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Well, to be fair, you can play forever without buying the books, so long as the people you play with have them or you don't mind downloading them.

Depending on the setting, or the prestige classes and races he's allowing, you should be ok with just the Player's Handbook. I think it was originally around 30 bucks new, but is probably available for less now that 4.0 is coming out.

If it's a very generic sort of campaign, with the standard races, you'll definitely be alright with just the PH.

Have you decided on a class? And do you know whether he owns most of the extra books? Spell compendium, class specific, setting specific sorts of books? I'm sure your DM would let you look through them if he's allowing the use of spells, feats, etc from them.

And will you be creating a character there, before the first session, or are you supposed to create one before you get there?

Well, if it's going to be a simple campaign the PH should be all you need. Especially as a fighter. It's fairly straight forward.

It's a solid class. Good one to start with.
You should be set then. If it's going to be more than hack and slash you'll want to think about coming up with some background, a character concept to determine how he'll react to things, where he's from, etc.

Is there anyone else playing?

well, as for the background, I think I'm going to come up with that in school. It's the only place I have enough tie (and frankly, the unused concentration) to do so. The rest of the time I spend either online talking to my girlfriend or on gaia, or playing final fantasy. But I figured something along the lines of a mercenary hired by the small group of people going on their quest. I was just an orphan abandoned by my parents at birth, and didn't get much caring, so I find it hard to give a crap about anyone, and therefore care about my own well-being as compared to others. Also, the reason I chose fighter was because I was reading Twinkin' Out with Red mage in search of some help with my soon to happen D&D game, and he told me that Fighter was the simplest class. He also gave this example:

DM: Problem X has arisen.
Me: I beat it until it isn't a problem anymore.

Fighter is basically the very best n00b character to play. You don't have to worry about spells, and if given really good stats they can be better then their barbarian counterparts. My friend in my first game plays as a fighter with a AC (armor class) of 18, not including his armor. Then he has a b4$74rd sword giving him good offense to. He is working up to using dual b-swords with a couple of feats.

I was hoping someone could help come up with a Fighter twink. What stats to start with, what kind of feats to use, etc. I have been checking Twinkin' Out, but they seem to jsut skip the fighter class and go to monk and sorcerer. And bard.

To see exactly what process you use to come up with twinks... plus, I like twinking my characters.

Usually a fighter needs high attack, and dexetirity always helps. Higher intellegence gets you more points for abilities like climb and such. Some of the feats that I can remember are weapon expertise, gives you added damage when using that choosen weapon, and something like quickened reflexes gives you better inititive rolls. That is all I can remember off the top of my mind, and I use 3rd edition so I don't know what has changed.