MATINEE By Glenn Armstrong

WNYU transmitted radio waves of ‘80s hardcore punk. Outer borough kids lured by fast and loud music invaded Lower Manhattan. Bowery Bums sprouted up from sidewalk cracks like Centipede arcade mushrooms. The CBGB awning hung, covered in graffiti and band stickers. More teenagers stood outside than inside. A ‘70s punk holdover guy wearing a leopard skin vest and spiky hair, slouched at the bar. Club owner Hilly Kristal grinned in the shadows. Skinheads clad in traditional braces and boots abounded. Their White, Black, and Puerto Rican trackball domes reflected the lights. Hidden horrors lurked in the grimy bathrooms. The decayed fingers of a black leather jacketed, Ramones-era, overdosed junkie reached out from behind a stall. The hand throttled a youth in my mind’s EC Tales from the Crypt comic. I sat alone upstairs in a dark corner. Later, a patch of green mold grew on my jeans. The band played short two-to-three-minute songs. Bursts of testosterone fueled aggression sparked the mosh pit. Elbows and knees jerked in a tribal dance. I climbed onstage and faced a Marshall stack. Sonorous guitar reverberations vibrated throughout every ecstatic atom. 

 Glenn Armstrong enjoys reading old pulp fiction and piloting the way back machine. The result is sometimes poetry. His work has appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others. He lives in San Diego.