on the bus with bust my jo Snow falls softest when there's no wind. Everything's muffled except Christmas lights, turned on again to honor the snow, that dazzle the night. But across the street a shredded kite dangles from a mangled embrace of tree limbs ~ never has gravity seemed so thoughtless. Yet it handles the snow with such slow mercy. In minutes, the bus wobbles toward me. I'm usually thankful for its prompt arrival, but tonight it doesn't matter. I get on and pay without looking at the driver. Tonight I walk straight to the back of the bus. Tonight the stares from other passengers can't reach me. Tonight I'm going home to my little apartment for the first time since Leo, my eleven-year old son, had to go away. Even before I sit down, my mind takes off. How am I going to get off the bus? How am I going to walk ~ step after step after step after step closer to the absence in that house? I used to jag around about how he broke everything, saying that when he went to college, I was going to just start over. Then he was gone. I picked up a porcelain fairy that fell off the windowsill when he slammed the kitchen door, smoothed my finger across the clumps of glue from where he had fixed it. It seemed like the softest thing I'd ever touched. He always tried his best. You go Jo. Sit on the bus and cry, but don't let any expression leak from your face, just your eyes. Oh, I just want to go one whole day without crying. I think I'm fine 'till I walk by his bed or find his clothes in the laundry and it starts again. But tonight at least I know that I won't find the Pittsburgh City Police walking through my house. Christ, after he was arrested, they put a beat cop on our street. Like we were under siege by eleven year olds. And everything happened so fast. I was the coolest mother alive but there are so many variables. He started at Knoxville Middle school, met one kid and within two weeks, our lives were changed forever. They started skipping school. Then they ran away. They cut school again and robbed two houses. The other child knew exactly where to go because all kids brag about their dad's guns. These gun owners did nothing to secure their weapons, if only to save their own family. I just don't understand why we expect children to treat guns with respect when we don't. I can't believe he's gone but am so grateful he's still alive. But I need the manual on getting over surrendering custody of your only child because he was arrested. I have only two roads: feel li world with every card stacked against us and overcame every one because of him. Oh, I forgot how bad I suck because I was collecting welfare at the time. But I couldn't change who I had gotten pregnant to. And yet I know how lucky we are. Giving birth, for most spent women, only exacerbates their problems. I was very lucky to have friends and family. I'd even thank America for the welfare money but now I know if she'd had a choice, she'd just as soon seen me earnin' my keep on a street corner. Yeah, and I'd have worked my way up to Capitol Hill in no time. Big call for whores up there. But the biggest bonus of being a single mother is that people think I'm a lesbian. I have a tall, yellow-haired girlfriend who spends the night. But I just don't get it. If you don't have a boyfriend does that mean you're automatically having sex with women? Leo knew I was like Megan's mother but heard his friends say I was a dyke because I cut my own grass. If I were gay, I wouldn't hide it. But I guess it's funny. I never have a man so men think I'm gay so they all stay away. Beautiful. Or maybe they stay away because I'm the scag of life. Whatever. And if Megan was a man, they'd call me a whore. I'd rather they think I was a lesbian. Lesbians scare 'em. I can't believe the bus is in Mt. Oliver already. I went to buy some albums for when I get home. I need some "once upon a times." Music takes me right back. I got _A New Life_ by Marshall Tucker, another copy of _Dark Side of the Moon_, some Supertramp, Stanley Clark. Wow. Even as I made a list of records I wanted, I didn't realize that all this music is from the most painful time of my life, right before I found out I was pregnant with Leo. I listened to _A New Life_ when my soul came out of my body and forbid me from dying. And oh my gosh, after that, I listened to _Dark Side of the Moon_ constantly. I thought I was baked, totally crispy and finger-lickin' fried. I had been wrong about *everything.* I thought I was so free but it was a mask for self-destruction. A total lack of balance is the opposite of freedom. Of course, *I* didn't think I was crazy until I tried explaining it to everyone. I can't believe this didn't occur to me until now. I had forgotten what was happening when I listened to this music. I must be crazy to want to hear those same tunes. But then again, even through all that, music made me feel beautiful and good in spite of myself. I'm not so crazy. But my busstop is next. The Counting Crows play in my headphones, *you get what you paid for, but I just had no intentions of living this way.* I'm trying to remember that I'm the luckiest Jo alive because I had a little baby who enabled me to change my life but now that baby's a little boy who had to go live with his dad 'cause no matter how good a mom I am, I can't be a dad. But why is it that I feel like I'm six years old again, at the mercy of everything and everyone wondering why the people who did the most hitting never got hit? Then I learned God hit hardest and here I am. I'm supposed to be getting off the bus but I can't. But I have to go home. I just can't do it. No, I could do it if it mattered. I just need a little more time in the temporary warmth and storage of the bus. As we roll away from my stop, I can see all the way down my street to my pink and blue Christmas lights. Even the trash around McDonald's is white tonight. Winter's breath has covered the world as if it knew my eyes needed the relief. Well I haven't take a bus in this direction for awhile. I'm bound to see something new. (to be continued next week) copyright 1994 kathy jo kramer all rights reserved and shit