Journal Entry #51: Weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me in a Spacebucks
Ever since Poe and Beebee-Ate moved in, I’ve been buying caf in the morning more often, instead of making it at home. RIP my bank account.
See, Beebee is kind of hyper in the morning. When my alarm goes off, he rolls off his charging port and starts following me around. Even into the bathroom—like, bro. Personal space?? So, I’m kinda eager to just get out the door as soon as possible.
But, maybe Beebee-Ate is just my poor excuse. Because...coffeeshops in autumn? Vibes. I already admitted to you that I’m a sucker for seasonal beverages.
I'd had it in my mind to try to meditate before work. I had told Fannie I would. (This was before...stuff happened.) And over my morning caf seemed like a good time to do it. But…I never really ended up doing it. I guess I’m afraid of what I’ll see and hear, if I quiet my mind like that. I’m scared I’ll see whatever’s inside me that my mom seems so afraid of... Or, I’m scared I’ll see nothing at all.
Because...that’s how I’ve felt, lately. Like a husk. Holding my head above water, but just barely. Making it through. Texting my mom every day to keep her happy, and saying “Yes I love you I’ll tell my parents about you soon” to my sorta-girlfriend to keep her happy (guess I won't have to worry about that anymore at least), and showing up to work on time and generating five-hundred pieces of content to keep them happy, and lying to my uncle about my connection to the Force to keep him happy (won't have to worry about that anymore either I guess), and suppressing my urge to kick Beebee-Ate across the room like a football to keep my roommate happy (still have to deal with that unfortunately), and, well, I guess I kind of thought if I had my dream life in the city and a decently-paying job and a girl telling me every day that she loves me and I mean something to her and I’m not just a waste of space that I’d be happy, too, but—
…Frick. No. I can’t. See what I mean? I’m much better off keeping my introspection at bay.
And my little daily overpriced latte helps. Because it’s not just coffee. I am purchasing my sanity.
Somehow.
Even if it does cause me financial ruin in my thirties. But, hey—the way the New Republic is going, I don’t got a lotta hope for the decade ahead anyway!
And—well—I just made a little deal that'll set me up for life.
You’ll see.
So, anyway. Since I’m not meditating, I end up people-watching a lot. And, I end up watching Armitage a lot, because he is by far the most entertaining character of the ensemble. At first I thought he was the store manager, but then I saw him getting yelled at by the manager, so, I think he's just a shift leader or something.
But he wants to be the manager. I can see it in his eyes.
And I can tell this guy is a real psych case—someone clinging onto whatever little power he can grasp between his bony little service-gloved fingers—because he runs the place like a freaking military operation. Like, homie?? You do know you’re working minimum wage for a food service galacticorp, right?
I would soooo hate to work with him—but to give him credit, it’s the most efficient Spacebucks I’ve ever been to. Even at peak business hours. Armie runs a tight ship.
(I call him “Armie” in my head. One day it’s gonna come out of my mouth by accident, and dude’s gonna vault himself over the counter and try to murder me.)
(Well, try to murder me again, I mean. No, wait—I'm getting ahead of myself here—you'll see.)
So, last week, they got my order wrong. I brought it to the counter, and Armitage muttered “absolutely unacceptable” under his breath, and dragged over this poor zit-covered, sleep-deprived, college-kid barista by the scruff of his collar and publicly berated him in front of me and forced him to apologize to me and let me keep the first drink but upsized my new drink for free and remade it himself and forced the poor barista kid to watch him do it, and I’m pretty sure someone should report that as a workplace harassment incident—but it was also funny as hell, and sure made my day.
What I actually ordered was the korranut sweetgourd cold brew. But, I ended up kind of liking the first thing, too, so I came back to the counter to ask what it was. The traumatized barista kid ducked into the back when he saw me coming, so I flagged down Armitage.
“Yo, Armitage. What was in that first order?” I asked.
He blanched—as if he could get any paler. His eyes shifted around, like he was afraid who might hear. “What?” he whispered hoarsely.
I blinked a couple times. Was I insane? “Uhh…what was…in the first order…?”
He seemed to regain some composure, and squinted at me. “How do you know about the first order?” he hissed.
Now I was getting a little freaked out. “I…I tasted it?” I stuttered.
Then things got really weird.
He grabbed me by the wrist and took me behind the counter and pulled me into the back room. It happened so fast—my brain froze up. He was skinny as heck, but his grip was like iron. I could’ve beaten him up if I’d tried, but I was scared stiff. I threw terrified looks at the other baristas. Tried to say “help” with my eyes, but they just ignored me. The manager was nowhere to be seen. Either this was a normal occurrence to them, or they were too scared of Armitage to do anything.
Maybe both.
He pulled me into a storage closet and slammed the door behind us and shoved me back against the wall.
“Dude, what—”
“Who are you?” Armitage hissed. “I knew there was something I didn’t like about you from the start, Ben Quadinaros—if that even is your real name. Who sent you? How long have you been watching me?”
“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I stuttered. I was bigger than him, but I don’t like when grown-ups yell at me—it doesn’t matter that I’m a grown-up now—I still don’t like it.
Armitage wrinkled his nose at me. As if I were literally garbage. (For reference, I am only figuratively garbage.) “What’s your real name, Ben Quadinaros?”
Was there a reason why I shouldn’t give him my real name? I didn’t know. Maybe? I couldn’t really think.
“Ben, uh...Calrissian?” I posed weakly.
He looked me over with a snarling grimace, seeming to feel I had insulted his intelligence. “No…no, I don’t believe that one bit. What is it really?”
The Solo snark won out. “Would you take Jabba the Hutt?” I asked.
He sneered. In an instant his hand flew to his hip, under his green apron, and I realized—OH, KRIFF ME—Armie was armed. It was Armitage Arkanis, in the broom closet, with the blaster. Ben Solo becomes a white outline on the floor. I got that horrible feeling all of a sudden like when you jump into hyperspace on a full stomach.
“Oh frick—geez—oh my Force—I’m—Ben—my name is—Ben Organa Solo!” I blurted, genuinely scared for my life. Because yeah, my life kinda sucks, but it doesn’t suck that bad—not bad enough to lose it to an unhinged ginger who’d smoke me in the back of a Spacebucks for, what—lying about my name?
“Solo,” Armitage said slowly, and his eyes flashed with recognition. “Yes. I knew it. The Alderaanian princess’s son. What do you want from me, then? Information?”
“I-I mean…yeah? I…I just wanted to know what was in the drink,” I choked out. “Please. Don’t kill me.”
Now his expression turned to one of bewilderment. “…The drink?” he repeated.
“Y-yeah," I said. "The order that got messed up. The…the first one.”
The longest thirty seconds of silence ever. My knees were shaking and my heart was pounding in my ears. I felt like I was either gonna throw up or piss myself. I wondered what it felt like to get shot.
And then Armitage blinked a few times and withdrew his hand from his hip and looked around for a second and became the shift leader again and seemed to realize how insane it was that he’d dragged a paying customer into a broom closet and threatened him. He took a clumsy step backward and cleared his throat.
“I…apologize for the misunderstanding,” he muttered weakly. I could sense his weakness.
Oh, I thought. He's not so scary. I could crush his windpipe with one hand. And then I stopped feeling so afraid.
I saw an opening. Stood up a little taller. Squared my shoulders a little.
“Uhh, yeah, you better,” I said. “‘Cause I’m reporting your ass. What the kriff, dude?”
He took another step back, and cast a worried glance behind him.
Oh! So he was scared of me now. I liked that. I liked that sooo much better.
“I mean...hello?" I shouted. "You’re kriffing insane! You can’t freaking do that to people! Who do you think you are? Who’d you think I was?”
“I misunderstood,” Armitage sniffed, but he couldn’t hide his discomfort. “I…I thought you were someone looking to get me in trouble.”
“Yeah, well, now I am,” I said. I took a little step forward, and he took a little step back. I found that really funny for some reason, and if I weren't so fired up I would've laughed at him. “Seriously! You were making threats on my life just because you thought I was like, what, an undercover workplace investigator? From Spacebucks corporate, or sentient resources, or something?”
“Yes,” Armitage agreed hurriedly. “Yes. That is—exactly—precisely—who I thought you were. Quite.”
“Well, you should damn well be investigated,” I huffed. “For Force’s sake! I’m filing a police report.”
“Don’t,” he begged.
“You were gonna pull a blaster on me!”
“I don’t have one. I don’t have one!” He pulled up the lap of his apron and showed me his pockets. And he was right. His legs were so skinny. Like toothpicks, or something. There was no way he had a blaster—not even one of those really little ones.
So, he’d been bluffing. That tracked. I was beginning to understand this guy real kriffin' well—he was scary as kark, until you had him in a corner, and then he just freaking melted.
“Okaaay,” I said. “Pretty sure you can still get in a lot of trouble for threatening me. You don’t want my mom to know about this, buddy. She practically freaks out when I get a hangnail.”
Armitage turned white. Again—as if he could get any whiter. “P-Princess Leia? I mean…the Senator Organa?”
“The one and only.”
Bro dropped to his knees on the dirty-ass closet floor. “Oh, my God. Please. No.” I once again suppressed the urge to laugh at him.
Wow! Wasn’t this amusing. I felt like I could kick him in the face right now, and he’d just sit there and take it.
Something stirred within me. Something toothy and mean and strong that rippled downward through my body and made my hands feel hot. Maybe it was that thing Mom and Uncle Luke were so afraid of. What Snoke had always tried to encourage, before I cut contact with him. What Snoke seemed to still want to stoke inside of me, now that his whispers had begun again to brush up against the perimeters of my mind. That power that had made me believe, for a second, that I could come at my uncle with a lightsaber...
Armie’s bottom lip trembled. Now he looked like he was going to throw up or piss himself. I kept him in suspense for a luxurious fifteen more seconds and wondered if he’d cry. I imagined what it’d feel like to bash this loser’s skull in for thinking he could threaten me.
How many homicidal fantasies is a guy allowed to have before he has to turn himself over to the psych ward? Is twice in one year okay? As a treat?
Asking for a friend.
Anyway. Now that I knew he wasn't armed, I wasn't scared of him anymore. Because if Armitage wasn't armed, then it was just up to whoever had bigger arms, and that was me—but luckily for Armie, we were kind of in an armistice.
Well, I was gonna call the police on him. But then I had the most legendary, freaking hilarious idea ever. A real stroke of genius.
“...Okay, Arkanis,” I said finally. “I’ve got a solution: buy me caf for the rest of my life, and I won’t tell your manager. Or the police. Or my mom.”
Armie’s eyes bugged out. “Buy your caf?” he spluttered. “For life?”
“Yep.” I gave him a little grin and a nod. “What can I say? I’m a college grad in a failing economy, who bought into the lie that my degree would mean something, and now I’m effectively an alcoholic—just with overpriced caf-based beverages instead of booze.”
Armitage blinked slowly, like an ugly little frog, and wet his thin, pale lips.
I shrugged. “I’m a simple man, Armitage. I’m giving you options here. Finance my addiction, and I’ll let this go.”
He slowly rose to his feet. “There is no way I could possibly afford that,” he spat. “You come in here almost every day.”
“Yeah, well. Can you afford me reporting you to the authorities?” I asked. “‘Cause I’ll throw in what an abusive little skrit-head you are to your employees, too. And the time I saw you accidentally sneeze into a drink but serve it anyway.”
If he was any paler, he’d be frickin’ transparent.
“...Fine,” he said. “But—there has to be a credit limit on this. Five credits a day.”
“Five credits doesn’t buy a single damn thing on your menu, and you know it."
“It buys a plain black coffee,” he disagreed haughtily.
“I don’t want a plain black caf, I can make that at home,” I snapped. “And what makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate? I don’t have to hold my tongue. I can call the police right now.”
Armitage opened his mouth and closed it again. Like an ugly little fish. (Basically you could describe him as an ugly little anything and it'd be accurate.)
Well, I already had all the leverage here. But I decided to throw him a bone anyway.
“Look, buddy,” I said softly. “I keep in shape, so I’m not gonna rack up a tab. And when I’m picking up orders for work, they let me do it on the company card. I'll go easy on ya. I swear. So…do we got a deal, or what?”
He was silent for several moments, his eyes kind of glassed over. Then he nodded dumbly.
Oh my Force. He actually went for it.
Ha! Baby’s first blackmail.
“Nice.” I grinned and punched him lightly in the shoulder. He flinched. “So, uh. You mind transferring me some credits for today? And then you can just, like, give me a gift card, or something.”
Again, he nodded, looking like I'd kicked his puppy—or, maybe just like a kicked puppy. For a second, I almost felt bad.
And then I remembered how he'd threatened my life—or tried to make me think that he could—and I thought of Snoke—and I thought of Luke—how my whole life I've always felt like everyone was always trying to control me—and how I'd sworn to never let anyone throw me around ever again—and suddenly, I didn't feel quite so bad anymore.
"Crabapple caramel crunch," Armitage muttered, all of a sudden.
I looked at him. "What?"
He raised his watery eyes to meet mine, the familiar scowl back in place.
"That was the first drink," he said quietly. "The...first order."
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