in search of david fischer.

[secondhand_stars]

Mrs. Miller's classroom was composed of twenty pupils and a set of hamsters residing in a plastic cage filled with wood chips and an exercise wheel. Like most kindergarten classes, it was a primary-colored haven with its wide circle rug that divided the class in half. To the left were four rows of tiny desks with small plastic chairs. To the right was a maze of controlled play activity cells.

Mrs. Miller was a kindly woman with a frizzy nest of silvery white hair. Always dressed in a comfortable cardigan that sagged off her shoulders and sensible shoes, she was moreso the nice lady who lived down the street than teacher. At exactly eleven-thirty, she herded this year's flock towards the circular carpet with powdery hands waving and a polite instruction. The children rushed towards it, bodies flailing forward when they hit the edge of the multicolored rug. Collapsing at knees, hands raised in front of them to brace their fall as they hit the ground in a crushing wave of giggle-and-shriek sound.

"Let me see you sit how I taught you now," she requested as her own aged frame folded down at the head of the rug. It took her longer than the limber, nearly elastic bodies of the children. By the time that flowered skirt was resituated around legs and hands were drawn primly into her lap, all were quietly waiting with their own legs folded in front of them and hands shoved into the triangular space made.

The late morning section was about occupations. All week, the play centers had been devoted to various professions. In one, you could be a firefighter in a yellow rain slicker and boots. With an empty garden tube, scores of children successfully had saved a building made of shoe boxes covered in red construction paper. In another, you were a mother tending over plastic babies and banging tin pots and pans over the painted coils of an oven. The room was easily divided into standard professions: doctors, nurses, teachers, policemen, military men, et cetera...

With her eyes glistening with expectation behind the owlish lens of her glasses, Mrs. Miller surveyed her students before the question was posed: What do you want to be when you grow up? Immediately, scores of hands lifted and little voices squeaked with excitement. Me first! No me! No me! I raised mine first! was exclaimed throughout the circle in tones that ranged from the insistent to the indignant. Rather than pick, Mrs. Miller went clockwise around and each child proudly told what they wanted to be.

Bobby A. wanted to be a football player. Hannah C. wanted to be a lawyer, like her own mother. Joseph declared he was going to be a doctor while Jenny said she wanted to be a Mommy. When Henry said he wanted to be a super hero, everyone giggled but Mrs. Miller only praised his creativity. Around the circle everyone seamlessly declared their future profession. At one boy however, the voices came to an abrupt halt. As he squirmed and twirled fingers around the undone laces of one sneaker, David peered at his classmates. He had the distinct look of a deer caught in the headlights. Gulping, dark hazel eyes rolled towards his teacher for guidance. After a silent moment, shoulders arched up. "I, I -- I don't know, Mrs. Miller," he admitted quietly.

The class burst into laughter again, including Henry the super hero.

"Don't worry David," Mrs. Miller reassuring in a crooning, soothing tone. "You have plenty of time to decide."

<center>


Seventeen years later, David Fischer was still deciding...</center>

[secondhand_stars]

There were certain comforts and constants that he took for granted. One was the fact that he always had a home to come back to. Tucked in the heart of residential Long Island, home was a modest two-story flanked on either side by houses of the same postwar prefabricated design. The only thing that differentiated it from the others was its powder blue shell and the plastic wading pool in the middle of the front lawn. handlebar steering, he pedaled bicycle up the driveway and left it alongside a mismatched flock of those belonging to his riot of nephews and lone niece. Moving to the front door, he steeled himself for the noise and chaos that reigned inside an otherwise sleepy looking house. He prepared, but didn't think once to the fact that this was the same walkway that his parents had carried him over on his way home from the hospital. It was a small, forgotten piece lost in an unchanging world.

When he entered, a series of heads poked up from behind the couch. Noses scrunched and eyes zeroed in suspiciously upon him. The youngest and most brave of the gang, Samuel, bolted out from their makeshift fort and pulled a silver cap-gun pistol from its holster. "Stick'em up," he said gravely.

David stared down incredulously at the gun in the four year old's hand before dark eyes shot up towards the doorway that led from the front room to the yellow kitchen where his mother and at least one sister were inevitably perched at the small circle table. "Where did you get that thing? It looks real. Here let me --" A palm opened up, fingers waggling in for the boy to hand over the pistol. In protest, Samuel gave a squeal and hugged the gun to his chest. "No, really Sam. You -- Ma?"

"Ma, Bubbeh. Uncle David's here." A voice called from behind the couch.

From the next room, chairs squeaked and the sound of feet striking tile announced the arrival of mother and sister. The boys tumbled out of their hiding spot, all scrawny and bared torsos and tangled hair. In a burst of noise and hand gestures, they competed with youngest son for their grandmother's attention with pulling hands and bright eyes. Ruth patted them off distractedly as she stumbled towards David. "My baby!" She cried, arms yanking him in and a hand smearing back his hair. "You need a haircut. And a meal. You're too skinny."

"Since when do you let your kids play with weapons?" He shot over his tiny mother's graying hair towards his sister. Rebekah rolled her eyes and began searching the living room for cast-off shirts and loose socks. "Since when have you cared?" She shot back as a red t-shirt was pulled out from the space between couch cushions and smoothed out.

"You look happy, David. Why are you so happy?"

It was Ruth's innate gift as a mother. She sniffed out the unspoken and dug up the most hidden truths effortlessly. Scowling down at his mother confusedly, he wriggled out of her arms with a twist of shoulders and padded into the kitchen. At the table, his sister Sarah nursed the latest addition to the Fischer empire. At the first sight of her unbuttoned blouse and a flash of pale skin, arms angled up over head and he stumbled back. "Oh god," he howled as head whipped back.

Rebekah shot a look to their mother and both women immediately burst into laughter. The sound was echoed by the faded sound of the remaining sister in the kitchen. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him to fall into the center of a joke, but each time held a particular sharp pang of awkwardness. David shot them a look as he stamped off towards the door.

"Oh son," Ruth sighed as hands smoothed out over the front of her skirt before knotting together. "It's completely natural. There's nothing to be ash--"

"Lots of things are perfectly natural, but that doesn't mean I want to see them! I live in the City. I like unnatural things like pollution and acid rain and women feeding their kids McDonalds in the train!" Wildly animated, hands waved in the air and gestured out before one dropped to the doorknob. As he began to turn handle again, his mother piped in.

"He's not at the store. He's in the backyard in that workshop of his."


The workshop was less of a place of actual, physical work and moreso a haven. A simple one-room arrangement, it was also blessedly free of toys and their assorted plastic pieces. There was no constant shriek of voices over the cartoonish soundtrack of the television. Instead, inside the shop, Jacob spent his free afternoons perched at a narrow desk and listened to the National Public Radio as world news, social commentary and classical-world music made their hourly rotations. David snuck inside quietly and took care not to rattle the frame as door was closed back into it.

"How long did you last?" His father asked. Two dark eyes, far darker than his son's, peeked up and over the edge of reading glasses. This was the standard greeting to all who escaped from the child-and matriarchal-run home.

"Twenty minutes. Sarah was uh -- feeding Zoe in the kitchen."

Jacob chuckled down at the toy spread out over his desk. It was the steam engine from Benjamin's set. Like an engineer, he worked to find the electrical short that had derailed the train. Tweezers pushed wires together experimentally here and there.

"How's the store?"

"Not bad. How's the -- eh, searching?"

"I've decided to become a screenwriter," David announced as his slight frame folded into the chair across from the desk. Bowing forward, he pressed forearms into knees and squinted up towards the ceiling. "Actually -- it found me?"

"Yes? Mystical experience? David, you know that your mother and I don't approve of Steven's er, recreational activities." Tongue clucked against the back of his teeth at the mention of his son's roommate.

"Oh god, none of that. It's a long story really. I mean, like, not a really long story. It's just complicated and well, I just --"

"A girl," Jacob supplied easily.

David's eyes bulged quietly and he squirmed in his chair. Rather than deny, hands lifted up and smeared palms down the line of sharp features. He nodded wordlessly, unable to expand. This tongue-tied quality was a rarity for the chatterbox.

"You're writing it to woo her?"

"No!" He squeaked as spine rolled back. Settling into his chair, arms crossed over his chest and head shook stubbornly before truth settled in. He faltered with a humming noise and then shrugged. "Well -- Not so much. She's an actress, you see. And she got turned down for a part and so I told her I'd write one."

"You don't even write your grandmother in Florida, David."

"But! That's a letter! This is different. It's so different. It's -- Oh god. Promise not to tell Mom?"

Wordlessly, a hand pressed to the breast pocket of his short-sleeved Oxford as Jacob swore off any news or information to his wife.

"I asked her to marry me."

"--What?"

"I don't know! I just did. I asked her if she'd marry me and she said she would if I answered this really dumb question about like, music. I didn't know it though so she told me I'd have to win her over the old-fashioned way."

"How long have you known her?"

"About a week?"

David's father groaned at the news, a hand pushing up glasses so that palm could smear over eyes. He kept fingers folded over vision then and allowed David the privacy to squirm and twist in his chair. "You know, most women like a man who is actually, ah, employed with an income and an apartment of their own?"

"Which is why I've got to write a really great screenplay."

"Because this is it?" He elaborated on behalf of his son.

David nodded confidently and reached out to pluck a piece of hard candy from the bowl at the edge of the desk that separated them. The square of cellophane twisted around the red-striped peppermint was unwound at its turned ends and candy shoved into the pocket of his cheek. He sucked fiercely upon the piece of candy.

"You sound like me when I met your mother."

"--She was in need of groceries?"

"Amongst other things," Jacob agreed with a shrug. Glasses were righted upon the bridge of his nose and he bowed over the toy spread out before him. Wires were again manipulated into new spaces and tested for proper charge. "Have you ever heard the story about Benjamin Schwartz?"

"The kid who jumped off his roof and broke his shoulder when I was like, ten?"

"Oh god. Him? I haven't thought about him in ages. No, it's from a short story by Isaac Singer. Benjamin Schwartz was a German teacher who became an archivist for a small town. He believed in Fatalism. One day, he fell in love with a young girl named Heyele. However, Heyele was engaged to another man. Believing that he was destined to marry Heyele, Benjamin Schwartz sets himself upon the train tracks and declares that he's to marry her. She resists, but he uses this as an opportunity to convince Heyele and others of his philosophy. So, he makes her promise that if he survives, she'll marry him."

"-- And he survives?"

"The train comes within one foot of him, but stops in time. Heyele and he marry and have four children." Jacob concluded with a quiet grin.

David paused, eyes shifting down to his lap and blinking wildly. In his mind, everything turned and attempted to shift into relevancy towards his situation. After a long moment, he peered back to where his father was putting the train back together. His throat cleared and a finger reached out to tap at the edge of the desk. "Hey," he drawled laughingly. "Are you telling me to go jump in front of an oncoming train?"

His father laughed and gave a shake of his head. "No, no. Just to be fearless."

"--And get a real job?"

"Exactly," he agreed.

[secondhand_stars]

The couch had been found curbside two months earlier. Though it still smelled vaguely of its previous owners, he was grateful for the scratchy plaid cushions. Before the rescue of the abandoned furniture piece, David had slept in a sleeping bag amongst the litter and loose wires from various gaming consoles and pieces of hardware. Now, nightly, a fresh batch was merely thrown over him in a careless manner. When he woke, lanky body stretched out with a tired grumble. A stranger's coat, one running shoe, an empty pizza box, and the dog-eared game manual to Sam's current obsession clattered down on the floor with the shifting of his limbs.

"Guys," David whined to the living room. "You really got to stop throwing shit on me when I'm sleeping. I'm not your closet."

Behind him, the handful of insomniacs clustered around a small poker table looked up from the green felt surface that was scattered with various decks of cards and hands of dice.

"Sorry David," they chimed back in chorus.

Folding back upright, he twisted to peer at them through bleary eyes. Sam yawned in greeting, a hand folding over his mouth and eyes ringed in fatigue circles blinking back. "Oh god," he mumbled, "how long have you guys been at it?"

"Eighteen hours, but it's getting really interesting --"

"Your turn, Sam."

"Sorry." He turned back to scoop up a set of dice and give them a good shake.

"And I thought I was sad." David said to no one at all as he turned around and slung feet over to rest upon the floorboards. Slowly -- and not without a protest from aching, cramped calves -- he turned upright and gave another stretch with arms lifting above his head and spine crackling.

"Who's Althea?"

He froze, but made no more to twist around. Instead, now wide awake, eyes stared at his reflection in the black screen of the television. A ghostly reflection peered back, bright with nerves and strange embarrassment. "Uh --"

"Yeah, you kept saying her name."

"No, I didn't --" He blurted out quickly. "I don't talk in my sleep. You're probably just hallucinating from the lack of sleep, or..." Trailing off purposefully, arms dropped to sides and he gave a pointed look to the water pitcher that served as a centerpiece to their table. Inside it, a crumpled two-liter bottle stood as telltale reminder.

As his head shook, the tangled ends of his dark hair clouded features and disguised the sudden pulse of something quietly aching. He wanted to spill everything in a rush of words and wild gesticulations. He wanted to drag them across town to point her out through the window of the diner -- to prove she was real and aware of his existence. Instead, David waited in a rare show of self control. Wrinkled t-shirt was peeled from his skinny frame and tossed into a basket before a new was lifted from the tub of newly laundered ones. "Oh grow up," he mumbled at the catcall as arms hooked through the blue sleeves of a baseball t-shirt and head popped through neck. He smoothed down the hem of the shirt before wandering across the room to where a wire-bound notebook lay upon an antiquated speaker.

"Where're you going?" Sam called.

"To the coffee shop on the corner."

"Why?!"

Pausing at the door, David turned around to shoot the group a broad smile. He had found purpose in the past week and a half. Now, notebook tucked beneath an arm, he fairly beamed with every best intention for inspiration. "Didn't I tell you? I'm writing a screenplay."

[secondhand_stars]

Tucked behind a pint of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked in the freezer...

Dear Althea,

It's really late. I should lay back and try to sleep. Staying up like this makes me feel like a cat burglar prowling around your house. Don't worry though. If I got up, I'd only get up for a glass of water and maybe to watch a little television. I might play with all those little knick knacks that your dad got you, but that's it! I don't want to do that though. Right now I'm just concentrating on keeping my words in between the blue lines because it's a little dark and your window doesn't get very good light in at three o'clock in the morning.

I don't want to sound weird, but I can't help but watch you sleep. You look really comfortable, like you don't have a care in the world, right now. I'll always like it best when you're awake and running around and all, "Oh David!" But it's a nice change for now. I mean, it's like I'm looking at you for the first time. You just flopped over and mumbled something that I couldn't make out, but words aren't really important. What's important is the way that you've somehow wedged yourself into my side and how your head is pressed against my ribs. Your fingers scratch against my t-shirt as you smack your mouth and hiss out a sleepy sigh. You're settling and some little part of me is too.

I want to be something you can be proud of. I know right now I'm working weird jobs and writing a screenplay that I won't tell you about, that I wear old suits and probably need a haircut really bad, and how sometimes I act like I'm fourteen and freak out a lot, but I've got a lot of heart. I mean, a lot a lot. And it's all yours if you want it to be. I don't really know what that means? You know, to give someone your heart. It's all great theoretically, but I can't help but feel that saying it and meaning it falls a little short. I don't know what to do about that though so you'll just have to take it for what it is, I guess. I want to give you lots of things and I promise that one day I will and you'll love them.

David