FICTION
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Sometimes You Find Magic, 
and Sometimes Magic Finds You
by Joe Catalano

After attending the funeral of a classmate, I was reminiscing with Will, my college roommate, about life in the decades since we graduated. He was more athletic than I, had piercing blue eyes, and was the most situationally aware person I have ever known. He also loved to drive cars.

As we enjoyed a beer at Rossotti’s, the burger joint on Alpine Road, he showed he was no fan of technology that took driving out of the driver’s hands. He added, “I will always drive stick,” conjuring the defiance of Charlton Heston’s cold dead hands declaration.

He went on to say that there were only one or two life experiences that created the same magic he finds in driving. Sailing was one. His description made the point easily. He spoke of boats gliding through the waves and leaning against the wind with such reverence that sailing certainly seemed magical for him. When I asked what the other magical experience comparable to driving might be, he looked away and seemed to disappear into his thoughts. Remembering our college days, I had a good idea where his thoughts had taken him.

As we talked, Will acknowledged that most drivers don’t experience anything “magical" about an activity that regularly included parallel parking and two-hour commutes. He didn’t claim sleight of hand could create magic in a daily commute or moving a car sideways six feet into a gap barely longer than the car. He conceded these driving experiences occur far more frequently, and last much longer, than moments of magic. But for him, enduring the former was justified by the possibility of the latter.

Will described one such magical driving moment that came as a complete surprise. His car was one of four abreast on the 405; a piano fell from the back of a truck ahead, and briefly careened wildly on its tiny brass wheels in this lane and then in that lane and finally, in all the lanes. Even though the piano was then flat, the magic was that the drivers of the following quartet of cars masterfully plied their pedals to brake and speed in such synchronicity with the piano’s death throes that they all missed every key and string of the piano, now decomposed on the freeway. “It seemed as if the cars were taking their bows as front bumpers dipped with their final hard braking,” he added. 
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Will then described how driving magic sometimes comes when you seek it, by pushing limits through sweat and strain. He said, “It might start as a leisurely exercise changing gears by moving the stick to match engine speed with road speed. Then, flirting with maximum engine RPM, you check, and check again that there are no “stop” signs or warning signals. You then shift your attention to the rubber that meets the road, so to speak.” I could tell Will was fully engaged in that driving moment. He went on, “Tires warm through flexing and lateral friction, so by changing the car’s direction, tires warmed quickly. As they do, the rubber softens, pushing more deeply, clutching the road’s surface, and holding.”

“As their limits near, tires will sing,” Will said. “Tires screech when pushed past their limits, out of control, oblivious to the driver’s inputs.”

Will’s moments of magic driving invariably included singing tires, and occasionally screeching tires.

He explained that just before tires start screeching, there is a magical balance of driver, car, and road. The driver brings every heightened sense to this moment, processing visual, auditory, tactile and visceral inputs far more quickly than can be recognized or described. The car is using the whole road, moving at its maximum speed on the line the driver has chosen. The driver is then more witness to this legerdemain than magician.

Even though I thought I understood some of the magic he described, I had no idea what was magical about being in a car that was out of the driver’s control. Will then described the magic in such moments. “A moment of magical balance sometimes ends quickly. Perhaps the curve ahead came too fast to modulate braking, entry speed, apex and exit. The tires start screeching. That’s when emergency rules apply. Look where you want the car to go! Steer in the direction of the skid! Both feet in!”

He closed his description of screeching magic by saying, “It’s magical if, when the screeching stops, the shape of the car hasn’t changed.”

I thought about asking Will if he could experience driving magic in a modern, nearly autonomous car, but I knew the only magic he might find there was disappearing from the driver’s seat. 
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Catalano practiced law for more than 30 years before he retired in 2018. He has since pursued his interests in photography, high performance driving, travel and writing. He enjoyed his first OLLI as SF State courses in the spring semester 2019 and thanks the members of the OLLI at SF State Poetry Writing interest group for their input and support. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan.   
Other works in this Issue: 
Poetry
​The Day She Left Us
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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