xX… all I can say is: I hope you enjoy the story and R&R! I love getting' reviews! …xX

"Dakin?" her voice comes out skeptically.

"Dakin." He says, talking into the phone receiver while working on his homework.

"Weird." She says, drawing it out.

"Beyond weird…"

There's a little pause,

"How's filming?" he asks glumly.

"Oh. It's ok. Sorta boring. All I do is sit around the resort all day and watch the animals from the tree house bar."

"You poor thing!" he says, now only half listening as she extols the virtues of the resort.

"I miss you David." She says after explaining the intricacies of the German eating habits and why blood sausage is a bad thing.

He's stunned by this comment, a rare, unwavering support of their friendship.

"I miss you too…" nothing more to say, "but this phone call is costing me a fortune and I've got to go and pick up my dad. So, I'll see you in a coupla weeks?"

"Yeah." She says, though it doesn't sound inspiring.

He hangs up, slips on his flip-flops and grabs his key. Making his way out the door.

XOXO

"Everything OK today?" he asks his dad.

"Yes. Fine. Look at my floppy!" he says, showing a black floppy disk to his son.

"That's great, Da! We'll take it home and print it out so you can proofread it!"

"David? A word?" it's Nile Worpshire.

"What's wrong?" he says, sitting his dad down in a big armchair.

"I'm afraid that we've just gotten in the latest round of budget cuts."

"Oh." The flood is coming, he knows.

"And, your father, Zackary's column is first on our list of things to go. We just cannot keep printing it."

"But my father's famous!"

"Yes. We know. But a once-famous writer doesn't sell magazines. Plus- no body wants to read your fathers unedited musings on life, pain, medicine… these are intellectual things. We don't think our reader wants that."

"But," David says, sputtering slightly, "this is the NEW YORKER! The intellectuals orgasm of a magazine!"

"I'm sorry."

"Niles, sir, please…"

"David there's no more I can do. We also cannot allow your father to use The New Yorker writing facilities."

"Niles. You know that he doesn't work well in the apartment. Please."

"Rules are rules, David, now I'm sorry. Take your father and go home. Maybe he can write a book. You like existentialism. Tell him to write about that."

"You're nasty, you know that?"

The words are rather sharp for a child.

"I'm just following orders, David. Now go." He says softly.

David turns and does just that, "C'mon, Da." He says and his father stands up, and limps behind him slowly. Muttering to himself quietly.

XOXO

"Ma'am?"

"David!" she says, coming in from the kitchen, "I just need you in there, the library, the books are all askew, why don't you take them down and alphabetize them for me!"

The work is long and boring, but Ms Hathaway keeps up a constant stream of conversation to keep him amused. David looks at his watch, he's been here for three hours.

"Your father, Zackary, that's his name- isn't it?"

David pauses. What.

"I… how do you know?"

XOXO

The next day David sits in the student center of his school and listens to the CD that Ms. Hathway, or Summer, gave him.

"you know I was on the honor roll,

Got good grades ain't got no soul"

Those words sound like his fathers.

"Hullo."

Dakin.

"Dakin." He says quietly. Not really caring what he has to say.

"Nina back yet?"

"It's been a day."

"Right…" he says thoughtfully, "right."

David wishes he would just go away.

"What'cha listening to?" he says, in his annoyingly "right" voice.

"Nothing." He says.

"Look, David." He stops and pulls David's headphones off, "are you going to make ANY effort?"

"What?"

"I'm trying to save you from social disgrace, so you're not friendless for weeks. God knows you're already enough of a loser, this doesn't help."

"oh, gee, thanks. But I'd rather sit here by myself than with you."

Dakin stops.

"Why the hell do you hate me so much?"

Good question, David's never REALLY thought about it. Why DOES he hate him so much? The fact that he's Dakin, the fact that jarringly he's the one calling the shots. Dakin is everything David WANTS to be.

His dad isn't fucked up.

XOXO

"Da? Can I ask you a question?" David asks, coming into his dad's study.

He looks up from his writing. That's all he ever does. WRITE. Right?

"What?"

"Do you remember Summer Hathaway?"

"Do I…? What?"

"Summer Hathaway." He repeats.

"I'm an old man, I've met so many people in my day… I can't remember."

"School of Rock?" he asks.

Zackary puts down his pen,

"Why can't I write for the New Yorker anymore?"

David wonders how to put this,

"do you want the truth, da?"

"Yes son. I miss the truth."

"Well than, the truth is you're washed up writer who no one really wants to read anymore. Plus- you're so incapacitated that it's a pain to get anything out of you."

The silence is long and painful.

"That's a mean thing to say, David… if your mother were here…"

"Well, the thing is dad, Mom's not here. So what if?"

He leaves and goes into his room.

Kids, Zackary thinks. Turning back to his writing.

"I've got a deadline, my readers must know… I've got to finish my column…" he mutters to himself as he works into the night.

xX… WELL? R and R …xX