Joseph Whitton

Note: Seven movements. One sentence each. Blank lines mark the tracks.

Charter Grove
A Hardcore Punk Album

I.
Johnny was starved for human contact, for a simple touch—he was afraid, not understanding how to act; it was better to be quiet, being motionless earned compliments, but he yearned to dance, sometimes grinned at the wrong time: ten whips with the belt, weapon of choice; he stopped wearing a belt; it didn't work, he was beaten into a muzzled dog that was quiet enough to carry, learned to be invisible and all he wanted was an embrace of love—not being afraid to talk, to have a friend, an older brother he never had but needed, and a sister who died before he existed, her name lost, buried with his mother’s fading breath ravaged by pulmonary fibrosis;

He remembers the O Zone at the mall where stoners hung out, air hockey and Atari football, jukebox playing “Pinball Wizard,” and his father taking him to play Bally Gunfighter, a round of Lunar Lander, nostalgia spun from neon dreams and blinking analog bleeps;

one hundred yards from their house, a Brunswick bowling center arose, new and perfect—all the houses were variations of the same model, a neighborhood of mirrored mirrors, he was a tumbleweed blown by Santa Ana winds, adrift and untethered, blending with the background, dressing like a Ramone—ripped jeans every day, button-down untucked dress shirt (Richard Hell style), flannel tied around his waist, camouflaged as a stoner—didn’t go to dances, kept waiting for someone to intervene; There was one friend who moved his desk and locker because Johnny had grown long hair, the closest he got to a girl was saying hello once, no mentors, no one who thought he had talent; the summer before his senior year he was sleeping all the time, the doctor tested him for mono—again no help; resigned to fade away, Johnny skipped graduation,

when a college from Riverside called wanting to pick him up and show the campus—Johnny thought it was some two-bit hustle, inside he got mad thinking I'm not playing your stupid fucked up game you didn’t explain, you played with my life, guess what:  I had to pay the price;  I was damaged, just leave me alone; those red flowers he planted for fruit were now going to wither and die; he was going to Utah with his family, Dad paying the University of Utah tuition, and the funny thing is—he ended up in Riverside County anyway, a year later in Corona, his parents’ next move;

going to college in Salt Lake City (they had some nice cathedrals), working graveyard shift in a nursing home caring for the dying, a CNA at nineteen, so it was no surprise when he wrote that letter left for his parents, a year later in Corona, before driving to Seal Beach for his nursing home job: I couldn’t go on like this anymore—I don’t know if I can live—written in red crayon—taped to the door—come in—I've hanged myself.

 

II.
It was like a movie I was watching, but I was in it—my movements done by someone else, my older brother existing on the TV screen, and the tall man saying, “The funeral is about to begin, sir,” while shadows from the past chased Jody and me since the beginning of time, stretching through all our days, and when that failed I found myself tracked by Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, hunting me across Ipswich in a humanist fight for meaning and release, ending up at Summerisle, where I danced in the May Day festival, watching the wicker man burn, then escaping to live with the Bradys, getting lost on Gilligan’s Island, and when it got too silly I found myself helping Wally mow the lawn at the Cleavers before beaming up to the Enterprise—

I was Mick Travis uncovering a cult of devotion instead of violence: the Mother God, the White Goddess, and Nightmare Life-in-Death; I understood their wants and needs, not the flames, not the smoke inhaled, not the suffocation that was offered as my only salvation—from San Diego to Sandy, Utah, to Corona, CA—it was too much—I hated it;

we stayed at the Roadway Inn in Norco over a month waiting for the closing of yet another new house, sharing the room with my brother, entranced by the continual showing of The Wicker Man on Showtime—a rediscovery of pagan rites, the summer’s offering—I was Sgt. Howie’s shadow, but each time we parted ways before the wicker man, I accepted the rituals but not the death; the hunger pains brought me closer to the goddesses, I checked my weight several times a day, looking in the mirror, wondering if the metamorphosis would take place soon, I was 5’10”, 120 lbs., trying to lose more, trying to squeeze through the bars but I wasn’t thin enough yet;

in 1979 we had a personal computer—less than one percent did—but my father, a programmer with Digital then Control Data, bought a new house in Mira Mesa across from the mall, a plateau surrounded by canyons of brush and tumbleweeds, where the high school was only four years old, smelling of fresh paint, shiny lockers, vibrant walls, and pristine excellence.

III.
Baby, my iguana, sunbathed on the roof like a slow reptilian sunbeam, climbing down when the sunset came, clinging to the screen door ready to come in and be transported to his heated rock on top of the Italian statue, free inside those walls despite my dad’s disapproval but my mom’s acceptance—dad was a little bit afraid and when he couldn’t locate Baby, he was a little nervous, the iguana was hard to find when he changed color blending with the curtain—which was all that counted; when we moved to Lake Bled, I had to give him up, and Baby was accepted by the San Diego Zoo, where they said he’d be part of encounters—docile and calm with strangers—but I never saw him again, though I know he lived long in a place of love and care; afterward, my mother took us—my hair slicked back in a ’50s pompadour—to see Grease with John Travolta, and on the way to Slovenia we stopped at my father’s old stomping ground—

not Brooklyn, but Queens—where Nana and Papa lived, it was July 1978, and Papa excitedly showed me a new video game that had just arrived at the pool hall, the Space Invaders fast and merciless, making Papa not pleased as I showed my incompetence, frustrated even though I was pretty good on the Atari 2600, which my brother and I had been playing as soon as it came out, our early and only Christmas that year, and Dad bought the JVC HR-3300 Vidstar, the world’s first consumer VHS, the moment it was released—but what happened to this kid who had everything?

IV.
My first stay at Charter Grove lasted twenty-four hours; I was nineteen and not in school, so Dad’s insurance didn’t cover it; they said my parents were coming to pick me up—not wanting to live, they let you die if you can’t pay one thousand dollars a day—and as the words sank in, I felt numb, humiliated; I asked for help, yet the entrance to purgatory had been slammed shut; I was going down, where there was no rock to push, it was a rock that rolled on top of me; as my crushed body healed up again, the rock rolled back, crushing me again, but I knew better than to show emotion and pretended to go back to my room, walking right out of the facility, a plan flashed in my head; I left the grounds to a supermarket, bought Benadryl and licorice, and ate them at an empty construction site as my last meal—black Red Vines and pills—

and as sleep pulled me under—I called from a phone booth by the construction site, my back sliding down the booth, telling me to stay awake, my world sliding away, my stomach forced to empty out; Dad handed me quarters; I kept dropping them in a tray of black puke, thinking I’d be locked away, wheeled out, leg chained, feeling like an abused animal caught between my brother and sister on the way home;

I was to enroll in community college to be covered, but I still felt like an animal, and when I said “I’ll stab you,” Dad told Mom, “He doesn’t mean it,” because I was not in control; my poetry scared my mom; she confiscated it once—I'd rather be strung-out in a hotel room—than working nine to five—doing something I despise—watching my body from above during weeks of waiting like film stuck in a projector, burning frame by frame;

early February, I was let back in, and Dr. Sundley, an African American woman who specialized in child abuse, suspected I was a victim—I was very ill as an infant, spending more time in the hospital those first couple years, as my sickness kept me in the hospital more than at home after birth—placed on antidepressants and five milligrams of Xanax; our first session involved her pointing at a Rolodex of flashcards, the current one reading “attitude,” and then she showed me how to shake hands in the cool way, later revealing in a session with my parents that the year in Lake Bled bought me a few years; I’d have broken down in high school instead—

one Xanax every morning, one after lunch, three at bedtime—as lying down in bed to sleep was the worst thing; even as I shared hospital rooms, they still were like isolation chambers with no noise, no life, nothing but my empty heartbeat and all the fears and trauma, like those times as an infant in the oxygen tent when I collapsed, turning blue and suffocating, even given the last rites—don’t let this baby grow up—let it die of asthma—death to the newborn son—so that’s why I’d crash in the den with the TV on after receiving bedtime Xanax, with night nurse Renae guiding me to my room, at first not remembering but, with practice, having full recall; and in the buffet-style cafeteria that my younger brother thought was great (all you can drink chocolate milk and juice), the communal den with sofas, loveseats, reclining chairs arranged around a large-screen TV, stereo, and pool table, groups held morning and afternoon between med rounds, doctor meetings, therapist sessions, and evening substance-abuse meetings.

V.
My thoughts were all jammed into one never-ending sentence like a cruel everlasting gobstopper, packed so fast I couldn’t taste anything and by the time a clause or list started to make sense the new words that kept being added, kept changing meaning, recalibrating the implication, mutating the memory into something new, not unlike meeting someone you never knew existed—

Jose, young and Hispanic, who worked construction; Wallace, preppy to the bone with sweater-draped sleeves around the neck knotted on the chest, the youngest ever executive for the Golden Arches and a child abuse survivor who was gay and brilliant; Timmy, eighteen, a Roz Williams groupie from Pomona detoxing from heroin; Janice, thirty, schizo from cocaine, thinking she caused the space shuttle explosion; Candy, thirty-eight, with a VW Cabriolet parked outside, her detective father a shadow in her prescription haze; Selena, Colombian-American, sharing my major depression diagnosis; Rosie, with OCD and self-harm, wearing oven mitts on her hands to stop herself; Russ, a musician with a Texas drawl, paranoia, heroin, very much Roky Erickson in spirit; Benny, in his sixties, who lost his wife, suffered lifelong depression, played horn in Harry James’ band—

showers were every other day for men but I learned to get up early before the women to shower every day; a great sense of relief began to swell inside as I no longer felt hunted, I started to feel better, the gray veil removed, bouncing back with color, sometimes intense and tiring, other times exhilarating or silly, with one woman showing her scar from mutilation as I rolled my sleeve to reveal the long vertical scar under my forearm, and then she showed her scar on her neck, so I raised the stakes with a self-branded “T.R.” on my shoulder from the punk movie Suburbia, at which point the therapist interceded, saying this was not a venue to compare scars;

the open wound that refused to close: before we left San Diego for Utah after my graduation, I didn’t attend, on my eighteenth birthday the outside cat we informally adopted had to be put down, I remember her lying on my stomach outside on the chaise lounge, her and the sun’s soft gentle warmth filling me with ecstasy, I didn’t know she had cancer, maybe I blocked it out as my sister and brother knew about it, she was sick I thought, but she can still walk around, I didn’t want to believe she was in so much pain, well, it’s time to go, but I stayed behind thinking not on my birthday, Mom telling Dad make him go, he won’t forgive himself, Dad replying it’s his choice, this emotional gash I finally came to terms with, finally sealing it, another scar, as I painted the kiln-fired ceramic cat that I tailored to look like her, Shadow, all black with the small white bib, I gave it to my younger sister Ginny.

VI.
Dr. Sundley gave sodium amytal interviews, the milky white flowing into vermillion, escalating panic: "I am not in control—I am not in control—I cannot control my emotions," every week or two until I hid my wrists, and Jenny showed me how to cut skin like an older sister I never had, and once I saw Dr. Sundley coming and turned away, but she called out, “John, come here, you don’t turn tail and run; if you don’t want to speak, say so respectfully,” making me feel like a creep; Jenny was a lesbian with deep fears and trauma tangled in manic episodes, who ran off once to Vegas and I was her only contact with staff, and they brought her back and into the locked ward for a while;

adolescents lined up like soldiers, silent and marching to the cafeteria, where I saw my brother’s friend Jeff, sixteen, a Hessian metalhead into Van Halen, Motörhead, Megadeth, who would die at fifty of colon cancer, and it was with him I smoked my first joint; to fight the benzo fog I started smoking, hiding outside—quit decades later after COPD; desperate to change perception, I drank a bottle of nutmeg—gagging time after time, telling people I was a vampire, not Dracula but a modern kind like the teen in Romero's Martin, who used razors in that schizo state; visiting Huntington Gardens and starting to get better, playing practical jokes on Russ and Selena, who was a concert violinist;

the next week’s trip to Glen Ivy Hot Springs, where at the pool Janice in a black bikini with wet curls down to her shoulder looked straighter after the water, and with a portable tape player blasting Exile on Main Street I fell deeply enchanted; another trip to a roller skate park Janice never skated nor did I, and those things like skateboarding, downhill skiing, riding a bike came natural on the first try, but not expressing love, another never begun, fate twisting threads as always—still playing that Stones tape fifteen years later, went out with Wendy on a day pass, she was married, thirty years old, liked The Pretenders, and was very aggressive, flattered by her wanting to, I couldn’t; remembering her husband supporting her at AA and walking by him knowing what he didn’t know.

VII.
In Salt Lake City I found punk’s foundation—sixties garage, the Seeds, and then the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and Clash—and my head burst listening to the U.C.R. punk show in Charter Grove featuring hardcore bands like Circle Jerks, Government Issue, Adolescents, Misfits, and Minor Threat, I bought albums on a day pass, and Dad taped the Canadian Subhumans, Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag’s Damaged, we were playing “I Saw Your Mommy (And Your Mommy’s Dead)” while Rosie sat then left complaining it was inappropriate because her mother had just died, but I felt for her, but they sided with us so we kept playing, when “Red Blanket Room” came on Jenny said her brother told her about that room, Dad recorded Saccharine Trust at the wrong speed, saying it sounded too fast,

Russ planned his high and Timmy went with him asking me if I wanted to go, they would pay for the heroin, but I passed, I found a flask of vodka hidden behind bushes, Russ’ gift, and offered it to Jose, who threatened to tell, and not understanding his alcoholism I poured it out, he was edgy having warrants out for his arrest trying for a second chance while his older brother was in prison, after we got out Timmy and I went to T.S.O.L. at Fenders, on the way Timmy said he knew where to get stuff, I said okay and gave him some money as I waited for a while in the Duster parked in front of a non-distinct house, gave me a piece of confetti, a hit of acid, I put it on my tongue then, he handed me a rectangular block the size of a school eraser wrapped in foil, I opened it, smelled a little sweet, off-white, opium resin, he said okay, let’s go in the recess against the wall, Timmy produced a razor slicing off a piece, inhaling the white smoke, some other punks came over, everything got pleasantly warm, a little fuzzy in a comforting hug as the smoke gently wrapped its lazy white tendrils blotched with crimson in a loving embrace then driving from Long Beach to Pomona dropping off Timmy a cop followed us for five miles I was totally sketched desperately trying to mirror the white line; car parked almost in the middle of the street the opium on the front seat; Dad had my brother repark the car, he found that foil pass and turned it in—never a word from my parents; never saw Russ again, as both went to lockup for serious infractions, a mysterious place where you could refuse but insurance wouldn’t pay,

after Timmy’s release, I joined drug rehab sessions with Ray, a therapist trained in transactional analysis who held a cynical viewpoint and called London Calling the best album, which I softly contested, and then word passed that Ray shot himself in the head in his car in the parking lot, Candy cried her migraine but they wouldn’t give her any more meds, so I palmed a Xanax and a pain pill for a headache I didn’t have, and Candy said thank you, so sweet, but couldn't take them explaining she had to take drug tests, Wallace was getting ready to leave after spending a year and I don’t remember what he was going to do, maybe go back to school, that time Jose fell asleep on his bed and I gently kidded him but he took offense, then started a fling with Candy after they got out and planned a heist at Candy’s dad’s vacation home with his brother just out of prison stealing her dad’s service revolver while Jose was making it with Candy, his brother ransacking the place, I was with Wendy slowly becoming aware of it, I said it was wrong and broke it up so no more looting was done, Candy gave me her blade she used for mutilation and said she didn’t need it anymore, Candy found out later her dad’s gun was gone, my first weekend pass my parents brought me home and

Saturday, I was driving my Duster to Long Beach to see Janice distracted by a floral arrangement balancing on the middle hump between seats on the floor entering the onramp above the posted speed, always seeming like, blasting out the fighter bay tunnel onto the high-speed rail, the last thing I saw was the 91 up ahead as I went sideways, the metal hulk screeching and landing with a thud—frame damage, walking dazed to the nearest house, blood streaming down the side of my face, I called my dad, the tow truck grinning at its treasure, another fine offering for the wrecking yard, half concussed I heard my dad saying, “Tell them when you go back tomorrow that a box being moved from the attic clipped you on the ear,”

for my next side quest I walked off premises down Kellogg Ave to the Grand Circle, Corona was built around, quietly pleased with my transcendence under a leafed canopy filtering sunlight walking back, whisked into that locked unit, empty rebellion, where the crazies were, wanting urine, which I refused, I wrote a manifesto of protest, mumbo jumbo illumination, epiphany, cracked Luther defiance, and sat cross-legged facing the doorless entrance, not moving or speaking, the other inmates saying, “That guy is scary, really crazy,” twelve hours later a doctor read my note and discussed the urine sample—if clean, I could go back at 1 a.m.;

returning, my stuff packed in plastic bags, I was led to another room, ready to get out, hardcore cure taken, pass to barber shop, “Sure you want to shave it off?” “Yep”—skinhead now, returning victorious; roommate Buzz, a speed freak who slept three days, called me Turtlewax, and I said “Fuck you,” he pushed me, I pushed back, and we were separated, and he literally checked out, parents alarmed at my haircut, “Aren’t you being hasty?”;

last meeting with doctor, “I’m ready, I feel great, learned a lot, going to get a job,” doctor said, “No rush, we have so much more to do, you scored high on your IQ test, you have more work ahead;” Dad’s insurance had unlimited hospitalization, but I said I’m ready to go back home, everything like before, not unlike Alex, no longer bezoomny, having dratted my bitza, now back to my pee and em, not ready to grow up—they kept switching my room every other day, Skinner desensitizing BS, “Fuck that;” four months was enough—I was cured, I wasn’t.

LINER NOTES:

“Charter Grove” is a 3,500-word prose poem conceived as a hardcore punk album. It unfolds in seven sections (movements), each written as a single sentence functioning like a suite of tracks; within each section, blank lines mark individual tracks, like empty grooves on a record.  It fuses memoir, institutional life, and 1980s punk into a hallucinatory journey through trauma, alienation, and survival. Hooks, riffs, solos, and closing notes shape its rhythm, creating a reading experience that mirrors the intensity, speed, and raw emotional immediacy of hardcore music. When read aloud, it runs about 25 minutes—right within the 15–25 minute range typical of hardcore punk albums.

Charter Grove – Hardcore Punk Album Score

Section I: Childhood Isolation & Trauma
Hook: Johnny starved for human contact…
Riff: School invisibility, Ramones cosplay, “tumbleweed” imagery
Bridge: Moving to college, Salt Lake City, CNA work
Solo: Red flowers planted for fruit, private reflection on loss
Closing Note: I couldn’t go on like this anymore—I’ve hanged myself.

Section II: Fantasy, Media, and Obsession
Hook: It was like a movie I was watching…
Riff: Pop-culture immersion (Matthew Hopkins, Cleavers, Enterprise)
Bridge: Mick Travis, cults
Solo: Mirror, body obsession, metamorphosis anxiety
Closing Note: 1979 personal computer, new house, high school

Section III: Companionship, Loss, Nostalgia
Hook: Baby, my iguana…sunbathed on the roof…
Riff: Iguana routines, early tech, Atari, Space Invaders
Bridge: Moving to Lake Bled, giving up Baby
Solo: Queens visits with Papa, video games, VHS
Closing Note: …what happened to this kid who had everything?

Section IV: Institutionalization & Survival
Hook: My first stay at Charter Grove lasted twenty-four hours…
Riff: “Rock rolled back crushing me again,” routine hospital life
Bridge: Phone booth panic, Dad handing quarters
Solo: Therapy, medications, Xanax routines
Closing Note: Buffet-style cafeteria, groups, institutional routine

Section V: Inner Chaos & Group Dynamics
Hook: My thoughts were all jammed into one never-ending sentence…
Riff: Peer lists (Jose, Wallace, Timmy, Janice, Candy…)
Bridge: Shower routines, gray veil removed, social dynamics
Solo: Scar comparison with peers, emotional/physical self-expression
Closing Note: Death of Shadow the cat, emotional gash sealed, ceramic cat creation

Section VI: Adolescence, Experimentation, Identity
Hook: Dr. Sundley gave sodium amytal interviews…escalating panic…
Riff: Jenny, peer drug experimentation, social mischief
Bridge: Trips to Glen Ivy Hot Springs, roller skate park
Solo: Romantic/sexual awareness, experimentation with Wendy
Closing Note: Walking past husband at AA; social awareness, unresolved tension

Section VII: Punk Immersion, Rebellion, Partial Triumph
Hook: In Salt Lake City I found punk’s foundation…
Riff: Hardcore shows, album acquisitions, chaotic shared listening
Bridge: Drug experimentation, T.S.O.L., sensory tension
Solo: Duster crash, rehab, cross-legged protest, manifesto
Closing Note: Skinhead haircut, doctor meeting, I wasn’t cured.

 

 

Joey Whitton is a poet with a BA from the University of South Alabama. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised in San Diego, he has lived in Mobile, Alabama, since the late 1990s. Hardcore punk has been a daily source of inspiration for him for decades. His poetry has appeared in Flipside and is forthcoming in Sky Island Journal and Poetry Pacific.