Magic

It was October 1985 and it was my 28th birthday.

The gang surprised me with a birthday party in California, a Keg party, lots of beer, friends, Nancy, Ray and Stacey. Lots of beer - did I mention that?

We piled into a room and we did the bottlecap trick, with a real fork, Nancy was my mark and for six or ten iterations, people in the room gazed amazed at the ability of the English dude to find the penny under the bottlecap.

One chap was fascinated and was convinced it wasn't voodoo or real magic, well, he had the right didn't he?. He tried many variants, sheltering his moves (from me, not my mark) and then after several frustrating attempts he decided that the only way to beat the system was for himself to be the only one in the room.

So we all trooped out of the room, went and had another beer from the keg, then, when he was ready, we all trooped back.

Everyone was agog, the English boy looked at the five bottle caps, asked the usual question "are you sure it's under one of these?" waved the fork and felt the vibrations. My mark, Nancy Baker, unable to help me, just smiled and soaked in the moment, if it was, it was, if it wasn't, well, there was more beer and the game was up.

With a confident flourish, I flipped a cap.

It was.

Fifteen people in that room believed in magic for a moment.

The skeptical guy was in total awe and confusion, his logical mind scrambled by the turn of events, but he was happy that he was impressed by something he could not explain.

In the corner, I hoped that one pretty tall California girl thought that the English boy was cool and at that moment I thought that I was very lucky.

And you know, I was right for more than one reason.

Because, outside in the yard, the Keg was still half full.