Name: Clive Manset
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Age: Uncertain, looks late 20’s.
Skin: Tan
Hair: Rugged, greasy hazel
Eyes: Green.
For what ever reason you find yourself talking to this man who sat at the bar in a cantina.
“Who, me? My story? Eh… Not much t’say. Not much most want to hear, but hey, if you insist!”
He’d light up a smoke, looking to the ashtray.
“I were born an’ raised on Tatooine. My father was a scavenger, my mom were like him, too. Only she died when I were young, sickness, I think. Dad ain’t say, dad ain’t talk about her much at all. Was painful for ‘im I figure. Anyway, he raised me, scavengin’ the wastes, sellin’ what junk we could find. Taught me what he knew, an’ what he knew were the rules of how t’be scum. That there ain’t no dishonourable way t’kill a man, so long as you come out alive an’ they don’t. To survive in the desert, y’had to be like the desert. Full o’grit, deceptive, an’ down right merciless, because the desert won’t give you no second chances.”
He maintained quite a smug grin as he spoke.
“I think I were about… twelve, maybe thirteen, we got the drop on a gang o’tusken raiders. They were houndin’ around a fallen shuttle in bound for Anchorhead, there weren’t no survivors an’ since it’d been a week since it came down we guessed no one were comin’ to recover it. M’dad, a dead eye when it came to his blaster rifle, dropped the tusken raiders like it were a joke. ‘cept one. Who he shot twice, once in each leg. We watched him struggle for a minute ‘fore headin’ down. When we got close m’dad handed me a blaster pistol an’ told me that today I’d become a man, I just had to shoot that raider in the head, an’ watch as he died. I had t’witness the life leave th’body, he said. It felt wrong, sure, we’d got what we wanted, an’ this were plain an’ simple, jus’ an execution. I pulled that trigger, an’ watched the life slip away. That were the first time I killed someone, an’ I knew right there, it would not be th’last.”
As he spoke he would gesticulate with his hands, and he’d do that a lot, to exaggerate things he was saying mostly, and at other times for immersion.
“A few years past an’ we’d found ourselves near Anchorhead, where dad met a woman, a nice woman. I woulda been about eighteen-ish, by now. I stopped countin’, just didn’t make a difference what age I were. I, by now, were exactly what m’dad moulded me into from all those years in the desert. Tellin’ me that you gotta look out for number one, no one else mattered. You gotta do what ever it takes to survive… An’ I figured that he betrayed all o’that, when he fell in love an’ said he were done scavengin’ the wastes and it were time to set up a moisture farm. I didn’t resent her none, dad was happy. So I’d pitched in for a while. Helped.”
He cleared his throat, continuing to smoke away as he drank, smiling along with that smug look in his eyes.
“An’ again, more years slipped by, an’ that boy my father raised in the desert couldn’t switch off all those lessons he taught him. I got restless, so I started lookin’ for excitement. I’d go into Anchorhead, hang around w’the wrong sorts, ended up joinin’ a gang of idiots. We tried robbin’ a shop one night for some junk, we all got in, two o’us got out. The others were blasted in the back as we fled into the dark. I guess they thought it were lesson enough t’know that our buddies were dead ‘cause they stopped chasin’ us pretty fast, even if we managed t’keep most the haul. Burglary, that weren’t f’me.”
He chuckled, his hands still adding emphasis to his story.
“So I found a new way t’scratch the itch. I started gamblin’, an’ I were good too. Bettin’ on pazaak against the locals was as easy as hitting sand with a stone. Or so I thought. One day I still maintain I got hoodwinked, swindled- Rather out-swindled, no one played a fair game there, myself included. I racked up a debt, faster than I realised. One I couldn’t pay. One my dad said he’d have no part of- Which is where he should’ve realised his mistake in teachin’ me all the lessons he did. I were only gonna do what I was taught after all. So next time I were in town, some thugs got a hold of me, kicked the crap outta me, y’know. Put the fear o’death into me like never before. Told me if I didn’t have the half a thousand credits next time they saw me, be it today or tomorrow, I’d be dead.”
He chuffed, ordering another bottle.
“Anyway, so I did what I was taught. I looked out for number one, I ran, slipped into the desert. Spent the most part of my life learning to survive out there so I figured it were the best place for me to lay low. Though I knew what th’repurcussions would be, I stayed out there for say… two years. Though the idiot in me demanded I go back, find out what became of m’dads moisture farm. I found my way back to Anchorhead, went home. Found a wreckage of a place, covered in burn marks an’ in amongst it I found m’dad, lay, curled around his wife. At the time I felt sad, but I didn’t feel guilt. It weren’t my fault, an’ I maintain that. He raised me to do just that, t’survive. I am sorry that it ended up bein’ at his expense, but again, I’m a product o’his makin’. He jus’ shoulda realised that I were twice the snake he was, an’ I wouldn’t stop that there. I couldn’t change. I still can’t.”
He’d pour himself and you a shot of the drink that could only be described as engine cleaner it was that strong.
“But then I decided ain’t much for me to hang around for. Went back to Anchorhead th’same day, got aboard a shuttle bound for CZ-220, found myself a steady source of credits, put hours in adaptin’ to my new environment, an’ then, well… Then it were now… What about you?”
He’d ask, pouring you both another shot.