Tonika Selfies

Why hello. Yes it's me, Ackmena, the best barkeep in the galaxy, bar none. You've caught me washing glasses and reminiscing about the good old days, before the Empire closed me down! I love to reminisce, as you all know! I recall, this time five years ago, just before a New Hope, more or less... it was quiz night and let me tell you, my joint was jumping, in more ways than one. It seemed like the whole of Tatooine was packed into my humble cantina that night. It was the number one G spot for getting down and unravelling your topknot, you might say. Ahh... heady romance. The roar of the Sarlaac and the smell of the crowd... the sound of those teenagers' hormones going into overdrive... a few of them actually made the jump to hyperspace! Good times, you might say, yeeees!

CUE FLASHBACK 

Lapti Nek is blasting over the 'banging' sound system as I push Tork through the Cantina doorway in a wheelchair. His foot is in plaster. He had a nasty run in with some Tusken Raider Space Invaders, and let me tell you those guys are tough! They'd mistaken Tork for some kind of overgrown walnut, and gee, were those boys hungry! They took a considerable bite out of Tork's foot. Fortunately he tastes of six-week old bantha droppings, or else they'd have eaten the rest of him, to boot!

I push past the Tonnika sisters taking selfies as usual and as I settle Tork into a booth I notice Dratun in the corner showing off his new 'falsies' to M'iyoom Onith. False as in pretend. As in fake. Head cones, I mean. Those Gotal head cones are supposed to be arousing. I shit you not, check Wookiepedia if you don't believe me.

 

As it's still early, the quiz is in full swing. Sosio Path is on the mic:

'Question One. What do you get a Wookiee for Christmas, when he already owns a comb?'

The customers look at each other blankly. One puts 'holographic wow.'

'Question Two. Who writes every single factual Star Wars book on the market?'

There's an uneasy muttering among the throng and someone says: 'Ryder Wyndham of course! You'd think there aren't any other fans who can string a sentence together.'

'He's a literary genius!' I hear someone in the crowd cry.

'Shut up, Ryder,' comes another voice in reply. 

Already bored with the quiz, I tune my selective hearing to filter out the crap and listen in on Fixer Loneozner and Camie Bra-strap canoodling at the end of the bar:

Camie - 'we got friendly, down in the sand...'

Fixer - 'tell me more, tell me more!'

It must be those summer nights... I honestly envy these young people. There isn't enough pot in the galaxy could make me feel twenty again!

I scan the heaving crowd for Tank Sunber but can't spot him. I've had a soft spot for Tank ever since I saw him get a hard spot for Camie when they were both skinny dipping in the Dune Sea. That sand must have really got in all the cracks...  I was only there to air off my pooney, you understand. And let me just say that pooney gets heavily discoloured on a regular basis! I'm not your regular cheap stalker or anything, no siree!

Tank is the fittest boy in Anchorhead, but he isn't the brightest star in the sky if you know what I mean. You couldn't hold a conversation about existentialism with him. It doesn't really matter with a shoulder to waist ratio and washboard the like he's packing! Tank Sunber makes me ache in places so far uncharted. He gives me a wide on like the Cohn Drift. Whatever that is. Tank is so fit, he stands out like that six foot Jawa at the Lars Homestead. I can understand why his parents are so proud of him, even if he doesn't know what mathematics is. Not that the other boys from Tosche Station are anything special. Deak is gay for Windy, and Windy likes it Biggs. Are there no straight boys on Tatooine, I lament. Apart from Fixer; but he makes self-harming look attractive.

 
As I'm musing and wiping down and plotting ways to get my revenge on Darth Shitfaced for upstaging me at ComicCon, who struts in but that punk Luke Skywalker, wearing an inane, tooth-whitened grin and a silly hat that looks like an upturned cauliflower with goggles sown onto it. If he thinks it makes him street, I'm here to tell him that it does not.
 

Luke lollops over to Fixer and shakes his hand animatedly, before sticking his hand up Camie's blouse and fondling her giant breast roughly. Camie slaps Luke across his weird face: 'Dornt pusht warm hey' (translation - don't push it wormie).

I won't tolerate violence in my esteemed establishment so I quickly interpose myself between the two altercators:

I address Luke first: 'Luke, face it, she doesn't like you. I don't like you either. Neither does anyone else; you're a whining little pussybitch. Just like your father.'

Luke - 'you knew my father?'

'Knew your father? Why, who didn't know Little Annie Skywalker? When he wasn't bringing the corpse of his mother home he was killing Sand People... and not just the men, but the women, and the younglings! And when he wasn't making inappropriate fascistic comments, he was interrupting and losing his temper, or asking stupid questions!'

Luke - 'are you an angel?'

'Yes, just like that! I don't know how to break this to you Luke, but I'm afraid you're barred. I never want to see your whiny, pussybitch face again!'

Luke - 'but Ackmena, that's not fair! Camie and Fixer get to stay!'

'After what I've been through - what you put me through - all I can say is that whatever you thought I heard I thought you said that you thought I wanted to hear, let me tell you, I wasn't. Now buzz off.'

Luke blinks - 'But Ackmeeeeeeena!'

That's it. I have Tork get out of his wheelchair to turf Skywalker out into the street. Luke attempts to use the Force on him by making his lightsabre move a bit in the sand where it falls but Tork is unimpressed and simply breaks the cheeky Padawan's jaw before getting his curling tongs out and giving him a perm the like of which has never been seen before (or since).

 

'Fighting the Frizzies'

I turn back to Camie, who is looking self-satisfied and foxy all at the same time:

'I don't know what you're looking so chirpy about. Haven't you just broken up with Prince Andrew?'

Camie - 'Dornt geht clef har, Ahk Men Ha...' (translation: don't get clever, Ackmena)

'I wouldn't dream of it, dear.'

 

 

Camie yawns. She's had a long day sucking off random moisture farmers old enough to be her father. She sits at the booth and promptly falls unconscious in her Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

'That's right. Just go to sleep, sweetheart. Pray for brains.'

As I sweep off I say under my breath: 'the things I'd do to that cocky madam... that would shut her wannabe royal mouth!'

 

 

Fixer is watching me with a twinkle in his eye - 'I've been waiting to get you alone all night. You are one tough broad and one hot momma.'

I can't put up with any more of this flirtatious insanity. I'm at a point now that I am so exhausted that I cannot speak. Literally, I cannot speak.

'Look, Fixer, I did you a favour, now you do me a favour.'

Fixer - 'anything for you, babe.'

'Go fuck yourself.'

If you've ever met a man who knows how to push all your buttons, you'll understand where I'm coming from. With that I head out back, past Zutmore, and let out a primal scream which shakes the very foundations of the Cantina, and probably all of Mos Eisley.

 
 

It's time to close up. And we all know what that means:

 

Ackmena -             Just hear my song, friend

                              The tears I'll bring, friend

                                Don't forget me in your screams

 

Sosio -                    Cantina quiz night

                                In the Tatooine light

                                Time to get in your teams!

 

Ackmena -             Next time you're bored, friend

                                I'd like a word, friend

                                Just bring your girl friend

                                To see me!

 

Barbarine -             Our host might be off her face

                                And her damned song's a disgrace

                                Of you there won't be a trace

                                If there's a fight in the place!

 

Bom Vimdin -           Don't be mean, Barbarine!

 

Ackmena -             Try dropping by friend,

                                Give Tork a lend, friend

                                He's on the mend friend

                                And thanks to who, friend?

                                Yes, its me, yours truly!

                                So here's to good times, friend

                                It's too sublime, friend

                                At least it rhymes, friend

                                That it be!

 

Thorp -                    Maybe she has delusions of gender, But everyone loves a sassy

                                bartender!

 

Ackmena -             And when you're crazed, friend

                                When you're deranged, friend

                                Around the bend, friend

                                Insane you will be!

                                But it's just tough, pal

                                I've had enough, pal

                                I'm sounding rough, pal

                                Yes, really!

 

Momaw Nadon -     Gormaanda's really a man, Ackmena's nearly a man

 

Ackmena -             There's Zutmore's new caravan

                                Can't you see?

                                Follow me!

                                Na na na na na!

 

All -                         na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na!

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na na na na na

                                na

                                na

                                na...

  

BACK IN THE PRESENT

You know, I should never reminisce. What was I thinking?