Page 25 - Vo Vo | FIX MY HEAD #10: COMPLEXITY

SOCIAL SUBMARINE
Fuck’d societal standards in America helped shape me into the pessimistic, misanthropic thirty year old man I am today. Growing up in a military family, we frequently moved from town to town, state to state. Sadly the train stopped for our family in Missouri, where I was left with a pair of:
itchy feet
Fig. the need to leave; a feeling of a need to travel.
(I feel the need to explain this euphemism in order to keep people from thinking I have chronic athlete’s foot. I don’t have regular athlete’s foot either, smarty pants.).
The coldness of the winters in the Midwest proved to mirror the coldness of the people who inhabited the part of the state where we lived. A severe deficit in empathy was immediately apparent within them. In high school there wasn’t a surface that didn’t have a racial slur written on it. It was a really classy crowd. As a quiet fat, black, sullen kid I never had friends throughout school. Lunches would be skipped for time spent in the library to avoid interaction(humiliation).
Time passed, and I watched the shitty teens from the area turn into shitty adults who would soon take roles in the region’s workforce. Roles such as: car salesmen, advertising agent, and police officer. Needless to say, once I was ready to leave I would do so for good. With hopes that people in other places would be different, better maybe.
Foolishly it took me a long time to realize something that should have been plainly obvi- ous. Despite where you are, your expectations of the common person in terms of decency, should be met with the same expectations one would have going into an “All You Can Eat” buffet thirty minutes before set to close; Not much at all. On the rarest of occasions, you may meet someone that compels you to get closer to them. Share things about yourself and trust. Personally, I just dive.
Chris Escobar Chris Escobar was born in Virginia Beach, Va. Moved from there and has kept moving ever since.