Even Sinners Still Have Souls

by Joy, E. n.

  Moments later, after several failed attempts, he printed out an image that, in his opinion, matched the authentic note perfectly. He then began printing several images of the front of the twenty dollar, and then turning those pages over, and printing the back of the bill. Next he cut the paper up with his paper cutter. Afterwards, he began to utilize some of the techniques he learned from the mafia book to help make the phony money look and feel more authentic. He first sprayed them all with the smudge protector. He then wrinkled the money up and ironed it flat several times, to give a worn out look and feel. Sometime later, he was done and was ready to test them out.

  “Let’s go see if they work,” Kemo told Jasmine.

  “How?”

  “I’m thinking a drive thru, so we could just peel out if they start trippin’.”

  “Okay, but let’s drop off Rain at my mom’s house first.”

  Kemo agreed. Just in case they did get called out on the counterfeit money, he didn’t want his daughter in the midst of it.

  After dropping off Rain, Kemo and Jasmine drove to the nearest drive thru restaurant. Kemo drove up to the speaker and ordered two combo meals. There were two cars ahead of him, so minutes later when he made it to the window to pay, the lady working the drive thru window quoted his total and Kemo handed her the phony twenty dollar bill with no hesitation. She glanced at it and quickly stuffed it in the cash register. She gave Kemo his change, and then seconds later, handed him his food. “Thank you, have a nice night,” said the drive thru worker.

  “Thank you,” replied Kemo as he desperately tried to hold in his excitement and laughter.

  When they finally pulled away and were no longer within the drive thru worker’s sight and ear shot, they erupted in laughter and began eating the food. They then began hitting several drive thru restaurants and repeating the scam over and over, burning through the phony money. Only once did the scam fail.

  Kemo had handed the employee the note. She looked at it, then did a double take when she noticed that the framing of the note was slightly off center. She stared at it for a few seconds. Kemo and Jasmine could only sit frozen in fear. All that could be heard was the engine of the car and the periodical swooshing of the passing cars from the street. Seconds later, or what seemed like forever to Kemo and Jasmine, the employee returned to the window and stuck her head out to hand them back their funny money.

  “This bill is no good,” the employee said in a low tone so her co-workers wouldn’t hear her.

  “Really?” asked a convincingly shocked looking Kemo.

  “Yeah,” she answered back with a grin as she handed the phony money back to Kemo. “Next time, make sure it’s not off center,” the young lady informed them. The young lady working the drive thru had a few gang related tattoos on her forearms. She’d probably been in the criminal game before herself, if she still wasn’t. That’s probably why she chose not to report the incident, but instead, send Kemo and Jasmine on their way.

  Kemo pulled away from the drive thru, examining the bill to give the appearance that he was baffled by the discovery that he held a false note.

  In spite of that one close call; they continued cashing in the counterfeit notes, making sure that they appeared as legit as possible before using them of course. Before they knew it, they were all out of fake money and had several bags of food piled in the back of the car.

  “What are we gonna do with all this food?” asked Jasmine.

  Kemo looked around the neighborhood they were driving through. “Let’s give some to the homeless people,” replied Kemo.

  “Naw, let’s just throw it away so we can get Rain and go home now. Plus, if we do that, we’re going to waste more gas.”

  “Don’t be like that, Jasmine. Even though there’s no bloody victim or anything, we’re still breaking the law of man and of God. So let’s at least have one of them not be so angry at us by not being so selfish.”

  “Since when do you give a care about man-God and all that crap?” Jasmine asked, sucking her teeth.

  “I don’t. It’s just that sometimes you have to do the right thing in the midst of doing the wrong thing.”

  Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Okay Malcolm X.”

  They began pulling up to different homeless people on the street and handing them bags of food. In a city like Roble, they were everywhere. Moments later, the couple spotted a homeless man in the middle of the street holding a sign that read, ‘Hungry. Anything will help. Just want to eat’

  “Looks like it’s your lucky day, buddy,” said Kemo as he spotted the man with the sign.

  “He really is lucky, ‘cuz it’s our last bag,” said Jasmine.

  Kemo pulled up next to him and then rolled his window down. Next he reached in the back of the car and pulled out the last bag of food. “Here you go, dog. Got some food for you,” said Kemo to the homeless man as he handed the food to him.

  “Thank you, man. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you very much. May God bless you,” said the homeless man to Kemo and Jasmine.

  “You’re welcome.” Kemo then pulled away.

  The homeless man continued staring at them until they were finally out of his sight. He then threw the bag of food into a nearby gutter as he lifted the sign back up to his chest. It was obvious that his plea for food was just a front for him really wanting people to give him money to go buy some dope.

  When Kemo and Jasmine made it back home, after picking up Rain, Kemo counted the money they had acquired from the scam.

  “We made a hundred and fifty three bucks,” said Kemo when he was finished counting.

  “That’s not bad,” said Jasmine.

  “Yeah, but it’s not good either. We were out there for like four hours. Not to mention the gas we spent driving around.”

  “Better than nothing,” said Jasmine as she walked to the bathroom.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  They continued working the scam for the next few months until Kemo was given something at work that made him redirect his counterfeit business.

  “These are movie theater gift certificates,” said Kemo’s supervisor as he spoke to all his employees at a meeting. “It’s our way of saying thank you for all your hard work,” continued his supervisor as he handed out the gift certificates.

  When Kemo received his, he noticed how simple looking they were. They were entirely in black and white, with the amount it was worth printed on top, which was ten dollars. Cheapskate thought Kemo, but then shortly thereafter began seeing dollar signs. Along with the ticket’s info, was the name of the theater company that produced them. There was also a few serial numbers printed at the very bottom, but Kemo knew he could easily change those numbers once he began counterfeiting them. Kemo figured he could do both the counterfeit money hustle and the theater ticket one as well. The more, the merrier.

  As soon as he got home, Kemo began to work on those gift certificates. He changed the amount from ten dollars to sixty dollars. He also changed the serial numbers so they wouldn’t be traced back to the original purchaser. When he was ready to begin printing, he ran into a wall. He noticed that the tickets weren’t made from regular paper, but from a thin slightly glossy paper. So he quickly drove to the nearest office supply store and bought the paper that best matched the gift certificate. Once back home, he began printing them out in masses. They were three times smaller than the twenty dollar bills, so he was able to print out a lot more and a lot faster.

  He was cutting up the prints when Jasmine walked in with little Rain in tow. “What’s that?” asked Jasmine.

  “They’re gift certificates. They gave me one at work. I’m making more so we can go and get back the change once we buy a ticket with it.”

  “You think they’ll give you money back?”

  “Yeah. What else are they gonna give me back? It’s not like they got gift certificates set up like Monopoly money to give people their change back in.” At least that’s what Kemo was banking on. He probably should have thought of t
hat before he wasted all his time and money counterfeiting the gift certificates. Too late for that now though”

  “If you say so,” Jasmine shrugged.

  Moments later, when Kemo was done cutting up the tickets, he asked Jasmine if she wanted to go cash them in with him.

  “Naw, baby, I’m tired and I have to cook dinner. You go handle your business.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back. Love you,” said Kemo as he kissed Jasmine.

  “Love you too,” replied Jasmine. Kemo then kissed Rain goodbye and walked out the door.

  When he made it to the nearest theater that accepted the gift certificates, he decided to try cashing in the original ten dollar ticket as a test run to make sure that they in fact would give him cash as change. He walked up to the ticket booth and asked for one ticket to a particular movie. He got his movie ticket and some change in return. He lit up with joy inside when he finally knew that they did give out change in cash. He stepped inside and walked to the restroom. Minutes later, he stepped out from the restroom and walked to the customer service area of the theater.

  “I’m not gonna be able to stay for the movie. I just got a call that I need to pick up my little girl,” said Kemo to the theater employee. “Do you give refunds?”

  “You don’t wanna save it for a later date?” asked the employee.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  Kemo was then handed the money for the ticket and he walked out the theater and towards his car.

  He then began hitting theater after theater, repeating what he had done in the first one. Three hours later, he returned home with his pockets stuffed with cash. He sat on his living room couch and yanked all the money out and threw it on the couch next to him. Several bills scattered across the cushion.

  “Whoa, how much is that?” asked Jasmine as she walked up to the couch.

  “I don’t know, haven’t counted it yet.”

  Kemo then began counting. When he was done, he realized that he had made three hundred and twenty seven dollars in just three short hours. “It’s three hundred and twenty seven dollars,” Kemo told Jasmine.

  “That’s way better than the drive thru thing,” said Jasmine.

  “It is, but we’re gonna need more people to help out in order to really make more money.”

  “Why?” asked Jasmine.

  “Because I could only cash in one ticket at one time, but if I take you and some friends, we could cash in more at one time.”

  “And how much do we give whoever we take?” asked Jasmine.

  “I’m thinking half.”

  “Heck naw, that’s too much.”

  “They’re gonna be taking a chance too, Jasmine. Don’t be greedy. It’s all profit anyway… well at least once we make back the thousand we spent, which shouldn’t take too long.”

  “A’ight…I guess.” Standing by her man hadn’t failed her yet.

  “Let’s do it tomorrow,” said Kemo.

  “Okay. I’ll call up Kris and Veronica to see if they wanna do it.” Kris and Veronica were their closest friends who they trusted more than anyone else.

  “A’ight.”

  The next night, Kemo and Jasmine picked up Kris and Veronica with a fresh stack of gift certificates. On the way to a theater, Kemo explained exactly how they were going to do it.

  “We’re gonna go to a ticket window one at a time. When you come back to the car, you have to tell us which window you went to so we can go to another one. That way the worker won’t get suspicious. They might wonder why four people came with gift certificates back to back and start checking them out. Also, make sure to buy two tickets, that way it won’t look so suspicious that you’re spending a sixty dollar gift certificate on a single ticket.”

  “Okay, but before we go, let’s go get some weed cuz I’m a little nervous,” said Jasmine. “I need a joint to calm my nerves.”

  “A’ight,” said Kemo as he drove towards a weed spot.

  When they got there, Jasmine began digging in her purse for the money to buy the weed. Kemo glanced passed all the bills in Jasmines purse and instantly had a thought surface in his head. Why not buy dope with counterfeit money? Several thoughts began racing through his mind-the pros and cons of doing something so dangerous were weighing on his ghetto intellectual scale. He knew that a lot of those guys who sold dope on the street were never sober themselves, so they wouldn’t even check the money. He would have to do it at night to better hide the money’s appearance in case one of them got suspicious. He could buy some dope, get some change back, and then sell the dope back to someone else. It’s beautiful, thought Kemo about yet another one of his schemes to make a come up.

  But then he began thinking about all the things that could go wrong. What if he gets caught and they shoot him right then and there with no warning? What if word gets around that someone is buying dope with counterfeit money and they trace it back to him? Before he could finish his thoughts, Veronica reached for the money that Jasmine had pulled out and opened the door to get out. The girls always preferred to go get the weed themselves because the seller would sometimes give them the biggest sacks of weed to better befriend them in hopes of possibly sleeping with them.

  Kemo analyzed the transaction like he had never before. He wanted to see just how much attention the dope dealer paid to the money that was handed to him.

  “What you need li’l mama?” the dope dealer asked Veronica. The dope dealer was of average height. He was slim and wearing an all white tee shirt, blue jeans, and white Nikes-the official uniform for players in the city of Roble.

  “Just one,” replied Veronica as she handed him a twenty dollar bill.

  In the city of Roble, most dope purchasers asked for a sack by just stating how many they wanted since each sack is automatically worth ten dollars. If someone asked for dope by saying, “I would like to buy a ten dollar sack of marijuana,” the dealer would instantly think he or she was a cop and not sell to them.

  He quickly glanced at it and stuffed it in his left pocket. He then pulled out a sack of weed and gave it to her. Next, he pulled out a wad of cash and gave Veronica her change. He then inserted the twenty dollar bill that Veronica had just given him into the rest of his cash. When Kemo noticed just how careless the guy was, he knew he was going to start buying dope with funny money.

  When Veronica returned to the car, they drove to a liquor store to buy a blunt and some Hennessy for Kris and Kemo. They were gonna try to have some fun and make some money at the same time.

  When they arrived at the first theater, they parked the car far away, smoked the weed and drank some of the Hennessy to help them relax a bit.

  “Baby, I’m nervous. Could you go with me just this first time please?” Jasmine asked Kemo.

  Kemo really didn’t want to do that. He wanted to stick with his original plan. But at the same time, he didn’t want Jasmine to be all nervous and blow their cover. So he agreed. “A’ight, but just this time.”

  “Thanks.”

  They then stepped out of the car and walked towards the theater. “We have to walk separately so they don’t think we’re together,” Kemo explained to Jasmine.

  “Oh okay,” replied Jasmine as she began walking slower to gradually separate herself from him.

  Kemo noticed that there were no other customers in line, so when he got to the ticketing windows, he walked to the window that was located on the far left side, hoping that Jasmine would notice and that she would walk to the far right side window. That way, the employees wouldn’t see that two people were simultaneously using two sixty dollar certificates.

  As Kemo began asking the theater employee for tickets to a movie, he noticed that Jasmine had chosen to order her tickets right next to his window. Kemo tried hard to keep a straight face, even though he was angry at Jasmine for not thinking straight.

  “Could I get one ticket please?” asked Jasmine.

  “Which movie?” asked the theater employee.

  “Ummm…”

 
; Kemo felt like screaming at her, “It doesn’t matter which movie, Jasmine, because we’re going to refund the tickets anyway!”

  She finally chose a movie and then said, “I got a gift certificate.”

  “Oh okay,” said the theater employee.

  Kemo could only rub his face in frustration. Announce it to the whole world why don’t you, Jasmine, thought Kemo. Luckily the employee who was attending to Kemo wasn’t paying the transaction taking place next to him any mind. Kemo was handed his money and tickets, and then he stepped inside the theater. Inside he bought a few snacks with another gift certificate and got change from them as well. Kemo then turned around, spotted Jasmine and walked up to her. “Go to the guy on the far right when you go buy the snacks, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Jasmine.

  They both then got their change and eventually exited the theatre and headed back to the car. When they both got inside the car, Kemo erupted. “Jasmine! What were you thinking?”

  “What I do?” asked Jasmine in total shock. She thought she had done a great job.

  “Why did you order your ticket on the window that was right next to mine?”

  “Aw man, she did that? Fo’ real?” asked Kris with a tsk while shaking his head.

  “Yeah! And then she gonna say all out loud that she got a gift certificate. We’re lucky the other worker didn’t hear her.” Kemo turned to Jasmine. “And why did you only buy one ticket? I thought you knew to buy two, that way it wouldn’t look so suspicious that you were buying one ticket with a sixty dollar gift certificate.”

  “Sorry,” said Jasmine to Kemo as she looked at the floor.

  He sighed in trying to calm down. “Forget it, it’s alright. We got the money,” said Kemo with a smile as he pulled out the cash.

  Seconds later, Kris got out of the car and cashed in his ticket. Veronica did the same without a hitch. They continued the scam throughout the night until they were at the last theater. When the money was counted at the end of the night, they had accumulated close to one thousand dollars in total.