of the world and capable of anything. The only people they had to prove themselves to were each other, and when you were in a gang proving you were tough was as serious as the bar exam was to lawyers.
It was a small gang by city standards. They ragged the bigger teens whenever they could, and teased the younger ones occasionally, but there wasn’t much sport in pushing third graders around. They didn’t have any elaborate rituals for acceptance, they didn’t where bandanas or have signature graffiti… yet. The gang had slowly formed up around the boys, taking over before they really noticed where they were going with the stunts, and flip offs, and petty vandalism, but they weren’t going to remain small forever.
Douglas Needles’ greatest ambition was to become the biggest and meanest gang of punks ever to hit Hill Valley, and he was making good time on that goal. At thirteen years old he had already been arrested for destruction of public property, and noise ordinance violations. He’d hit his growth spurt early and being the biggest had appointed himself leader.
No one minded except for Marty who thought Needles was too dumb for the job, but no one listened much to that. Needles pulled such great stunts that brains didn’t matter. The rest of the gang included Jake, Marty, Dex, Nick (Spinner for short) and Moe. Spinner was the smart ass and shot his mouth off at anything. Dex would wear nothing but sunglasses if his mom didn’t dress him every morning; and Moe, who was almost as big as Needles, thought a backwards baseball cap was the coolest thing in the world.
Marty was the youngest by several months, and by far the smallest, but he packed a nasty right hook and none of the guys but Needles still teased him about his height. He and Jake had taken up guitars earlier that year and were teaching themselves to play. Or rather Marty taught himself, and then taught Jake. He found a fascination with the instrument that piano had never held. Sometimes it almost sang to him, and he spent every waking moment he wasn’t loitering with the gang over at Jakes house imitating popular rock songs. The two of them had started talking about putting a band together, out of ear shot of the others.
In summer the gang spent hours lounging in 7-11, playing Wild Gunman and breathing in the air conditioning. When they weren’t lying under fans with bottles of Pepsi, they ran rampant through Hill Valley. They set up tracks of cardboard under bridges and skateboarded for days. They shot off fireworks behind houses, got into fights, and tried some petty shop lifting; mostly small stuff like batteries or candy. Marty once grabbed a condom box by mistake and received endless hoots and cat calls from the guys.
Things like that started to happen more and more. Things were changing around them. They could almost smell it in the gasoline ridden wind. Needles grew another terrifying inch, Jake swore on his grandmother’s sherry that he could see hair on his legs, and Marty was starting to notice girls. Really, really notice them, and notice that they were very… nice. But what really set that summer apart from others didn’t start until a few weeks into June. That was when they had The Idea, and like all of the gang’s great ideas Marty had it first.
The six of them had hitchhiked up to the lake for a camp out. They all told their mothers they were “sleeping at a friends”, if they told them anything at all, and skipped town for three days. Needles dared them into it, saying they’d all be too chicken to sleep in the woods without their mommies. Of course no one could let that slide. So they rode they’re skateboards out to the highway and skated along with thumbs stuck out until a greasy old man stopped his truck for them. Everyone pretended to ignore the looks he sent them over the rear view mirror, and talked about whether Spiderman could beat up Batman. Which Marty thought was so utterly obvious. Batman was a ninja after all. Who cared about special jumpy, sticky powers when you were a ninja?
For the camp out Dex brought the matches; Jake brought the food (Twinkies, gum, and hamburger meat swiped from his mom). Marty came armed with flashlights and a radio, and Needles stuck his back pack full of comics and his dad’s porn. Moe was supposed to bring the blankets but forgot and thus was the first one to be dumped in the lake. Luckily the Central Valley’s summer heat didn’t wear off until well past dark, and even then it wasn’t very cold. So the boys just piled around the campfire and told nasty gut wrenching stories, trying to make the others puke before they did.
The lake had a large gully on the eastern shore, with huge rocks stretching over the water and forming a chasm. It was a dangerous area, full of loose boulders and rotting logs. It was also a favorite spot for the teenagers of Hill Valley. A common practice was to climb up the rocks, take a running leap out over the gulch and dive bomb into the lake. Younger kids weren’t supposed to try it. There were huge rocks just under the surface, and if you didn’t jump out far enough you could smash yourself up on them …
“Come on!” Needles’ voice drifted up from far below, cracking slightly as his shout leapt from alto to bass.
“Yeah, do it Marty,” Spinner whined, treading water just behind Needles and sticking his arm up in a rude gesture, “or you chiiicken?”
“Show us what you got Big M!” Needles leered, floating by on his back with a buck toothed smirk.
Marty looked down at the twenty foot drop spreading past his feet and the boys paddling in the water far below him. The top of the chasm was a good climb above the water and the longer he stared at it the bigger the drop seemed to get. His toes scrunched tighter onto the edge of the rocks. A breeze blew up from below, ruffling his wet hair and carrying the string of taunts from the boys below. Only Jake was silent, looking back and forth between him and Needles.
“Come one kid, get down and let somebody else have a go” A large teen behind him said, climbing up with an exasperated look. He looked like your typical life guard, all cool and tall with shades and blue swim trunks. Marty and his gang didn’t have any trunks with them, so he stood shivering in his soaked underwear.
“You’ll never make it,” the teen said. “You’re too small.”
Marty swung round and glared, yelling back at him,
“I’m NOT small, you ass!”
“Whoa, ‘kay…” the teen backed off a bit, holding up his hands. “Chill kid.” More calls and whistles came up from below.
“Hey, McFly. I don’t want to wait 'till I get dentures, if you’re not gonna do it what did you climb up there for?” Spinner’s voice called up. Marty looked down and saw Needles making flapping motions with his arms.
That wasn’t necessary, he was gonna do it. He was. He was just getting ready. Marty glanced behind him. The teen at the back of the ledge let out an exasperated snort and started marching forward, probably ready to push him in just to get him off the ledge Marty thought, a bit of panic starting to worm about in his gut. If he got off the ledge now he’d never live it down in the gang, and if he got pushed… well that was paramount to not jumping.
“Just get off the damn ledge will ya. You can’t do it.” The teen said, advancing, and that was what did it. Two little words “you. can’t.” and Marty’s hands clenched into fists. His belly suddenly stilled, as if the panic worm had grown a mouth three times its size and swallowed his whole stomach.
“Oh yeah?” He turned, yelling over his shoulder. “Well eat my shorts, dickhead!” and then with a huge breath he took off running for the other end of the ledge. He heard a whispered “Oh Jesus…” from behind just as he squeezed his eyes shut and jumped out into empty space.
A scream ripped out of him as he fell. Some part of his mind had been bent so hard on the expectation of the drop it expected him to hit the water instantly. But he had to wait and wait, while his arms wind milled about seeking a purchase that wasn’t there. It was almost like time stopped along with his sense of touch, hearing and sight.
Then he hit the water and the world exploded back around him with a raw smack of pain and sound. He hit the lake on his back in cannon ball position. Then everything was cut off again as he sunk down. Lake water stung the corners of his eyes and burst into his ears, nostrils, and mouth. He straightened out of his curl and twirled in the water, trying to swim upwards while the force of his plunge kept him sinking. After a few moments of struggle, and a desperate need for air, his head broke the surface and he spat out a mouthful of moldy lake water.
Cheers broke over his ears as he swiped an arm across his face, and he opened his eyes to the exuberant splashing of all the guys swimming his way. He grinned, and threw his head back, letting out a whoop of triumph.
Then, looking up he saw the face of the teen who’d been up on the rocks with him. He was leaning over the edge with a look on his face like one you’d give a bird you’d just seen run over. Marty looked away quickly. He hated having someone look at him like that. That was when he saw the large jagged edges of the boulders, wavering no more than an arms length away under the water. Marty swallowed and looked back up at the ledge, but the teenager was gone. The lake around him grew several degrees colder and he shivered.
Then he was surrounded by his gang. All the guys whooped, slapped him on his back, splashed armfuls of water his way, and his chill disappeared.
“That was so bad man!
“Awesome!”
“You totally flew!”
“Yeah! You beat those High School bastards pants down!” Jake gave him a high five, and Moe leapt on top of him, dunking him in his enthusiasm.
“Sweet jump, Big M,” Needles grinned when Moe let him up from the water.
“Yeah, eat that Needles, I didn’t even break a sweat!” Marty bragged, grinning, and was promptly buried under four other boys trying to dunk his head at the same time.
Marty could have just left it at that. He could’ve taken the noogies, and high fives, and that would have been the end of it. But he didn’t. He boasted, and made sure Needles new just who he was messing with. He swore he could outwit and outdo anything the other boys threw at him and that he could make up better dares then they could in their wildest dreams. Needles of course took him up on it and one dare turned into a Dare-Fest.
The next dare, of course had to be as bad as the first, worse if possible. So they escalated. Marty dared Needles to cross the rotting log over the gulch. Dex dared Moe to walk the railing of the river bridge, poor Moe nearly wet himself with his fear of heights. Dex dared Marty to spend the night away from the campfire, and Spinner had to break into the teenager’s camp and steal a camera. Then they had to use the camera to get a picture of some teen with his pants down. That one ended up in a chase through the woods with an angry jock and a baseball bat. The string of dares only got worse once they rode back into town.
The rules of the game were simple. Anyone could place the dare, but everybody had to accept it unless it was made for someone specific, and the last person to accept the dare had to do it first.
The first challenge, back in town, was to skateboard through every store in Twin Pines Mall. The six of them met in the parking lot early one afternoon, right after they got out of bed, and stood in a line looking at the string of shoppers sliding through the doors under the Macy’s sign.
“Lets rock and roll,” Dex said. They snapped their sunglasses down and like dominoes each boy let his board drop to the pavement. Then they pushed off one after the other and rushed the mall. A soccer mom in their path got knocked down as they skated through Macy's, all of them unable and unwilling to check their momentum.
Once they reached the main floor of the mall and split up. Needles took great pleasure in knocking over shelves and racks of clothing with Spinner and Moe, while Marty was more focused on quantity. He reeled Dex and Jake into playing leapfrog by store with him. Marty would enter a store and skate once around to the sound of the shrieking clerks, while Jake rolled through the next shop ahead and Dex the one after that. Then Marty would skate out and go two stores down to repeat the process. The gang actually managed to get through half the mall before the rent-a-cops showed up and the game became a high speed chase.
They pursued the boys through shops, round the cafeteria, and past the family photo place where nearly all the customers demanded refunds because of the surprised looks in their pictures. Marty had two cops hot on his tail, but escaped through the cafeteria; skating under empty tables and laughing when he sped out the doors.
The next day while they lazed outside 7-11 eating a breakfast of Orange juice and Oreos, they laughed over the morning paper. Teenage Menace Terrorizes Twin Pines Mall. Suspects still at large. While they joked, Needles suggested their next daring escapade.
So two nights later they all snuck out and met in the town square around 11:00 pm for the midnight showing of “Girls in the Bay,” triple X rated. They went round the back of the old movie theatre and snuck in through the exit door that someone had cracked open with a rock. Then quiet as mice they hid up on the balcony just below the projector and watched the scenes unfolding in front of them with awe. At first Marty jumped every time one of the gang squirmed, afraid his mother would suddenly descend from above with a hand over his eyes, but she didn’t, and he was soon to wrapped up to notice anything but the moving flesh on screen.
After that the gang took it upon themselves to “widen their education” and after seeing who died that week in the obituary column they made a plan to break into the town morgue. They waited till all the lights were out and the nurses had gone home and then crept up to the doors with a crowbar and bolt cutters. The body was an old man, shriveled and missing his teeth. A mass groan of “eeew, gross,” rose out of the boys when Moe pulled the sheet off, but just seeing the body wasn’t enough for Needles. Their “leader” pulled out a handful of magic markers and held them up saying,
“Let’s draw some shit on him!”
Each of the boys took a pen when they were shoved into they’re hands, except Marty. He stuck his hands in his pockets and backed up when Needles shoved the last marker under his nose.
“What’s a matter?” Needles dared, looming over him while his flashlight cast eerie shadows over his face. Marty shrugged, his eyes still stuck on the wrinkled body beyond Needles.
“I don’t know Needles…”
“No one will know it was us. We gotta leave a calling card,” Needles grinned over the flashlight.
“It doesn’t feel right. I mean spraying a building’s one thing but this is person…used to be a person.” Marty mumbled, still not taking his hands out of his pockets.
“Common Big M, don’t be a little chicken.” Needles sneered, and stressed his nickname the way he always did when insinuating that Marty was as far from big as you got. He pushed the pen into Marty’s chest and shoved him towards the table where the rest of the guys were already huddled about, drawing mustaches and pictograms all over the old man’s chest. Marty sighed, gripped the pen, and stepped closer.
He was starting to wince every time he heard his name come from Needles lips. Because he knew the word “chicken” was just a breath away, along with another demand. That was all Needles had to say and he could get Marty to jump off a roof if he told him to. Needles new it too. Marty hated it sometimes, but he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone believing him a coward. On top of that, if he lost his rep, if the guys thought he wasn’t cut out for it or didn’t have the guts, then he’d be out of the gang. All his friends would be gone. He wasn’t sure if even Jake would stick around. After all, who’d want a loser for a friend.
The quality of his nerve came under suspicion after the morgue, even though he drew with the best of them. Needles didn’t like being questioned, especially by Marty who could make him sound dumb. So he made sure Marty knew he was on probation, and Marty tried extra hard to live up to what he’d said back at the lake. Thus the next dare to come up naturally came from Marty, who after five days of eating Big Mac’s at home found a brilliant way to combine revenge with a display of courage.
His brother Dave had gotten his first job that summer at the Burger King on the east end of town. Ever since then he’d been bringing home left over burgers and fries, and their mom had been too happy to serve that for dinner and relieve herself of cooking. Not that her cooking was any better then the fast food Marty found continuously stacked on his plate, but a growing boy wanted variety. What about some instant TV dinners for a night, or some good old meat loaf sandwiches? He was nearly at his breaking point, and if he had to down one more Happy Meal he was going to puke it up at the table. So deciding to stop the fast food before it stopped him, he brought up the next dare with the gang at their usual haunt in 7-11.
“Trash the Burger King?” Spinner asked, shoving a Twinkie into his mouth and then mumbling around it. “Whas a poin in tha’?”
“It’s a landmark,” Dex offered. “Everybody’d see it for sure.”
“I like Burger King,” Moe said from his slouch on the bench.
“Yeah, well you would,” Marty mumbled to himself while he punched buttons on the arcade and battled Jake at the sumo wrestling. “Awe man, I’m out,” he cried and threw up his hands as his character fell back dead and the screen started blinking “Smack Down.” Jake grinned and twisted the toothpick in his mouth.
“I know why you want to paper that place, too many meals on the house right?”
“Shut up Jake,” Marty said and punched him in the shoulder as the two dropped onto the other side of the plastic picnic table where the gang was sprawled.
“Anyway, I’m not just talking about a little paint, or spit wads. I mean the all out works! I mean flooding the kitchen, knocking the stupid sign off the roof, and making the place totally and fully disgusting!”
“Yeah, yeah, we could clean out their bathrooms and just litter the place!” Dex jumped up in his seat, starting to get excited. “Put a toilet up there instead of old Ronald, that stuff never gets old!”
“Right on!” Marty reached up and slammed Dex a high five, happy to have someone on his side.
“I don’t know…” Needles piped in for the first time. “Seems too easy, it’s not dangerous enough. It’s not … what is it, what am I thinking of?” he turned on Moe with an accusing glare, and Moe shrugged helplessly.
“Gutless,” Jake offered.
“It’s not gutless enough!” Needles shouted in triumph, then stopped. Marty snorted and hocked up his breakfast, grinning. The rest of the gang dissolved into gales of laughter, hooting and slapping each other’s hands back to front. Jake and Spinner yelled,
“Burn!”
“Aaaw, shut up!” Needles cried through the laughing. He leaned over the table pointing a finger and growled “You’re dead Jakey.”
When the hilarity had died down and before they lost focus in bad jokes, Needles reeled them in.
“It’s still a lame idea, I mean who cares about the Burger King anyway,” he said. “You should paper that psycho’s house next door. That’s fresh!” Needles crowed and leaned back feeling satisfied. The group grew silent and riveted their attention on their leader, who puffed himself out and told them exactly what Marty had to do.
That was how Marty found himself scaling the ridgepole of Crazy ol' Brown’s roof at midnight with a backpack full of spray paint, toilet paper rolls and Burger King's toilet seat.
Summary: Yet another stereotypical Marty first meets Doc story. It's the summer of nineteen eighty. Marty McFly is twelve going on a hundred and his gang are doing a dare-fest that will lead him straight to the door of Crazy Ol' Doc Brown.
Rating: PG-13
Warning: WIP
“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.
Two can be as bad as one,
it’s the loneliest number since number one.”
Three Dog Night.
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
“Fight!”
Dozens of adolescent voices sang out across the play ground, gaining pitch and volume with each second. Boys and girls dropped their basketballs, jumped off swings and ran for the growing circle of shouting students. Several boys climbed up the chain link fence and started rattling it in encouragement. Their zeal was broken only seconds later as one of the fighters crashed headlong into the fence and knocked the other kids off their perch.
Marty McFly bounced off the fence like a boxer in the ring and flew at Stinky McGuilly in a head on tackle. He slammed the other kid into the asphalt and the two grappled on the ground trying to get in the first punch, egged on by the surrounding cheers and screams for blood.
McGuilly took a couple fists in the nose, and then wormed an arm around the back of Mcfly’s neck. Marty found his face pushed into the object of Stinky’s nickname, a sweaty armpit putrid enough to wilt sour grass, and gagged audibly. Stinky pummeled his ribs a few times before he wiggled out of the hold and slammed his knee into McGuilly’s stomach. The other kid groaned and rolled over on the ground.
Marty was on him in a second and slamming his enemy’s head into the pavement. He had his fist raised to exact his final and just revenge when the back of his shirt was snatched from behind. His fist swung down on air as he was dragged bodily away from the now cowering Stinky by a balding man with a severe frown.
A small part of his mind recognized the man as Mr. Strickland and wondered what bad luck had him visiting Hill Valley Elementary; but most of his brain was occupied by the surmounting space imposed between him and the McGuilly kid. His collar stretched into a thin line against his throat, nearly gagging him as he strained to reach his enemy who was being hauled to his feet in Mr. Strickland’s other hand and kept well out of arms reach.
A hush spread through the crowd, and Strickland looked out over the heads of suddenly silent children. He scanned each face for a sign of insubordination, one hint of a giggle, one whisper of scorn, and when all was quiet he turned on the two slackers in his grasp.
“Who started this?” Strickland demanded, his voice echoing off empty basketball courts. No one in the crowd raised a voice, and the two opponents were too busy glaring at each other in hatred to pay attention. The pattering of dress shoes sounded over the pavement and the long stringy form of Hill Valley Elementary’s principle reached them. Once more a minute late and a dollar short, Marty thought with disgust and sneered at Stinky as the kid wiped a hand across his dirty nose.
“Who was it?” Strickland shouted again, this time shaking the two early delinquents in his grip. Neither boy answered. Stinky spat a blob of snot and blood in Marty’s direction and muttered something about chickens. Marty lunged forward with renewed vigor, shouting obscenities that would make his mother seizure if she heard them coming from his mouth. Strickland gave him a violent jerk on the collar to stop the stream of cursing, and rounded on their Principle who was adjusting his undone tie.
“If this his how you run your school,”
“Oh no, no, no, Mr. Strickland I assure you this is a very rare… we don’t usually… what I mean to say is…”
“Stop jabbering you idiot. The entire schoolyard is at the scene before you. You might as well start cleaning out your desk now, but I suggest you do something with these two slackers first!” He gave Marty and Stinky another shake for good measure and turned away from the principle’s white face. Then Marty and Stinky were marched off the yard with the principle trailing behind them and Strickland informing them they’d both be in a penitentiary before twenty.
But right then Marty didn’t care. He didn’t care about the kids watching, or about school, or Strickland or the Principle. All he cared about was Stinky Mcguilly and what he’d said to him out on the play ground. That Marty’s dad was a loser who let people walk all over him, and so Marty had to be a loser too. A scrawny, stupid little chicken-shit. Just like his old man.
His rage had been unparalleled. Even now the sight of Stinky walking just out of reach and smirking made Marty feel rickety; as if his body was a glass carrying some dangerous chemical and the slightest jar would cause him break, shatter and explode. He felt for sure he should have a yellow “hazardous materials” sign stuck to his forehead. Maybe then Stinky would get the hint.
It was the last day of school for the year, but Marty was still held after for fighting. Supposedly so the principle could “have a word” with his parents, but they didn’t show up because they never picked him up from school. Something that Principle Egg Head, as Marty had named him, predictably forgot. He tried to tell them all that he could just skate home himself, but Mrs. Van Bullen, the office secretary, said if he moved his butt one inch out of that seat he’d never drop a pair. So Marty sat still.
Stinky got picked up at three with all the other kids, but Marty had to wait, and wait, and wait. He sat on the under-stuffed office chair with a bag of ice on his cheek, swinging his legs and watching the tick, tick of the clock. Bored out of his mind he cursed Stinky until the ice in his bag melted and turned warm. At 5:35, Principle Egg Head finally emerged from his office. He came out in his coat with brief case and keys, and jumped sky high when he saw Marty’s bruised little face glaring at him from across the room; obviously forgotten long ago.
Marty zoned out the man’s flustered talk until he heard the words “run along.” Then he ran from the room like he had fire in his pants. He grabbed his skateboard and backpack, never so grateful to be given so little attention. Maybe, if he was lucky, the Principle had forgotten to call his mom too. Although he couldn’t help feeling a sting of resentment at that as his skateboard hit the curb and he watched the Principle’s convertible chug to life and drive away.
Adults, he snorted, they were all alike. But what the hell. He was free. School was out, and he wouldn’t have to deal with any adults for three whole glorious months!
~~~
That was the start of the summer 1980. The famous heat wave swept across central and eastern America. Pink Floyds “The Wall” spent 15 weeks atop the US charts, and Led Zepplin was doing their fourth European tour. It was a great time to be young and while it wasn’t a stirring year in the news it would turn out to be the most important summer of Marty’s McFly’s young life.
He had just turned twelve and was still glowing along with the other sixth graders with the pride of being the oldest (if not the biggest) kids in school. Next fall he’d be in junior high, and a whole new set of rules about who beat up who would come into his life. But for now, he and the other sixth graders were the biggest, the meanest, the smartest and the bravest of all the kids they knew. They were on top of the world and capable of anything. The only people they had to prove themselves to were each other, and when you were in a gang proving you were tough was as serious as the bar exam was to lawyers.
It was a small gang by city standards. They ragged the bigger teens whenever they could, and teased the younger ones occasionally, but there wasn’t much sport in pushing third graders around. They didn’t have any elaborate rituals for acceptance, they didn’t where bandanas or have signature graffiti… yet. The gang had slowly formed up around the boys, taking over before they really noticed where they were going with the stunts, and flip offs, and petty vandalism, but they weren’t going to remain small forever.
Douglas Needles’ greatest ambition was to become the biggest and meanest gang of punks ever to hit Hill Valley, and he was making good time on that goal. At thirteen years old he had already been arrested for destruction of public property, and noise ordinance violations. He’d hit his growth spurt early and being the biggest had appointed himself leader.
No one minded except for Marty who thought Needles was too dumb for the job, but no one listened much to that. Needles pulled such great stunts that brains didn’t matter. The rest of the gang included Jake, Marty, Dex, Nick (Spinner for short) and Moe. Spinner was the smart ass and shot his mouth off at anything. Dex would wear nothing but sunglasses if his mom didn’t dress him every morning; and Moe, who was almost as big as Needles, thought a backwards baseball cap was the coolest thing in the world.
Marty was the youngest by several months, and by far the smallest, but he packed a nasty right hook and none of the guys but Needles still teased him about his height. He and Jake had taken up guitars earlier that year and were teaching themselves to play. Or rather Marty taught himself, and then taught Jake. He found a fascination with the instrument that piano had never held. Sometimes it almost sang to him, and he spent every waking moment he wasn’t loitering with the gang over at Jakes house imitating popular rock songs. The two of them had started talking about putting a band together, out of ear shot of the others.
In summer the gang spent hours lounging in 7-11, playing Wild Gunman and breathing in the air conditioning. When they weren’t lying under fans with bottles of Pepsi, they ran rampant through Hill Valley. They set up tracks of cardboard under bridges and skateboarded for days. They shot off fireworks behind houses, got into fights, and tried some petty shop lifting; mostly small stuff like batteries or candy. Marty once grabbed a condom box by mistake and received endless hoots and cat calls from the guys.
Things like that started to happen more and more. Things were changing around them. They could almost smell it in the gasoline ridden wind. Needles grew another terrifying inch, Jake swore on his grandmother’s sherry that he could see hair on his legs, and Marty was starting to notice girls. Really, really notice them, and notice that they were very… nice. But what really set that summer apart from others didn’t start until a few weeks into June. That was when they had The Idea, and like all of the gang’s great ideas Marty had it first.
The six of them had hitchhiked up to the lake for a camp out. They all told their mothers they were “sleeping at a friends”, if they told them anything at all, and skipped town for three days. Needles dared them into it, saying they’d all be too chicken to sleep in the woods without their mommies. Of course no one could let that slide. So they rode they’re skateboards out to the highway and skated along with thumbs stuck out until a greasy old man stopped his truck for them. Everyone pretended to ignore the looks he sent them over the rear view mirror, and talked about whether Spiderman could beat up Batman. Which Marty thought was so utterly obvious. Batman was a ninja after all. Who cared about special jumpy, sticky powers when you were a ninja?
For the camp out Dex brought the matches; Jake brought the food (Twinkies, gum, and hamburger meat swiped from his mom). Marty came armed with flashlights and a radio, and Needles stuck his back pack full of comics and his dad’s porn. Moe was supposed to bring the blankets but forgot and thus was the first one to be dumped in the lake. Luckily the Central Valley’s summer heat didn’t wear off until well past dark, and even then it wasn’t very cold. So the boys just piled around the campfire and told nasty gut wrenching stories, trying to make the others puke before they did.
The lake had a large gully on the eastern shore, with huge rocks stretching over the water and forming a chasm. It was a dangerous area, full of loose boulders and rotting logs. It was also a favorite spot for the teenagers of Hill Valley. A common practice was to climb up the rocks, take a running leap out over the gulch and dive bomb into the lake. Younger kids weren’t supposed to try it. There were huge rocks just under the surface, and if you didn’t jump out far enough you could smash yourself up on them …
“Come on!” Needles’ voice drifted up from far below, cracking slightly as his shout leapt from alto to bass.
“Yeah, do it Marty,” Spinner whined, treading water just behind Needles and sticking his arm up in a rude gesture, “or you chiiicken?”
“Show us what you got Big M!” Needles leered, floating by on his back with a buck toothed smirk.
Marty looked down at the twenty foot drop spreading past his feet and the boys paddling in the water far below him. The top of the chasm was a good climb above the water and the longer he stared at it the bigger the drop seemed to get. His toes scrunched tighter onto the edge of the rocks. A breeze blew up from below, ruffling his wet hair and carrying the string of taunts from the boys below. Only Jake was silent, looking back and forth between him and Needles.
“Come one kid, get down and let somebody else have a go” A large teen behind him said, climbing up with an exasperated look. He looked like your typical life guard, all cool and tall with shades and blue swim trunks. Marty and his gang didn’t have any trunks with them, so he stood shivering in his soaked underwear.
“You’ll never make it,” the teen said. “You’re too small.”
Marty swung round and glared, yelling back at him,
“I’m NOT small, you ass!”
“Whoa, ‘kay…” the teen backed off a bit, holding up his hands. “Chill kid.” More calls and whistles came up from below.
“Hey, McFly. I don’t want to wait 'till I get dentures, if you’re not gonna do it what did you climb up there for?” Spinner’s voice called up. Marty looked down and saw Needles making flapping motions with his arms.
That wasn’t necessary, he was gonna do it. He was. He was just getting ready. Marty glanced behind him. The teen at the back of the ledge let out an exasperated snort and started marching forward, probably ready to push him in just to get him off the ledge Marty thought, a bit of panic starting to worm about in his gut. If he got off the ledge now he’d never live it down in the gang, and if he got pushed… well that was paramount to not jumping.
“Just get off the damn ledge will ya. You can’t do it.” The teen said, advancing, and that was what did it. Two little words “you. can’t.” and Marty’s hands clenched into fists. His belly suddenly stilled, as if the panic worm had grown a mouth three times its size and swallowed his whole stomach.
“Oh yeah?” He turned, yelling over his shoulder. “Well eat my shorts, dickhead!” and then with a huge breath he took off running for the other end of the ledge. He heard a whispered “Oh Jesus…” from behind just as he squeezed his eyes shut and jumped out into empty space.
A scream ripped out of him as he fell. Some part of his mind had been bent so hard on the expectation of the drop it expected him to hit the water instantly. But he had to wait and wait, while his arms wind milled about seeking a purchase that wasn’t there. It was almost like time stopped along with his sense of touch, hearing and sight.
Then he hit the water and the world exploded back around him with a raw smack of pain and sound. He hit the lake on his back in cannon ball position. Then everything was cut off again as he sunk down. Lake water stung the corners of his eyes and burst into his ears, nostrils, and mouth. He straightened out of his curl and twirled in the water, trying to swim upwards while the force of his plunge kept him sinking. After a few moments of struggle, and a desperate need for air, his head broke the surface and he spat out a mouthful of moldy lake water.
Cheers broke over his ears as he swiped an arm across his face, and he opened his eyes to the exuberant splashing of all the guys swimming his way. He grinned, and threw his head back, letting out a whoop of triumph.
Then, looking up he saw the face of the teen who’d been up on the rocks with him. He was leaning over the edge with a look on his face like one you’d give a bird you’d just seen run over. Marty looked away quickly. He hated having someone look at him like that. That was when he saw the large jagged edges of the boulders, wavering no more than an arms length away under the water. Marty swallowed and looked back up at the ledge, but the teenager was gone. The lake around him grew several degrees colder and he shivered.
Then he was surrounded by his gang. All the guys whooped, slapped him on his back, splashed armfuls of water his way, and his chill disappeared.
“That was so bad man!
“Awesome!”
“You totally flew!”
“Yeah! You beat those High School bastards pants down!” Jake gave him a high five, and Moe leapt on top of him, dunking him in his enthusiasm.
“Sweet jump, Big M,” Needles grinned when Moe let him up from the water.
“Yeah, eat that Needles, I didn’t even break a sweat!” Marty bragged, grinning, and was promptly buried under four other boys trying to dunk his head at the same time.
Marty could have just left it at that. He could’ve taken the noogies, and high fives, and that would have been the end of it. But he didn’t. He boasted, and made sure Needles new just who he was messing with. He swore he could outwit and outdo anything the other boys threw at him and that he could make up better dares then they could in their wildest dreams. Needles of course took him up on it and one dare turned into a Dare-Fest.
The next dare, of course had to be as bad as the first, worse if possible. So they escalated. Marty dared Needles to cross the rotting log over the gulch. Dex dared Moe to walk the railing of the river bridge, poor Moe nearly wet himself with his fear of heights. Dex dared Marty to spend the night away from the campfire, and Spinner had to break into the teenager’s camp and steal a camera. Then they had to use the camera to get a picture of some teen with his pants down. That one ended up in a chase through the woods with an angry jock and a baseball bat. The string of dares only got worse once they rode back into town.
The rules of the game were simple. Anyone could place the dare, but everybody had to accept it unless it was made for someone specific, and the last person to accept the dare had to do it first.
The first challenge, back in town, was to skateboard through every store in Twin Pines Mall. The six of them met in the parking lot early one afternoon, right after they got out of bed, and stood in a line looking at the string of shoppers sliding through the doors under the Macy’s sign.
“Lets rock and roll,” Dex said. They snapped their sunglasses down and like dominoes each boy let his board drop to the pavement. Then they pushed off one after the other and rushed the mall. A soccer mom in their path got knocked down as they skated through Macy's, all of them unable and unwilling to check their momentum.
Once they reached the main floor of the mall and split up. Needles took great pleasure in knocking over shelves and racks of clothing with Spinner and Moe, while Marty was more focused on quantity. He reeled Dex and Jake into playing leapfrog by store with him. Marty would enter a store and skate once around to the sound of the shrieking clerks, while Jake rolled through the next shop ahead and Dex the one after that. Then Marty would skate out and go two stores down to repeat the process. The gang actually managed to get through half the mall before the rent-a-cops showed up and the game became a high speed chase.
They pursued the boys through shops, round the cafeteria, and past the family photo place where nearly all the customers demanded refunds because of the surprised looks in their pictures. Marty had two cops hot on his tail, but escaped through the cafeteria; skating under empty tables and laughing when he sped out the doors.
The next day while they lazed outside 7-11 eating a breakfast of Orange juice and Oreos, they laughed over the morning paper. Teenage Menace Terrorizes Twin Pines Mall. Suspects still at large. While they joked, Needles suggested their next daring escapade.
So two nights later they all snuck out and met in the town square around 11:00 pm for the midnight showing of “Girls in the Bay,” triple X rated. They went round the back of the old movie theatre and snuck in through the exit door that someone had cracked open with a rock. Then quiet as mice they hid up on the balcony just below the projector and watched the scenes unfolding in front of them with awe. At first Marty jumped every time one of the gang squirmed, afraid his mother would suddenly descend from above with a hand over his eyes, but she didn’t, and he was soon to wrapped up to notice anything but the moving flesh on screen.
After that the gang took it upon themselves to “widen their education” and after seeing who died that week in the obituary column they made a plan to break into the town morgue. They waited till all the lights were out and the nurses had gone home and then crept up to the doors with a crowbar and bolt cutters. The body was an old man, shriveled and missing his teeth. A mass groan of “eeew, gross,” rose out of the boys when Moe pulled the sheet off, but just seeing the body wasn’t enough for Needles. Their “leader” pulled out a handful of magic markers and held them up saying,
“Let’s draw some shit on him!”
Each of the boys took a pen when they were shoved into they’re hands, except Marty. He stuck his hands in his pockets and backed up when Needles shoved the last marker under his nose.
“What’s a matter?” Needles dared, looming over him while his flashlight cast eerie shadows over his face. Marty shrugged, his eyes still stuck on the wrinkled body beyond Needles.
“I don’t know Needles…”
“No one will know it was us. We gotta leave a calling card,” Needles grinned over the flashlight.
“It doesn’t feel right. I mean spraying a building’s one thing but this is person…used to be a person.” Marty mumbled, still not taking his hands out of his pockets.
“Common Big M, don’t be a little chicken.” Needles sneered, and stressed his nickname the way he always did when insinuating that Marty was as far from big as you got. He pushed the pen into Marty’s chest and shoved him towards the table where the rest of the guys were already huddled about, drawing mustaches and pictograms all over the old man’s chest. Marty sighed, gripped the pen, and stepped closer.
He was starting to wince every time he heard his name come from Needles lips. Because he knew the word “chicken” was just a breath away, along with another demand. That was all Needles had to say and he could get Marty to jump off a roof if he told him to. Needles new it too. Marty hated it sometimes, but he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone believing him a coward. On top of that, if he lost his rep, if the guys thought he wasn’t cut out for it or didn’t have the guts, then he’d be out of the gang. All his friends would be gone. He wasn’t sure if even Jake would stick around. After all, who’d want a loser for a friend.
The quality of his nerve came under suspicion after the morgue, even though he drew with the best of them. Needles didn’t like being questioned, especially by Marty who could make him sound dumb. So he made sure Marty knew he was on probation, and Marty tried extra hard to live up to what he’d said back at the lake. Thus the next dare to come up naturally came from Marty, who after five days of eating Big Mac’s at home found a brilliant way to combine revenge with a display of courage.
His brother Dave had gotten his first job that summer at the Burger King on the east end of town. Ever since then he’d been bringing home left over burgers and fries, and their mom had been too happy to serve that for dinner and relieve herself of cooking. Not that her cooking was any better then the fast food Marty found continuously stacked on his plate, but a growing boy wanted variety. What about some instant TV dinners for a night, or some good old meat loaf sandwiches? He was nearly at his breaking point, and if he had to down one more Happy Meal he was going to puke it up at the table. So deciding to stop the fast food before it stopped him, he brought up the next dare with the gang at their usual haunt in 7-11.
“Trash the Burger King?” Spinner asked, shoving a Twinkie into his mouth and then mumbling around it. “Whas a poin in tha’?”
“It’s a landmark,” Dex offered. “Everybody’d see it for sure.”
“I like Burger King,” Moe said from his slouch on the bench.
“Yeah, well you would,” Marty mumbled to himself while he punched buttons on the arcade and battled Jake at the sumo wrestling. “Awe man, I’m out,” he cried and threw up his hands as his character fell back dead and the screen started blinking “Smack Down.” Jake grinned and twisted the toothpick in his mouth.
“I know why you want to paper that place, too many meals on the house right?”
“Shut up Jake,” Marty said and punched him in the shoulder as the two dropped onto the other side of the plastic picnic table where the gang was sprawled.
“Anyway, I’m not just talking about a little paint, or spit wads. I mean the all out works! I mean flooding the kitchen, knocking the stupid sign off the roof, and making the place totally and fully disgusting!”
“Yeah, yeah, we could clean out their bathrooms and just litter the place!” Dex jumped up in his seat, starting to get excited. “Put a toilet up there instead of old Ronald, that stuff never gets old!”
“Right on!” Marty reached up and slammed Dex a high five, happy to have someone on his side.
“I don’t know…” Needles piped in for the first time. “Seems too easy, it’s not dangerous enough. It’s not … what is it, what am I thinking of?” he turned on Moe with an accusing glare, and Moe shrugged helplessly.
“Gutless,” Jake offered.
“It’s not gutless enough!” Needles shouted in triumph, then stopped. Marty snorted and hocked up his breakfast, grinning. The rest of the gang dissolved into gales of laughter, hooting and slapping each other’s hands back to front. Jake and Spinner yelled,
“Burn!”
“Aaaw, shut up!” Needles cried through the laughing. He leaned over the table pointing a finger and growled “You’re dead Jakey.”
When the hilarity had died down and before they lost focus in bad jokes, Needles reeled them in.
“It’s still a lame idea, I mean who cares about the Burger King anyway,” he said. “You should paper that psycho’s house next door. That’s fresh!” Needles crowed and leaned back feeling satisfied. The group grew silent and riveted their attention on their leader, who puffed himself out and told them exactly what Marty had to do.
That was how Marty found himself scaling the ridgepole of Crazy ol' Brown’s roof at midnight with a backpack full of spray paint, toilet paper rolls and Burger King's toilet seat.
