▸ Column · Tatooine's Outer Rim underworld, Imperial era — cantinas, wrist comms, and speeder trouble in the desert
JABBA THE HUTT replies.
Replied to by Jabba the Hutt, with a rebuttal from Boba Fett.
The letter
Dax and his ex, Sula, broke things off close to three years ago now — but you'd never know it from his comm traffic. She gets first-light transmissions every morning. Little holo-clips and reaction memes, mostly, which is fine. But then she also gets a play-by-play of every shift argument at the docking bay, and he actually sent her a photo of his sand pup before he turned around to show me. I found out the hard way. We had a proper anniversary dinner at the cantina last month and her name came up on his wrist comm three times while the food was still hot. He stepped outside to help her "sort out" some speeder trouble. An hour into our anniversary. When I asked about it later he said I was being insecure and that Sula is basically family at this point — practically a sister. But a sister doesn't get a heart-glyph reply within four seconds at the late-cycle watch. We've been together a year and a half. I'm starting to feel like a footnote in their private channel. Am I reading into nothing, or is forty comms a day to your ex actually a second relationship I'm not supposed to notice?
— Footnote in Mos Espa
Jabba the Hutt replies
My friend, you ask whether you are overreacting. Hoo hoo hoo. That is the wrong question.
The question worth asking is what this man believes your presence costs him. Because right now, he believes it costs nothing. You ask, he reassures, the cycle turns. He sends Sula comms at the late-cycle watch because for three years that account has run without a bill. He stepped outside your anniversary dinner because no one has ever priced what stepping outside costs.
I did not build what I have by making myself freely available. The entire outer rim comes to this palace because I positioned myself at the center of the web — not because I chased what I needed, but because I made everything flow through me. Your error is the opposite: you have been flowing toward him, reliably, at any hour.
Do not argue with him. Anger is cheap and it tells him too much. Instead — be elsewhere. Pleasantly. Unhurriedly. Let him reach and find a slight delay. A dinner you have already filled. A comm that takes a little longer to return. Let the silence price itself.
He tells you Sula is family. Perhaps she is. I am not concerned with Sula. I am concerned with the fact that right now, you cost him nothing. A man who pays nothing for something does not value it. The solution is not to demand he value it. The solution is to make it cost.
You are owed. Be patient. Collect.
— Jabba the Hutt
Boba Fett weighs in
The Hutt wants you playing games with your scarcity, as though you're sitting at the center of the web. You're not. He already showed you the terms — he stepped outside your anniversary to manage her speeder trouble. That's not confusion. That's priority. Believe it.
If you pull back and he doesn't notice — and some don't — you've spent ground you needed. Know where you're going first. Something lined up, somewhere to land. Then put the terms in plain words: this arrangement, or a different one, and here's what the different one looks like. One conversation, no dramatics. His answer is the contract.
The Hutt's play is to make him chase you. Mine is simpler: find out if he's worth chasing at all.
— Boba Fett
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