J. Beaman - The Magazine

Last night it was time to meet the friends. “The girls and I are going to get some drinks at the 500 club. You should come and meet them.” Easy enough. I’m smart enough and funny enough and charming enough; it should be just fine.

I arrive at the bar and it’s obvious what it once was–a low bottom alcoholic dump. But, as is the case with bars and restaurants and neighborhoods all over the country, it is filled with beautiful people. And because I like alcoholic dumps and beautiful people equally (and the bar was warm and laid out well and not too crowded) I felt comfortable right away.

L. and her college friend N. are at the bar and I sit with them. It’s awkward but gets easier as the minutes pass. “Cran and soda.” I order and like the bartender immediately. Maria arrives a moment later; she’s pretty and smiley and flips her hair around nervously. They all laugh easily and I like being with them.

Maria says to me, “You look like…” and I think she’s going to say something like, “like the guy who killed my parents” or something equally awful. But she says, “You look like a guy I went to high school with.”

I make a face.

“No, he was a really nice guy.” She actually emphasized really nice. “His name was J.J. Hoffine.”

My sister calls me J.J. sometimes and when the bill collectors call they ask for Jerry Hoffine but I think it’s been ten years since anyone called me J.J. Hoffine.

I didn’t know who she was at first. She said her name, “Maria _________.” It is one of those names that feels nice to say. Say the first name and say the last name. Always say them together. (She asked me not to put her last name in here.) But as we talked I began to remember. “I wore a black trenchcoat all the time.” Oh yes. I remember. She wore all black all the time and her hair hung in her face and she had trouble looking you in the eye, glancing to the ground and looking up again. Almost like she was checking to see if you were still there. I always liked her.

Maria looks good. She tilts her head back a little when she laughs and moves her hands around gently when she talks and she was wearing a colorful top (I actually wear more black than her now) and clearly loves her friends and seems to enjoy her life (as much as any of us do). I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. It was weird.

There’s no dark past in Calaveras County for me. No dead best friends or suicide attempts. None of the things that make up great Newbury Medal winning children’s novels. But it was a sad place and my grandparents are sad and my cousins are sad and my aunts and uncles are sad and Maria was sad. She is like redemption for Calaveras County. Whatever that means. Redemption. L. and N. want to go there and visit but I think that Maria doesn’t really want them to. And they may have theories about why. But it’s not because it’s small or because it’s provincial or embarrassing but because it holds too many sad memories. L. and N. would go there and laugh and be silly and sweet and it would all just seem inappropriate. Like they were laughing and being silly at a funeral. Maybe I’m wrong about Maria but I think she’s redeemed; she’s saved; born again. I won’t ask her to go back there.

Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of my mom’s death. On June 6th, 1982 my dad, after my mom told him she was leaving him and taking us (my sister and I) with her, broke into our neighbors house and stole their gun (the one that he had sold to them months earlier) and shot my mom three times in the face. He actually shot six times (all the bullets the gun would hold) but only hit her three times.

I think she lived for a few days or maybe a few weeks but June 6th is the day I choose to remember. June 6th is the day she left me. It makes me sad.

I’m going to talk about my mom for a minute.

(I was going to talk about how listening to LCD Soundsystem was like getting your asshole licked but I changed my mind. “Whew!” some of you are saying, or maybe “Damn, that sounds way more fun.” Either way, I understand.)

On May 22nd, 1982 my mom (Glenda Grace Beaman) graduated from Sacramento State University with a nursing degree. I think it was a day of freedom for her. I think she knew for a long time that she would be leaving my dad when she got that damned nursing degree.

Ok, I’m tired of talking about my mom (I didn’t get very far into it, did I?). It fucking hurts. It hurts because I don’t have more than ten memories of her. Not only was my mom robbed from me, but most of my memories of her. Half the memories I have of my mom involve her taking beatings from my dad to protect us. Sometimes it makes me angry but mostly it makes me sad.

I sometimes wonder why I’m not a sociopath. Or a rapist. Or a wife beater. It’s too bad that I don’t believe in god–I could give him the credit. How does that even work? “Hey, god, it’s cool that my mom’s dead and that my dad killed her because you made sure I didn’t turn into a sociopath.” Christians are so dumb.

I’m just lucky, I guess. We live in a universe of pitiless indifference and I seem to have dodged a few bullets.

Yay me.

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.