The ugly side of city living
I love my city. It is one of the best looking cities in the world. Sure, I’m biased, but it does consistently win awards for being a good looking city. But like any city, it has an Ugly Side. This side is usually hidden behind walls, under bridges or by unspoken agreements. But the ugly side hopped onto the bus on Sunday, while I was showing relatives from interstate the beauty Sydney has to offer.
The Ugly Side came dressed as a late 20’s man, wearing carefully torn jeans, off white leather shoes, a pink shirt and a matching tie. The shirt colour was up, and spread, so the tie was merely a prop. The Ugly Side scoped the bus out from behind dark wrap around sunglasses then plonked himself into a seat near the middle.
I was riding up the back with by wife, my brother and his wife and their two kids, R aged 10 and J aged 4. Sitting four or five seats in front of us was a mid-20’s woman, intently reading a book and with her ears firmly plugged by an Ipod.
After the bus got underway, the Ugly Side moved up and sat next to the young woman. At first, I thought he was asking for directions but then realised he was hitting on her and hard. He took his sunglasses off to look at her. In doing so, he glanced over this shoulder at me. His eyes were pinned and red. He was off his face on something and my guess was Ice, judging from his almost manic behaviour.
As it was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, the woman wasn’t having any of his nonsense and told him so. I thought he took the hint when he moved to a seat across the aisle from her. But apparently all he was doing was gaining a little distance so he could really hurl his ugliness at her.
At first I thought he was joking with her. Then I realised he was abusing her in the worst possible way. I glanced at my nephew to see if he was listening but thankfully, he had fallen into a doze. Toni had noticed, though. Remember, my wife is the woman who shamed a man into getting off a train after he played touchy-feely with her. She has no tolerance for perverts or letches. This guy was definitely a letch.
She said with her eyes she was going to report the ugliness to the driver. I looked at my brother who, at this stage, was trying to calm down his daughter. She HAD heard. My niece is a gorgeous, intelligent 10 year who is very, very sensitive. She was fast becoming upset. My brother asked us not to do anything. He was scared for his wife and kids. He was also scared for himself.
It was at this moment, the ugly side turned his gaze to us. He said something, addled and nonsensical. I tried to brush it off, to draw the ugliness away from the others. I only succeeded in causing the rabid bull in him to charge me. His verbal attack was over-the-top, loud and completely unnecessary. But sometimes you have to engage to disengage.
All I wanted to do was purge the ugliness from the bus. But this action would have upset everyone even more. So I did the only thing I could do; I ignored him. I didn’t look at him, I didn’t say anything more. After a while, he tried apologising for his behaviour, tried to explain it was the girl’s fault, tried to make out like he wasn’t a bad bloke.
I continued to ignore him. I wanted to do something much nastier, much uglier but there was no way I wanted to stoop to his level. I averted my eyes, I held my wife and smiled at my nephew, who’d slept through the whole incident. I only wish my niece had too.
Every city has an Ugly Side. Every city has dark secrets buried under cobblestones and covered up by tarmac. Every city has skeletons in it’s closets and rats in it’s drains. Most of the time, we can ride and rise above it all. Sometimes we have to cross the street to avoid it. Sometimes it hides in alleyways and jumps us when we least expect it. And sometimes it rides the bus at 2 pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It is a shame but sometimes, it is unavoidable.