Mom in a mosh pit

I get there 12 hours early, to be first in the door. But unlike the other middle-aged moms like me who are vying for the latest video game or one of Oprah’s Favorite Things, I’m not waiting outside the mall. I’m sitting cross-legged on ice-cold concrete outside Long Beach Arena next to a 14-year-old guitarist with spiky hair and two bruisers from Fontana with Sex Pistols tattoos and tongue studs. Our destination: the mosh pit.

“I have to be first,” I say to myself. “I have to be first.”

Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it.

For more than two years I’d been waiting for Green Day to tour. I had seen the Bay Area band in Las Vegas in 2002 and was dazzled by their energy and showmanship. But back then, my husband and I had watched from the safety of the seats.

Even from afar, the life force that filled the arena that night was addicting. I needed another fix. This time, especially after hearing Green Day’s new CD, “American Idiot,” I wanted to be up close and personal, near enough to be spit on by singer Billie Joe Armstrong. I craved the intimacy of having the band right in front of me. I wanted to mainline the pounding rhythms and youthful exuberance. Never mind that I’d never been in a punk-rock mosh pit before.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment to come,” I say, taking a page from the Green Day songbook, as we wait in line.

“I’ve heard, Mom, that the band has been known to urinate on their fans from the stage,” my 18-year-old son, Zack, warns me.

“I’m destined for anything at all,” I reply.

“That’s my mom!” Zack says, with a mixture of pride and terror.

Poor Zack. His 48-year-old college-educated mother is obsessed with a 32-year-old tattooed punk who wears eye shadow and writes songs about masturbating and methamphetamine. Now she’s determined to plant her 5-foot frame in the eye of the hurricane. He worries for my safety.

I remind him that I’m a lot tougher than I look.

“Before I was your mom,” I say, “I moved downtown when it was warehouses and illegal artists’ studios, not ‘condo lofts’ like now. I was a bartender at Al’s Bar,” the notorious dive east of Little Tokyo where bands like X and Los Lobos played in the 1980s.

Besides, I’ll be on “the rail” -- the barrier that separates the crowd from the stage -- not in the back, where all the action is. In Vegas two years ago, I noticed that in the rear of the pit, while some kids danced and crowd-surfed, others landed potentially lethal punches on their neighbors’ faces and heads.

Now here I am at the rail, center stage, Zack at one elbow, my husband, Steve, at the other.

My delusions of being safer up front dissipate when I realize we are all stuck between an irresistible force -- the crowd -- and an immovable object -- the rail. We find ourselves pressed like panini by the force of several thousand overheated bodies. I consider all the stories I’ve read about soccer fans being crushed to death, and I think, “Could happen.”

The pressure comes in waves, like labor pains. It builds to a bone-crushing, sweat-drenched peak before letting up slightly, enabling me to take a deep breath before the next wave. Steve can’t hack it. He gives up before Green Day even takes the stage. “Honey, you’re on your own,” he cedes, as the bouncers lift him over the rail.

Zack and his friend Lev last longer before getting squeezed toward the back by the violent thrashing. I alone hang on, like a Titanic survivor clinging to a lifeboat. I had no idea I had such upper-body strength. I push through 3 1/2 hours of claustrophobia and pain by focusing on the music and the moment and by counting Billie Joe’s fillings.

I am conked on the head, and my Versace glasses go flying. Billie Joe prances through “King for a Day.” A crowd surfer’s rear end crushes my shoulder over the iron railing. Bassist Mike Dirnt sets hearts thumping with “Longview.” My breast is squashed by my neighbor’s elbow, like the most brutal of mammograms. Drummer Tre Cool slams out the intro to “Are We the Waiting.”

When it’s over, the crowd eases away. I take my first step of freedom and realize I hadn’t been standing on my own for more than an hour. I feel as if I’ve just given birth: My limbs are trembling, my strength is sapped, my hair is matted, and I am soaked in who knows how many bodily fluids.

I have a knot on my head the size of a golf ball, bruises cover my arms, chest and back, and my throat is hoarse from dehydration and screaming.

But the exhilaration wipes away the memories of discomfort. Even two weeks later, I feel empowered, as if I can do anything .

I had the time of my life, and I never want to do it again.

Pamela Wilson can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.