Arturito

Before he was a droid. Before the beeps, before the galaxy far away, before the fight over who got to be Luke. That was his name. Ours.

New York, 1999. A seat near the back, alone. Episode One, in English this time.

Someone on screen says two letters and a number.

R2-D2.

I said it back to myself, quiet.

Ar-Tu-Ri-To.

Twelve years, unopened. Then not.

A stranger two rows down turned when I laughed. I didn't care. I wanted the whole block there, wanted every kid who ever argued over who got the lightsaber sitting next to me.

They weren't. I laughed alone, and it was the funniest thing that had happened to me since I landed.

Calle Oviedo was dirt in some parts, concrete in others. Potholes we knew by heart, used as bases, as cover, as whatever the game needed that day.

On the weekends, we owned that block. Cars needed our permission to cross it. Until hunger caught up with us.

We had no toys that moved on their own. So we became them. Arms out for the ships. Voices dropped low for the Dark guy. Someone always fought to be Luke, and someone always lost that fight and had to be the bad guy instead.

I had a crush on Leia, obviously.

And there was him. Small, round-headed, talking in sounds nobody understood but everybody trusted. R2-D2, someone had said once, and the street kept only what it could hold. R-2-rito.

Nobody questioned it. It was just his name, the way Calle Oviedo was simply ours.

We didn't invent every name. Leia and Luke we heard clean the first time and never questioned. Arturito we heard right too, years before we had the English to prove it. The Dark guy we made up, because some things need a name before you know what to call them.

Twelve years later, someone in a theater said his other name out loud.

I still call him Arturito.