as published in _In Pittsburgh Newsweekly_, Pitts. PA 412 488 1212 Editor: Dan Cook (try telling him what a slut you think i am for posting off topic) anyway, yes, this is my column but mentions adam and the counting crows and it's funny but i cried reading the end. and i can't believe the shit i say. the doorman in the building is never going to look at me the same way again. (oh, and i'm a famous bus rider in pittsburgh. quite the little golden-quill award winning celebrity now. my first year in print. but i should be making sooo much more money. man) cityscape On The Bus With Kathy Jo kathy jo kramer I'm usually too busy autographing transfers to notice things at the busstop, but when Mr. I-Respect-Women (if-it'll-get-me-laid) first said hello, as only a man wearing a G. G. Allen jacket at a busstop in Oakland could, I smiled and said hi back, thinking he was awfully sweet for a man with "death" tattooed across his neck. When he started screaming at me about what a stuck-up bitch I was, I figured he knew I was the infamous Kathy Jo. But never did I doubt that he was talking to me. Never turned around in disbelief to see if there was someone else there. I'm psychic that way. As I started going into hyper-Jo, shifting my weight, fists headed for my hips, ready to give him a piece of my mind as if it would help, I noticed the word "kill" tattooed on his hand. Somehow "k-i-l-l" on his knuckles seemed much scarier than "death" on his throat. I thought it'd be in my best interest to cooperate fully while praying for the swift arrival of a bus. Still, it pissed me off. I should've asked him if he wanted me to just hike my skirt up right there behind the busstop so we could get it over with before he dropped a week's pay on my fare. *A whore's work is never done.* Instead I answered, "huh?" because sometimes men don't think I'm very funny at all and have been known to smack the Jo. So I be a nice Jo. He told me he said hello because he wanted to talk and all I said was "hi." And as I heard myself say, "well what do you want to talk about?," I knew it was a mistake. "Well maybe you can tell me why chicks are such bitches." Oh, did he ask the wrong bitch. The hair on my back stood up. And yet *k-i-double-l* kept repeating in my thoughts. Hmm, *why are chicks such bitches?* So I said, "Well maybe they get sick of being called bitches." This stunned and confused him. Or maybe he was punishing me with his silence. Either way he left me alone. He's over there beating on the top of the trash can like he wishes it was my skull, I mean like it's a drum. This is the longest five minutes of my life. Shit, and here comes another fellow. He's walking a big Doberman and looks at me with that same "we'll see how tough you are" glare. Am I begging for this? When they're right next to me, the dog lurches at me. The owner pulls the leash so hard the dog yelps, his neck yanked so fast I could hear his teeth smack shut. If I was born as a dog, I'd get an owner like him. I knew it was going to be a bad day, though. Last night I dreamed I had to go back in time to save Adam Duritz' life. I did so he loved me and dragged me to a hotel room, throws out some old lady we find there. He left when he realized the walls were made of glass. I almost die getting back to the present only to find he's plotting to have me burned alive. Well isn't that a fine, "hey how do you do me?" I am definitely not having his children now. I know how pathetic I am. But I don't understand why men react to me the way they do. Why do I feel like I bring this on? This kind of thing doesn't happen to other women. Or does it? But sometimes I feel like there's this evil force hovering around me, attracting men to use as portals get to me. Or maybe it's just that I have big tatarinskis. Having large, um, breasts is like wearing a blistering red neon kick-me sign. Blinking and buzzing. And it is not all in my head. An old Italian man at the Woodland Drive-In Flea Market just reached out and grabbed a handful of one. But the poor guy was eye-level with them. It must've been too much. Some bastard in a hardware store walked right up to me and said "can I just see 'em?" *Well sure, Jethroe, but we have to hurry. If my boyfriend sees me, he'll tie me to the back of his car and drag me down 51 again.* Once on an empty bus, a man sat right next to me and leaned over, just staring at them. No, not at them ~ into them. I was only 15. A few years ago, I walked into Tom's Diner in Dormont. It was dinner time and a man screamed "Hey, I want to titty fuck you." (Do you think that was hard to read? Well imagine what it felt like to have it screamed at you across a crowded restaurant. I wasn't born this way) What a source of self-esteem. Daddy's little whore. Yeah, I call myself a whore after being treated like one all my life. And why? Because these *things* grew out of me. This was long before me and my girlfriends started sitting at the end of the bar grabbing huge handfuls of them when college students try to hit on us. And now women spend money and risk their health to bring this on. This is America, now anyone with enough money, can get their own tatas. Even men. Well maybe if my, um, voluptuousness wasn't a source of shame and abuse since they appeared, it'd be different. And it's hard for me to be sympathetic. I've always had huge Humphries. But you shouldn't be able to get implants unless you know how it feels to have big uns in a co-ed, ninth-grade gym class. But I've gotten pretty funny about it, them, whatever. I once asked a man who was talking to them, if they talked back. He never heard me. Truly, I became convinced that men could hold conversations with them. And shut up already, I know part of the problem is my big mouth. A man named Twitch wanted to, um, teach me a lesson one night. A very *hard * lesson, I think. But I thought he was only kidding when he asked me if I wanted smacked... Oh, who cares, the 54C finally pulls up to the curb. Back to the current trauma. Me and Rolf stare each other down. I don't want to be trapped in a moving vehicle with him but I don't care. I studied karate for years after the Twitch Incident. But Rolf has that same "I'll-show-you-who's-boss" look as he, gentle man that he is, let's me go in front of him. As I step on the bus, my shoulder blades tighten as if my back is preparing to be saturated with sharp silver pain. I'm suddenly aware of how close he is. How not funny it is. How much I love my headphones. I sit and stare out the window, listening to the Counting Crows while rocking softly with my arms wrapped around my bookbag. I imagine Adam gently brushing my bangs from my face with reverent fingers. Someday I'm going to be in love. Someday I'm not going to be afraid. Well at least someday I'll have a car. *Remember the NOW march on Washington opposing violence against women on Sunday (4-9). Busses leave Schenley park at 4 a.m. And even though there are petitions to have me removed from the Internet (well, just the Counting Crow's group), I'm still there. I have my very own newsgroup -- netnews.alt.fan.dirty-whores and my World Wibe Web pages, http://www.emf.net/~mal/KJK/ Copyright 1995 Kathy Jo Kramer All rights reserved and shit