A Ruckus in Freetown

Photo by Slappy McGee
Werdz by Ted Crumski

He crossed the threshold into the cantina and sighed, head and shoulders drooping for only a moment before he set them back again. The symbol of the armor compelled him to want to stand tall; its newly acquired heft demanded it. This was becoming an increasingly familiar scene he’d rather walk away from but no longer could. As soon as his first dusty boot landed inside the establishment, he felt all eyes aimed at him as the one to dispense with this distracting nonsense and return the place to one of sullen detachment.

“What’s the ruckus, Taanti?” he asked the bartender as he strolled up behind the sand-stained man at the center of the quarreling. Victquin Elibroc. He should have smelled the dilarium oil vapors from outside and known to just steer clear; let this defuse of its own accord. The burly, permanently and loudly disgruntled miner was likely agitating himself into one misdirected tirade or another, always drawing from a few repeated themes, always far more disruptive than dangerous.

“Filthy Weequay won’t pour me another!” the patron interjected as Taanti opened his mouth to respond.

He gave the bristling barkeep a quick, sidelong glance and an almost imperceptible gesture with the hand on his hip. Taanti deliberately set an empty mug on the bar, took a step back, and crossed his arms, grinding his horned jaw laterally.

For once he was in a role he chose, not one he found himself in by circumstance or compulsion, but it was still so new. It wasn’t at all ill-fitting, but certainly required a break-in period, not unlike the durasteel and beskar helm under his arm. He was early to realize that a quicker wit was more effective than a quick draw in almost every situation. Almost. Repellent as this fellow could be, order needed to come from level-headed, fairly dispensed justice, not fear. His simmering resentments over the past were ever a reminder.

He leaned on the bar next to Victquin’s shoulder. “Weequays, I’ll grant you, can be a bit…prickly,” he said in an even, almost soothing tone. “But nevertheless, I venture to guess that the problem here is likely you, friend.”

“Yeah, how you figure it?” Victquin snarled without looking at him.

“Well, you know what your problem is, Victquin? You got no self-awareness. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

“Please, Sheriff, do explain,” Victquin said mockingly, leaning back and crossing his arms as if to mirror the bartender’s adversarial pose.

“You ever hear the saying, ‘You run into a Weequay in the morning, you ran into an Weequay. You run into Weequays all day, you’re the Weequay’?”

Victquin snapped his head around to lock his fiery eyes on him, looked back to his empty mug, then slowly back at him with a creeping grin. A rumbling chuckle began somewhere from the center of the big miner and erupted into a bellowing laugh.

“Yeah, probably so. That’s a good one, Vanth. I’m gonna use that.”

He allowed a subtle smile and softened his eyes, then gave the still-guffawing Victquin a peaceable clap on the back as the Bantha-sized man stood and lumbered toward the exit. He made note not to repeat this amiable expression as a cloud of airborne Tatooine caused a near coughing fit in the surrounding patrons.

“Correllian whiskey, Sheriff?” Taanti asked.

It took a beat for him to register, then he simply smiled and gave a nod.

It was a good line, he reflected. It wasn’t a saying, though, was it? Something he improvised on the spot? He felt almost as if he had channeled it from a distant bygone self, someone he once was or dreamt to be. It didn’t quite feel genuine, but familiar and without doubt right for this new calling. If he wanted to shed the past, the gnawing misgivings of some sort of imposter, to finally become the righteous man he was destined to be, wasn’t he justified in inhabiting whatever persona—or armor—aided that transformation?