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“Photography is truth.” - Jean-Luc Godard
Tuesday, November 12th, 1985
6:18 P.M.
Hill Valley, California
He’d only been back in 1985 – the oddly altered, mostly improved, definitely different 1985 – for a little over two weeks when his parents started their traditional annual story. Except this time, it wasn’t quite the same story Marty McFly had remembered hearing every year.
“Today is the anniversary of our first kiss.” Lorraine was sitting by George at the casual but attractive patio table, where they were still lounging after finishing the evening meal. That was another thing that Marty had had to get used to: his family’s occasional outdoor meals, which tended to occur when the weather cooperated and everyone was home. (The only times they'd ever eaten outside previously was on random summer holidays, when George would inexpertly fire up the grill and they'd all sit around a weathered picnic table to eat charred hot dogs or burnt burgers on stale buns.)
George wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders. “Maybe our best kiss.”
“At the school dance?” Linda, who was sitting near Lorraine, shook her head in distaste. “I would think your wedding kiss would've been the best,” she said, tossing her perfectly-styled hair.
Dave, on the other side of George, nudged his father with an elbow. “And didn't Mom have to practically ask you to kiss her?”
Lorraine nodded emphatically at her oldest son. “That's right, I did.”
George reddened slightly. “I was a little preoccupied. After everything that happened with Biff beforehand – “
“What happened with Biff?” Marty asked impulsively, not able to help himself.
Linda sent a wide-eyed look of dismay at her brother. He’d been so annoying these last few weeks, always in everybody’s face, wanting to reminisce about everything under the sun, and now he was giving their parents the green light to tell their whole “our first kiss” story. . . “Marty!” she hissed, a sharp edge of warning in her voice. He looked at her in surprised alarm, then shrugged, smiling weakly. Linda rolled her eyes, returning a tolerant smile.
George and Lorraine, looking intently at each other, missed Linda and Marty’s exchange. “Biff got a little fresh with your mother,” George said, finally turning to Marty, “and I needed to put him in his place.”
Dave scoffed. “If you’re gonna tell the story, Dad, tell it right,” he said. “Biff got more than a ‘little’ fresh, and you wouldn’t have needed to rescue Mom from him if her original date hadn’t been conveniently AWOL.”
“You know that wasn’t his fault, Dave,” Lorraine said, mildly chastising her oldest child. “Biff and his hoodlum friends ambushed him, and it was four to one. Well, three to one,” she corrected quietly. Then she tilted her head with a wistful smile. “He could usually hold his own, but he wasn’t the most brawny fellow.”
Linda and Dave laughed. Marty forced a smile, but it was soon replaced by a mild look of discomfort, as he remembered the claustrophobia-induced terror during his brief confinement in Marvin Berry's trunk (which had smelled faintly of weed). He stared down at his half-eaten dinner, fighting to clear his expression.
“I can’t believe Mom had two dates to the dance,” Linda murmured. She looked hard at Dave. “I don’t want you to pick on me for my dating habits when Mom was doing the same thing back in the fifties.”
“Oh, I was not,” Lorraine said, good-naturedly swatting her daughter on the arm. “I had one date that I came with, and one that I left with – your father. I didn’t have two dates at the same time.”
Mostly recovered, Marty piped up again. “Why didn’t Dad take you to the dance? Who took you?” He ignored the looks he was now getting from both sides, as Dave had currently joined Linda in glaring at him.
George grinned at his son. “You just don’t hear this enough, do you? How the guy that got me and your mom together is your namesake?”
Marty tried to grin back, even though his face felt frozen. “Uh, well, you did sort of say he was cool. Clever, talented, funny, you know.”
Linda let out an exaggerated huff. “Oh, please! Marty’s named after Dad's great-grandpa Seamus and his great-uncle Martin! It’s just a coincidence that he’s got the same name as the guy who took Mom to the dance!”
“Not a complete coincidence,” Lorraine hedged. “We'd planned to name your brother Seamus Martin, but then we thought that Seamus was too unusual for a first name, at least in this day and age. So we swapped the names. I'd always liked the name Marty, so your dad's great-uncle's name was perfect. . . Also, it was nice to honor Emmett’s nephew. We might've only known him a week, but when Emmett told us he'd passed on, it really hit us hard. If he hadn't been in our lives that short time, your father and I might never have gotten together.” She reached to grasp George's hand. "Remember we saw Emmett at the Solstice Festival, right after Marty was born? He was so emotional when we introduced him to Marty - " Lorraine broke off, glancing uneasily at her youngest son, who was looking a little emotional himself.
Marty had learned in the past few weeks that Doc, after being repeatedly asked about the nephew who had stayed with him in the fifties, had eventually told George and Lorraine that the young man had passed away. Marty had been somewhat surprised to hear that Doc had created the falsehood, although recalling how uncomfortable social situations had tended to make the man speak before thinking, he'd guessed it wasn't too implausible. He'd wondered, though, if Doc had ever considered the possible repercussions of his fiction, depending on when he'd shared it; if the conversation had taken place before Dave or Linda had been in existence, it was conceivable that his parents could have named their first-born Martin instead of David, or their daughter Martina instead of Linda. Fortunately, it seemed that that specific interaction between the McFly parents and Doc must have happened after Dave and Linda had already been born. Because if that hadn't been the case. . . Marty wondered what his name would've been if "Martin" had already been assigned to Linda or Dave. He might've come back from 1955 to find out his name was now Calvin.
“If anything’s a coincidence," Dave was now saying, "it’s Marty working for Doc Brown. Seeing as how he is kinda named after the guy’s nephew.”
“No, not really,” George disagreed. “We’d always been friendly with Doctor Brown, and since Emmett and Marty hit it off when Marty was young, your brother was the logical choice when Emmett needed an assistant.” George gestured at Dave. ”You were still at Burger King during your college breaks back then, and Linda wasn’t entirely interested in work like that. Otherwise Doctor Brown might have approached one of you for the job.“
“Job,” Linda snorted. “Glorified dog-walker and house-sitter is what he was.”
“Maybe when I was a kid,” Marty allowed, “but the assistant job was a lot more complicated than that.” He dropped his head, reaching out to anxiously fiddle with his silverware. “Although it looks like I’m going to be just a house-sitter again,” he mumbled.
The rest of the family were unusually silent, all trading worried looks over Marty’s lowered head. Doctor Emmett Brown was currently missing. He’d last been seen roughly a week before Halloween, and his sudden absence had been troubling Doc's young protege. Marty had become distracted, forgetful, and needy, not wanting to be separated from his parents and siblings any longer than was necessary. And then there was that bizarre cowboy attire that Marty had been wearing the Sunday morning after his supposed lake weekend with Jennifer. The outfit had just been concerning – heck, even Biff had noticed it. When George and Lorraine had later brought up the odd clothing with Marty, he’d been flustered and evasive, finally claiming it had been an inside joke between him and Jennifer, something to do with a Halloween party they were planning to attend. Although the couple had never gone to any Halloween party. In fact, Jennifer had come to their house on the holiday to help an enthusiastic Marty pass out candy – a task he’d usually avoided and had previously claimed to abhor.
Lorraine broke the silence, deciding that a distraction would be the best way to get her youngest son out of his recurrent funk. “I have a picture of him!” she loudly declared. “A picture of him and me, from before we went to the dance.”
“A picture of who?” Marty asked slowly, feeling his face blanch.
"Calvin Kl - I mean, Marty. Calvin Martin Brown - Emmett's nephew!" Lorraine frowned momentarily. "I don't suppose Emmett has any pictures; they were probably lost in the fire." She looked expectantly at Marty.
“Yeah. . . I – I guess,” Marty stammered. “I never saw any pictures of him, so. . .“
“Well!” Lorraine rose from the table. “I’ll look for the album. I think I know where it's tucked away."
Marty half-rose. “No, Mom, wait, you don’t have to get – “
Linda grabbed Marty’s wrist, holding him back. “Sit down - I want to see. Mom's always said that you kinda look like the guy - I want to see if he's a loser like you.” She smiled smugly at her brother.
Dave laughed appreciably, then congratulated his sister with a high-five. George shook his head at his eldest children, frowning slightly. "Be nice,“ he reprimanded them. "Besides, I think your mother's mistaken. I don't think Calvin looked that much like your brother. He had different hair, for one thing. And . . . well, I remember him being taller."
Of course my hair was different, I had to put that greasy pomade crap in it, Marty grumbled inwardly, not sure how thankful he was for his father's "assistance" - which would provide useless, anyway, if his mother found that photo. He turned his head to look in the direction his mother had gone. I can’t believe I forgot about that picture! he thought frantically. It had been such a random, unforeseen thing. . . He’d planned to just quickly pick up Lorraine from her house and whisk her off to the dance, but they had been prevented from immediately leaving by a brief rain shower (an early harbinger of The Storm). While they’d been waiting out the weather, Grandpa Sam and Grandma Stella had fussed over “how adorable” the two of them were. Grandma had made more of a fuss than Grandpa; the man had basically just stared at his future grandson with an open distaste that had made Marty unusually withdrawn. Grandpa Sam had died when Marty was sixteen, and seeing him in front of him, alive, and knowing that the man obviously didn’t care for him, had been truly upsetting. It hadn’t mattered that Grandpa Sam had had no idea who Marty was; the lack of any significant conversation had felt like a wasted opportunity, and it was something that the seventeen-year-old still regretted.
Grandma had urged Grandpa to get the camera, and while he was setting up the brand-new Brownie Six-20, the woman had perfected Lorraine’s hair and adjusted her white sweater; she’d even tightened and straightened Marty’s necktie. He’d been pulling at his collar with one finger, trying to loosen the tie so that he could breathe properly, when a flashbulb had gone off in his eyes. Suddenly understanding that a photograph would exist of him with his seventeen-year-old mother, Marty had stared in horror at Grandpa Sam, who’d been busy with the camera at the kitchen table. When Grandpa had looked up and urged them to stand nice for a second photo, Marty had grabbed Lorraine’s hand, sputtered something about it being late, and then had run out the door so fast that Lorraine had barely been able to grab her handbag.
From Marty's perception, that picture had been taken less than a month ago (even when adding in the week he'd spent in 1885) – and yet it had escaped his memory. For his mother it had been thirty years, but of course she remembered. Marty was dazed by the irony.
Less than five minutes had passed when Lorraine came back out to the patio, holding a brick-red hued photo album that Marty vaguely recognized as one that contained photos from varied special events. It wasn’t his parents’ wedding album (that was the customary white), nor was it one of the albums that held childhood pictures of him and his siblings. No, the album that Lorraine had was the one with photos from her relatives’ birthday parties, her youngest sister’s wedding shower, and her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary party (which had happened just one month before Grandpa Sam had died from a heart attack). His mother sat at the table and held the thick album between her and George, paging through it rapidly. “I think there's a photo from our fall formal near the back – the one we got enlarged. So the picture of me and Cal- Marty should be back there, too.”
Linda peered over Lorraine's shoulder, watching as she flipped the pages. “How did you get that picture of you and Dad at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, if you went with the other guy?”
“They were taking professional pictures at the dance,” Lorraine said distractedly. “We were able to get one at the last minute, while the band was taking a break.” She looked up then, giving Marty a strange look. “He played guitar.”
“Huh? What?” Marty said, unable to get much more out. He was having a hard time breathing.
“Marty Brown. He joined the band for a few songs at the end of the dance." A crease appeared between Lorraine's eyes. “And he sang. It was rather – interesting music.”
"Ahead of its time," George agreed. He lifted his gaze as well, to look closely at Marty. “Now that is a coincidence," he said slowly. "That you took up the same instrument.”
Marty lifted a hand in a feeble wave. “A lot of people play guitar,” he offered lamely. George smiled back thinly.
“And I’d sure call Marty’s singing ‘interesting’,” Dave joked. When no one laughed, he swallowed uncomfortably and patted Marty reassuringly on the shoulder. “Sorry, man. I was just kidding.”
Marty nodded automatically. He was too busy watching his mother, who had resumed her search in the photo album. Suddenly she cried out happily. “Here is our dance photo! So the one of me and Marty Brown should be – “
Lorraine turned the page, looked down at the photograph, and then drew in a startled breath. Marty's heart lurched at the sound. His hands and arms were tingling, and his head began to swim. He was eminently glad he was seated, for he felt as though he might faint.
Linda, not seeming aware of her younger brother’s panic, rose and leaned between her parents, so she could better see the photograph. “What – what is that?” she asked in confusion.
“It looks like a double exposure,” George said. “When the same part of the film is used twice, for two different pictures. Apparently your grandfather had forgotten to advance the film after taking your mother's picture, and then had taken a picture of - or out - the window for some reason. . . Or it's possible he wound the film backwards between the snapshots.”
“Either way, you can’t really see Emmett’s nephew,” Lorraine said, her voice strained. She turned the album around so that Marty could see it, and tapped the picture. Lorraine was very visible in the photo, but at Lorraine’s side, where Marty supposedly was, there was an odd, floating half-image of the nearby window. The window’s image was faint, but it was present enough that it obscured most of Marty’s upper body. The only discernible portion of Marty began just below his abdomen.
“That’s so weird,” Linda said. “It’s like a special effect or something.”
George smiled at his daughter. “No, it’s just a film error, nothing that unusual.”
"No wonder you guys can't agree on what this guy looked like," Dave said. "Your only picture of him is from the waist down."
Lorraine shook her head, running her finger over the protective plastic that covered the photograph. “No. I remember this picture, when we got it developed. . . It wasn’t like this, honestly.“ She sighed, spinning the album around again and staring intently at the photo. “It’s very strange. I don’t remember Dad ever doing something like this – he prided himself on his photography, even with that old Brownie camera. . .” She sighed again. “I could have sworn this photo was clear. Maybe I lost the original copy. I don’t even know why I would have kept this one.”
Marty still felt faint, but now it was from a manic type of relief. He grinned hugely at his mother. “It’s a really nice picture of you, Mom.”
Dave coughed. Lorraine looked up in mild annoyance. “What was that, David? Don’t you think it’s a nice photograph of me?”
“It’s a beautiful photo of you,” George said softly, and he leaned over to kiss his wife passionately. Predictably, all three McFly children groaned in mock embarrassment.
Marty didn’t really consider the peculiar photo again until years later, when he was helping Doc clean and organize the scientist’s study (at Clara’s bidding). While dusting and straightening the framed documents and photos on the wall, Marty had been transfixed by the old, sepia-toned photograph of Doc and Clara’s 1885 wedding. Even though the picture had essentially been taken over a hundred years ago, the reality was that it was only about ten years old, and the odd dichotomy of the photo had triggered the memory of that long-ago dinner on the patio. The young man had sat down on the study’s cluttered Chesterfield and had told Doc the story of the pre-dance picture, and of how it had been "altered” so that his identity had been hidden. “My mom said she never remembered the photo being double-exposed before, but when she pulled out the album to show me the picture, you couldn’t recognize me at all,” he had said.
“That was extremely fortunate,” Emmett had marveled.
“Yeah. . . But I was wondering. . .“ Marty had risen to wander around the room, his hands touching random objects. “Do you think that the picture was originally fine, but something . . . supernatural happened to it?" He'd paused and looked directly at his friend. "Like the universe was protecting me, or the timeline? So my parents would never know that it had actually been me that took my mom to the dance back in 1955?”
“Hmm.” Doc had leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling in thought. After two minutes of quiet contemplation, he’d looked back at Marty with an honest shrug.
“Hell if I know.”
END