J. Beaman - The Magazine

The question I have to ask myself, nearly monthly is, “Is the best goat cheese taco in the world worth a lifetime of hemorrhoids?”

In 1991 I was a christian and a high school senior. In California, christian high school students go to Mexico and build houses and preach the gospel and feel good about themselves. I loved Jesus and I liked to feel good about myself so I went to Mexico with all of my church buddies and a youth pastor (His name was Tim and I liked him) and a few other christian adults.

A few months ago I went camping with a girl I was sweet on and, thankfully, she was sweet on me and we ended up naked and jumped off the cliffs at Pace Bend and water shot up my naked ass and hurt. A lot. I played it off like it was no big deal because I wanted to look cool and water shooting up your ass is not cool. Hemorrhoids are not cool either and I was sure I had one because I get them. Usually about once a month.

We all piled into the trusty church vans and drove the 12 hours to the Mexican border, another 4 hours to the Mexicali ‘base camp’ where there were thousands of other christian high school students preaching the gospel and feeling good about themselves. The group from my church (San Andreas Community Covenant Church - I had to put that in here in case they ever Google themselves) went into town and did some shopping for those cool ponchos and Mexican blankets and put on sombreros and make general American asses of ourselves. We also went there to eat and I had a goat cheese taco.

The very same girl I went camping with was nice enough to have dinner with me at Taqueria Arandas and I, with forethought, ordered an extra tostada for later. Without forethought, I left the food in the car all day while we fucked around, running errands and hanging out while it was 90 degrees outside. I ate it at midnight that night thinking to myself, “This is really, really good.”

I’ll ad more later. Check back soon.