In which I dance with a Wookiee, and Kenobi tells all

Naturally, Kenobi was up for a night on the town. He doesn't have good transportation, so he is always happy for an excuse to bum a ride.

I was supposed to report to the courthouse in Mos Eisley ("at my convenience") to renew my droid's registration. Most people never bother, but I got caught. It is usually just a matter of paying a fee. It kept slipping my mind (I should have done it when I was there for my interview), but I remembered this time, and I didn't think it would take long.

We showed up and took a number. The slip said we would have a 14-minute wait. Over an hour later, they called my number, and the first thing they asked was to see the droid's number plate.

Those are hard to remove, and in some cases (I don't know about Onegee, I've never tried) it's often easier just to bring the whole droid. I didn't know they would want to see it - they had never asked for it before.

I got angrier and angrier with the attendant, whose fault it personally wasn't, and felt myself losing my temper. Kenobi can sometimes be helpful in these situations, but at the moment he was snoozing peacefully on the bench in the waiting area. (He is younger than I am!)

Anyway, I think you actually have to have a mind in order for the whammy to work, and the RMV (Registry of Mechanical Valets) isn't known as a great brain trust. I think the attendant was more afraid of me (she probably thought my hands were shaking with rage) than I was angry with her. I decided to quit before it got ugly. But my next "convenience" is going to be a long time coming.

Next we went to Steve's Sarlacc Pit for an excellent barbecued bantha dinner and I whined to Kenobi about the things that are bothering me. He didn't have much to say about the proposal to import enough outside water to double the amount of moisture on this planet, other than that it was profoundly stupid on many levels. I have plenty to say about it, especially since a big part of the proposal would be for the moisture farmers to pay for most of it, because supposedly we would benefit most from it. (Really? Then why didn't we suggest it ourselves?)

He had a lot more to say about the Empire's increasing presence here. I think it is just going to be temporary, because we go through this cycle every few years: Empire people start nosing around, talking about doing a census and setting up offices or security stations or whatever, and then they lose interest and leave. It's happened three or four times in 12 years. I've never given it much thought; I figure they just want to know is there anything here worth taking, and when they find out there isn't, they go away.

Kenobi worries it's something more sinister: perhaps they are looking for him or other escaped Jedi (he says that as if there are others... I'm afraid to ask). If so, I doubt that he has much to worry about, but who knows? Some time ago, maybe ten years ago, mass-mailings from Coruscant were sent all over the galaxy - not just the old republic, but the corporate sector and the outer rim planets too. The envelope screamed, "Don't miss out on your Jedi Retirement Benefits." It looked like junk mail to me - I threw mine away without even thinking about it. It didn't even occur to me to laugh at it because I get crazy mailings like that all the time.

The only thing that surprised me was that it had truly come from the Empire, and wasn't just a cheap third-party money-making scam. We were assured that the mailing had been made in error, that it had once been a regularly scheduled mass-mailing to make sure that no one fell through the cracks, but now that the Jedi had been exposed as traitors and exterminated, there was no longer any retirement plan, they were all dead, don't worry, and they were really sorry for the unfortunate and tasteless mistake.

Kenobi remains convinced that it was an artless attempt to locate senile Jedi, illegal offspring of Jedi, or potentially dangerous people with delusions of grandeur. The Larses were not amused either. I don't remember ever getting any such mailing before, so I'm not sure I buy the explanation that it was "regularly scheduled," but still, it seems a very clumsy way to catch someone who's hiding.

Anyway, we had a very animated conversation, and I had to remind him to keep his voice down, because the drinks were going to his head very fast. It doesn't always occur to me that he's got problems of his own - problems I can't even fathom. He probably had good reason to drink, and he drank plenty. He even paid for dinner.

As we staggered over to Thee Hutt Hut, Kenobi did his little speech about Mos Eisley being a "wretched hive of scum and villainy." I think I would have been impressed if I had not heard it a dozen times before. Mos Eisley really isn't that bad. It looks bad - it is definitely scruffy - and if you are looking for trouble, it is the place to go. However, it's also the place to go for dining, entertainment, and about 33% of what passes for "culture" on Tatooine.

Just don't wear any jewelry or flashy clothes or carry any expensive electronics. And leave the droids at home.

Of course, if you insist on going to Thee Hutt Hut, then you really are in a hive of scum and villainy. It's a hangout for smugglers, bounty hunters, drug dealers, narcs, and random weirdos who like to wear cheap rubber costumes. I don't know how they attract and keep such a varied clientele, or why Kenobi likes it so much.

"Try this," he said, handing me a stupid-looking pink drink. "It's a Hamster Death Gulp. The remedy is part of the recipe," he explained, which I guess was supposed to excuse the repulsive minty taste and chalky texture, but other than that it wasn't bad. "Let me introduce you to some friends of mine."

Unfortunately, my memory after that is spotty. I remember sitting at a table with a couple of heavily armed Wookiees, or possibly humans dressed in Wookiee suits. One of them tried to dance with me. They got into a brawl with some other patrons, and Kenobi and I snuck out.

After that, I remember some vague stumbling around for a while, yelling in a parking lot for no good reason, climbing onto a roof to adjust someone's vaporator, then finding myself in a different place - kind of a saloon with a Tusken Raider bartender, whom Kenobi assured me was "cool." It was very late - not that time means a lot in a Mos Eisley bar - and it was relatively quiet and not too busy. We found a booth and ordered drinks.

"Shandstawmer, you've been a ghood friend tummeee," Kenobi slurred.

Our drinks arrived, and that's when I realized I was still holding a Java the Hutt cup in my hand (great, I'm blacking out again). It occurred to me that neither of us really needed an extra drink, and that we were going to have to find a place to sleep because I wasn't going to be able to drive home.

But, at the time, it didn't seem right to waste good beer, and this was very good beer. I put my coffee aside and drank deeply.

"I really really meeeean it," Kenobi continued. "I teed to nell - I need to tell you something," he whispered loudy, leaning way over the table, I think aiming towards my ear although it was hard to be sure. "I'm gonna tell you everything. I owe it to you. I have to. I can't tell anyonebody else."

And he did. He told me about Anakin, and Palpatine, and a bunch of other Naboo politicians I hadn't paid much attention to then because I was on Tatooine, and a cyborg general, and clones, and droid armies, and secret weddings, and Yoda, and an elegant but evil count, and his brother and sister, and his adoptive parents, and his biological parents, and his brother in law, and the worst Life Day dinner party ever, and a buddy who worked at a diner, and a whiny padawan, and a trip to Kashyyyk, and this amazing little droid, and the fall of the Republic, and having to cut an enemy in half who he had secretly been "more than friends" with and who managed to put his body back together and survive.

None of it made much sense. I remember the topics but I don't know how they all fit together. It sounded like there were multiple children getting born around that time and I assume he fathered one of them. No clue who the mothers were. He probably told me, but it's lost along with my memory of the trip to Java the Hutt. It's just as well, because most of that information is probably better kept secret.

I just remember snippets of the story, and then waking up on the floor of a very small passenger ship. I don't remember how we got there. I suppose we walked, but it's a long walk from the saloon to the port. I was stiff and sore and my stomach hurt (though not as badly as it should have - maybe those Hamster Death Gulps really are good for something). My head was a vortex of pain. My mouth felt like it was full of Wookiee fur. (Given the previous night's festivities, I had to check to be sure it wasn't.)

Kenobi said the ship belonged to a friend who was "conducting business." He wouldn't say anything else, and I wanted to ask if this was the friend he supposedly cut in half, but I was afraid to bring it up. For one thing, perhaps he didn't remember telling me all those things, and he might regret it. For another, I'm not sure I even remembered it right.

The "friend" had left his speeder bike behind, on the ship, so the "business" must have been very local.

Kenobi was very quiet on the ride home, except to express concern that he had spent more than he had planned. I don't know if that was a hint to pay him back, but I spent a lot too, so I didn't say anything. I don't know if he even remembered spilling his guts to me, but since I don't remember much either, it doesn't really matter.