Gallitos

Yesterday, I caught the scent of carob as I walked on Confederate Avenue. I was momentarily transported to my childhood in Santurce, to my school's playground, and the many games of gallitos I played with my friends. Gallitos means little roosters. To play gallitos you need an algarrobo seed and a length of string. Algarrobo is the Arabic origin Spanish word for carob. You climb the Algarrobo tree, get a carob pod and break it open to extract the seeds. The seeds are cushioned in a cottony, sweetly pungent mass. Careful not to crack the seed, you drill a hole through the middle of it, and pass a length of kite string through the hole, knotting the string at one end. The length of the string must provide a balance between leverage and control. To play the game, two players face off each with their favorite gallito. The players flip a coin to see which one will strike first. The loser of the coin toss lays his gallito on the ground. The winner of the toss then swings his gallito to strike his opponent's. If he hits it, he gets to strike again. If he misses it, he and his opponent reverse positions. The game ends when one the gallitos is broken. The owner of the surviving gallito is declared the winner and faces the next challenger. If you break your opponent's string you get to keep his gallito. Some kids were masters at this game, their battle scarred gallitos much feared in the playground. I was pretty bad at it, being of average strength, poor vision and worse coordination. Only my foolish optimism and fantasies of becoming the playground gallito king kept me at it. Alas, gallito apotheosis was not to be, and soon I moved on to collecting baseball card and building model aircraft and ships.

José M. Caldas, May 7, 2014.