you on the avenue in twenty minutes, and we'll jump on the bus."
             "And then take the 7?" I asked.
             "Yeah. That'll leave us right by Palladium."
             Chris and I hung up. I picked a brightly striped shirt off of the heap of clothes on the side of my room and flung it over my sticky shoulders. I pounded down the stairs, ran into the bathroom, and squirted a gob of gel into my hair. Blond spikes poked up in all directions. Perfect. I grabbed my wallet off of the television in the living room and sauntered into the kitchen while tucking it slyly into my back pocket.
             "Dad?" He was sitting at the kitchen table, going over some papers from work.
             "What?" He reacted sharply, as always.
             "Can I borrow, like, twenty bucks?"
             "Twenty dollars?" He questioned me as though I had asked for a thousand.
             "And when will you be home?"
             "I don't know. Whenever."
             "Hmm, I see." He paused. "And why do you need twenty dollars to go to Chris' house?"
             ...