The go to punchline for any “waiting” anecdote is the Department of Motor Vehicles and for years it has served its purpose well but I believe it’s time to pass the crown to a new champion of waiting gawd-awfulness….. Urgent Care.

Friends say I am stubborn to the point where it becomes a detriment but when it comes to seeing a doctor, I take that stubbornness to a whole new level. It’s not just the act of seeing a doctor either, I don’t trust them. I once got in a heated argument with my physician during an annual exam over whether I was at the age I should undergo a prostate exam. I eventually gave in (His last line before violating me was “be thankful I have small hands.” Thanks Doc) but not before his nurse came in the examining room to check out the commotion. In the macro I’m sure doctors do good work but in the micro I’d rather be anywhere else. Anywhere.

That stubbornness wanes every passing year (The fear of hearing “We could’ve done more if we had caught it earlier” grows as you get older) but it still takes a pretty serious act to get me to the doctor. Getting smashed from the rear by a drunk driver wouldn’t have qualified if I could turn my head side to side. I can’t, and that along with a screaming headache was enough to convince me to go to Urgent Care. So here I sit.

Out of the five or six of us in the small waiting room I am the only one who is not sick; that is the only one not coughing, sneezing, blowing their nose, sniffling, and all the other symptoms that come with a cold. This ups my agitation of the situation and fills me with the dreadful future possibility of not able to move my upper torso and being sick. The people in the waiting room are evenly spaced so no one is sitting next to another but if one more person comes through the door that barrier will end for one of us. On cue the front door opens and a man sniffling and sneezing walks up to check in. I close my eyes and rock in the plastic seat begging my name to be called when I hear “Robert Black?” Yes!

 

I’ve never been one that needs to listen to anything when I go to sleep, nights in Los Angeles provides plenty of white noise. However here in Montana the silence is overwhelming, it’s annoyingly quiet, so I’ve taken to listening to podcasts/audiobooks when I go to bed. One of my favorites is the audio version of Stephen King’s On Writing with Mr. King reading his own words. Ironic, the man whose words have kept so many awake at night has a voice which puts me to sleep. In one passage in On Writing he remarks about his marriage to wife Tabitha:

“Our marriage has outlasted all of the world’s leaders except for Castro, and if we keep talking, arguing, making love, and dancing to the Ramones-gabba-gabba-hey-it’ll probably keep working.”

I wasn’t a huge fan of the Ramones in my early punk days. “I Wanna Be Sedated” was the preferred Ramones song played on radio and it never grabbed me. But one day at the record store I threw “Rocket to Russia” in my monthly album haul and my attitude changed. When I read in the LA Weekly they were coming to town, I had to see their lauded live show for myself.

The line outside the Country Club winded from the entrance, along the outside of the building, and far down the sidewalk parallel to Sherman Way. Save the number of leather jackets worn on that warm June night in the summer of 1989 the crowd looked like most crowds at punk shows in the late 80s; tons of black punk band t-shirts, jeans, and black boots.

This wasn’t my first show at the Country Club (I would see Circle Jerks, Adolescents, and the Dickies among others over the next year at the venue) but it was my first punk show. I had seen a few metal bands and liked the venue but from the outside it had all the charm of a suburban movie theater, it’s high blank concrete walls providing  an outside anonymity opposite from the raucous behavior occurring inside.

The club had a seat-less floor the brave occupied and an upper level to stay above the fray on the floor. My usual MO was to wait out the opening bands in the upper level before joining the madness for the main event. I made my way to the upper level and stood behind a railing.

Almost immediately a girl standing next to me with dyed black hair and a Ramones shirt began peppering me with questions about the Ramones. She was close to my age, cute in punk-girl kind of way, and wearing an anxiety that was more obvious than her long black hair.

“Have you seen them before?” She asked but didn’t wait for an answer.

“What’s your favorite song?…..I’m in love with Joey….and Marky.”

They weren’t questions as much as nervous blurt outs. I don’t remember replying with an answer, the whole time I stood next to her I matched her thousand words with barely ten of my own.

The house lights dimmed and four shadowy figures made their way to their places on stage. I felt a nervous hand tapping my arm and looked down to see the girl bouncing up and down while hitting my arm. Before I could turn back to the stage I heard Dee Dee Ramone count off “1-2-3-4”.

 

“Do you have any numbness in your arms? Any lightheaded-ness?”

“No.” I reply.

“Turn your head to the left…..ok, to the right.”

“The pain is mostly on the sides of my neck,” I say but I’m not sure he’s listening.

“Ok, I’ll be back.”

After thirty minutes in the waiting room the doctor asked five questions, felt up my neck, and then left the room. Feeling a little shortchanged, I mentally question if that is all there is? My upper back and neck are killing me, but as the door closes I’m alone with my thoughts. Before he leaves, I do what has become a standard curiosity for any physician I see, I check the size of his hands.

Ten minutes later he’s back and says “You’re fine,” and hands me three prescriptions. “Just a mild case of whiplash.”

I don’t feel fine.

 

“I’m going down there.” I said to the girl between songs. After four or five songs it hit me my place is down in the pit not standing in the back. There wasn’t any attraction to the girl keeping me in place, yet somehow I stayed there for the first couple of songs. A quick glance down to the huge pit knocked me from my trance.

“Can I go with you?”

My first instinct was to say no. A slam pit that size was no place to play babysitter and I initially felt a responsibility that made no sense. I didn’t know this girl more than I knew anyone at the show but the last thing I wanted was her to get hurt in a place where people did get hurt. But something about the naive yet joyous expression on her face wouldn’t allow me to say no.

We made our way to the floor, her small hand holding the back of my shirt, as the Ramones belted out “The KKK Took my Baby Away”. Her grip seemed to loosen then tighten sporadically and I turned around to see if she was having trouble getting through the crowd but the tugging was her dancing in a frenzy while holding onto my shirt.

The layout of the floor was similar to most punk shows. There were a few rows of people on the floor behind the pit, then a swirling area of sweating bodies, then a few rows of people standing next to the stage. We were at the edge of the pit; it was like opening the front door and a tornado is on your front porch, one step forward and you were sucked in. My idea was to get her to the semi-safety of the people standing in the front rows but as I contemplated a strategy she stepped out from behind me and into the vortex.

I reached a hand out to grab her but she was swallowed by the outer wall of the human hurricane. I jumped in and as the pit swirled towards the rows in front I checked to see if she had been able to get out but in the darkness and chaos it was impossible to see anything. The pit isn’t a place to sight-see, it’s best to look where you’re going. She had made her choice, so I made mine- I became part of the swirling mass, bouncing off others, skanking as skankers do in an act of physical rebellion that seems violent to outsiders but comforting to participants. As the Ramones kicked out my favorite song “Commando,” I skanked and sang along-

First rule is! The laws of Germany
Second rule is! Be nice to mommy
Third rule is! Don’t talk to commies
Fourth rule is! Eat kosher salamis

Throughout the show I kept an eye out for my Ramones girl but visibility was only a few feet. After a half hour in the pit I exited a few feet from the left side of the stage, directly in front of Dee Dee. My t-shirt heaved and soaked with sweat as I bumped against a few of the others to find steady ground but no cared. The room dripped with euphoria.

As one song ended guitar feedback continued to fill the air before Marky went into the familiar drum intro of “Pinhead”. Joey belted out the first few words alone before the crowd joined the “Gabba, Gabba, we accept you, we accept you one of us!” then Johnny and the band jumped in. The pit switched from a swirling mass of bodies into hundreds of human pogo sticks. The floor shook.

A roadie brought out a sign with “Gabba Gabba Hey” in black block letters for Joey and the crowd was encouraged to join in for the rest of the song. I turned to look at the crowd behind me and in the middle of pogo-mania stood my Ramones girl, right hand held high and screaming “Gabba Gabba Hey!” as loud as her lungs would allow.

They played a few more songs but the next time I turned around my Gabba Gabba Hey girl was gone. Outside, most of the crowd hung around on the still warm cement, not wanting the night to end. As the cool air chilled my sweaty body I headed back to my car, eager to throw in the Ramones mix-tape I had made. I fast forwarded to “Commando” and pogo’d around solo in the car and when “Pinhead” came on, I made sure to yell out “Gabba Gabba Hey,” as loud as my lungs would allow.