One Two Punch - Chapter Nine: "The Fake ID"

Here is Chapter Nine, entitled "The Fake ID". It introduces the character, JT, and it is one of my personal favorite chapters and one of the longer ones. Enjoy!

Chapter Nine: “The Fake ID”

I drove over to the house of where an old friend of mine lives who used to make me and my friends fake ID’s. He is a few years older than me, so he was in college when we needed fake ID’s as seniors in high school. He made them out of his parents’ basement with the help of a lamination machine.
Anyway, I knock on his door. What if he doesn’t live here anymore? An old woman answers the door, and I recognize her as his mother.
“Hi, Mrs. Thomas, does JT still live here?” I ask her.
She gets an angry look on her face. “Why, so he can make you some more fake ID’s?!” she exclaims. “Yes, I know what he was doing for you and your friends. Let me guess, you need one for him?” she asks, referring to Danny.
“Yes,” I say. “But I don’t need it for alcohol, otherwise I could just buy it for him. Listen, to make a long story short, he’s my son and I need a fake ID to change his last name to match mine, since I gave him up for adoption.”
“Oh,” she says. “I see. Well, my son doesn’t live here anymore. He got married, would you believe it? Anyway, I can give you their address, but I must warn you, he’s a changed man now. He won’t be so willing to make you one,” she says.
“That’s okay, I think I can persuade him,” I say as Mrs. Thomas leaves to get a pen and paper. She returns and then writes down the address and hands it to me. “Thank you very much,” I say politely.
“Not at all,” she says. “Goodbye, Michael.”
“Bye,” I say. Danny and I go back to the car and I start driving to the address Mrs. Thomas gave me.
“So, this guy JT made you fake ID’s so you could get beer?” Danny asks.
“Yes, and it was really effective seeing as I was already over six feet tall then. I looked like I was twenty-two, which is what my fake ID said. I would always be the one to buy the beer,” I say.
I pull up to a one story house. Danny and I exit the car and head up to the door and I knock on it.
A man opens the door and I immediately recognize it as JT, but he looked a lot different. He was clean shaven, he had shorter hair, and he was pretty good-looking. “Mike, is that you?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”
“Listen, JT, I need a favor. I need a fake ID,” I say.
JT gets a grimace on his face. “Sorry man, but I don’t do that anymore. Not after the fight I had with my mother.”
“Who is it James?” asks a female voice from inside the house.
“Just an old friend of mine. We won’t be long,” he yells back to her.
“Look, you gotta help me out. You see, this is my son,” I say, referring to Danny.
“You mean the one you gave up for adoption? Wait, aren’t you breaking the law or something?” he asks.
“Well, kind of. His dad doesn’t know I am Danny’s birth father. Anyway, I need the fake ID to enroll him in a basketball tournament, since we don’t have similar last names,” I say. Which reminds me, what time is it? I check my watch and see it is 7:15 PM. We have only forty-five minutes left to sign in.
“What’s so important about this, ‘basketball tournament’, did you say?” he asks.
I nod. “Well, I am in a lot of debt and if I don’t pay it off soon, I am going to be evicted and homeless. The winner of the tournament receives a whopping $25,000,” I say.
JT ponders this for a few seconds. “Gee, y’know, I don’t think I help you out man, I’m sorry,” he says.
“Please JT,” I say, grabbing his arm as he is about to leave and shut the door. “I need this really badly. You know what,” I say, pondering how badly I wanted to get into the tournament. “If we win, I will give you five grand out of twenty five grand,” I say.
He looks intrigued by what I said and says, “All right, I’ll do it. But only because my wife is pregnant, and we could really use the money,” he says. “Come on in.”
“Great, thanks,” I say.
JT goes into the kitchen and I can hear him tell his wife, “Listen, I gotta help this old friend out. He really needs my help. Don’t worry, this will only take five minutes max.”
He comes back and says, “Follow me,” and Danny and I do. He leads us into an office type room, with a desk and computer.
“All right,” JT says, as he gets out a camera. “It’s Danny, right?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Danny says.
“I need you to stand against that wall there. This is for the ID,” JT says. He takes a picture of Danny and then plugs the camera into the computer.
“Let me guess, you want California, right?” he asks, working on his computer.
“Yes,” I say. “Make his name Daniel Hollins.”
“OK, but first Danny, could I see your current ID, so I can match up all the personal info?” JT asks.
“Yeah, sure,” Danny says, pulling out his wallet and handing JT his license.
“OK, great. Wow, looks just like your old one, except for the picture and last name. Well that’s to be expected,” JT says.
“For someone who says they don’t make fake ID’s anymore, you sure can do it quickly,” I say.
“Yeah, well, let’s just say a few of your friends have stopped by again,” JT says. He prints out Danny’s ID and goes to his lamination machine, and laminates it.
“Looks good,” I say, taking it and examining it. I hand it to Danny who puts it in his wallet.
“Could I have my other license back, please?” he asks.
“Sure,” JT says, handing it to him. “Well, I guess that’s it then.”
“Yes, thank you so much, JT,” I say. We head out to the front door and stop.
“Listen, Mike. You’ve gotta win that tournament. If my wife finds out I did this, she’ll get really mad, especially if I don’t get any money out of it,” JT says.
“Don’t worry, you know how good I am at basketball,” I say. “Listen, before I go, the tournament is two weeks from now.”
“Okay. I was thinking ever since we made this deal I should come down and watch it in person. I could bring my wife, but not tell her what it’s for,” he says. “Where is it, by the way?” he asks.
“It’s at Galen Center, where the Trojans basketball team plays,” I say.
“Of course,” JT says.
“One more thing,” I say. “The tournament starts on Saturday, but it isn’t open to the public until Sunday.”
“Okay, I think I can make it,” JT says. “I’ll see you Mike.”
“See ya,” I say.
Danny and I head back to the car and I start to drive back to Galen Center. It is 7:40. I find myself going a bit faster than I normally would.
“I though you said I would get the $5,000,” Danny says, after a few minutes of driving.
“What?” I say, wondering what he was talking about and then finally realizing. “Oh! Well, I promised you $5,000, and you will get $5,000. I’ll take it out of my portion.”
“But I thought you needed almost all of it,” Danny says.
“Well I did, but I think I can manage,” I say.
As I drive a bit further, Danny asks, “What if we get caught?”
“We won’t be. The only people who could rat us out are Jennifer and JT, and I know neither of them will,” I say.
We finally get there, and as we’re running to the doors I check my watch again: 7:57. We run in and see there are only a couple of tables still set up and no families inside. I run up to the nearest one.
“Sorry, we’re late, got caught in traffic. Here’s the form, our ID’s, and the birth certificate,” I say to the man behind the desk, handing him everything I said.
“Okay, everything looks good. You will abide by all the tournament’s rules and regulations?” he asks.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Ok, great. The first qualifying game for the tournament is next Saturday at 10:00 AM, a week from today here at Galen Center. Tournament games only take place on weekends to accommodate the fathers’ jobs and their sons’ schoolwork. And here’s your pass to the tournament, show this at the ticket window as you come in,” he says.
“Ok, great,” I say, taking the pass. Danny and I leave Galen Center and head back to my car.
“There’s going to be a qualifying game?” Danny asks.
“Yes, and if I’m not mistaken, more than one. I’m pretty sure they need to whittle down the teams to a power of 2, so no one gets to play fewer games than anyone else, unless they win more,” I say.
“Ok, how many people do you think entered?” he asks.
“My best guess would be a couple hundred, so the qualifier will eliminate people down to 128 or 256 teams. I know, it’s a big tournament, but we can win, Danny. You’ve improved ten times better over practice and I know I still have what I had in college! We’re almost perfect for this competition, because neither the son nor the father can currently be a part of any professional basketball league, and neither of us is!” I say.
“Okay,” Danny says. “You know what? I think we can win too!”
“That’s the spirit!”