In the end, I left early, and took a long, wandering path to the restaurant. As I passed our local skate park, I saw one lonely soul sitting outside by the padlocked gate. I knew the kid, but not his name—only his nickname. He used to wear a shirt that said SKATERDUDE, but the E peeled off, and from that moment on he was eternally “Skaterdud.” Like my nickname, he had grown into it, and everyone agreed it suited him to a tee. He was lanky with massively matted red hair, pink spots all over his joints from old peeled scabs, and eyes that you’d swear were looking into alternate dimensions, not all of them sane. God help the poor parents who see Skaterdud waiting at the door for their daughter on prom night.

“Hey, Dud,” I said as I approached.

“Hey.” He gave me his special eight-part handshake, and wouldn’t continue the conversation until I got it right.

“So, no turkey?” I asked.

He smirked. “I ain’t gonna miss not eatin’ no dead bird, am I?”

Skaterdud had his own language all full of double, triple, and sometimes quadruple negatives, so you never really knew if he meant what he said, or the opposite.

“So ... you’re a vegan?” I asked.

“Naah.” He patted his stomach. “Ate the dead bird early. What about you?”

I shrugged, not wanting to get into it. “This year we’re celebrating Chinese Thanksgiving.”

He raised his eyebrows knowingly. “Year of the Goat. Gotta love it.”

“So,” I asked, “isn’t the skate park closed for the winter? What, are you gonna sit here and wait till it reopens in the spring?”

He shook his head. “Unibrow said he’d come down and open it for me today. But I don’t see no Unibrow, do you?”