The Ugly

I sit subdued. In the yellow light pool that the lamp breathes on me. I have just watched Gone Baby Gone. It follows the story of Amanda, a 4 year old girl who goes missing in an ugly part of Boston. As the tale unfolds, through a young local detective’s eyes, things get murkier, a cocaine powdered trail is unearthed, and everyone seems suspect. As the tone gets greyer, one realises, this was never meant to be an easy story. Alcoholic, coke-snorting mothers and gun-toting, foulmouthed men litter the scene. A few moral men try to do The Right Thing in a largely amoral world. Little Amanda is too young to comprehend the decisions being made for her. The movie ends on a discouraging note. Amidst the moral questions raises, it uncovers an ugly picture of humanity I find myself far removed from.   

After a while, I lie down. I shift about, the quilt frowns, annoyed at being misarranged again. I struggle to find a good spot, but you can never be really comfortable when reading Bukowski. His words are ugly and disturbing – just as he wants them to be. I can almost see the crusty old man smiling at my discomfort, as I hungrily gulp his harrowing words about abusive parents and a childhood coloured by violence and hatred. An America from another era, and I meet the same stories. Lives lived in fear, vacant dreams shattered and left to evaporate. I follow little (Hank) Chinaski as he grows from a bewildered child to an angry teenager to a rudderless young man. He uses his fists and boisterous talk, because he has learnt that the ugly and the poor are never loved. Again, I am isolated. I have not lived these words, I have never known them and am bewildered (and sadistically curious) at the world they paint. 

I close my book and put away my specs. The lamp is eased of its luminance. I think of my childhood, coloured vibrant with laughter and love. If there were tears, they were wiped away; if there were fears, they were stood up to. I was brought up by strong women and kind men. I had enough to eat and the occasional ice cream too. I had a school to go to and a home to come back to. I was taught to be curious. I grew up believing strength and weakness were as important as each other. It was not perfect, someone always had a better pencil box, but I grew up happy. 

I am worn and I close my eyes. In the nebulous in between world that is neither awake nor asleep, words and scenes from the movie and book coalesce into a continuous ugliness. I wished I could hold Amanda and teach her how to draw V-shaped birds. I always used to put them in my mountain-house-pine-tree pictures. I wanted to give Hank some peace, telling him fighting wasn't the only way. I wished to give them the hope I was brought up on.