[ WP ] Write about something that is disgusting or ugly in such a way that it becomes something beautiful -- without using the 'beautiful inside ' cliche .

He thought he could smell it through the gray-tinted plexiglass windows as the bus slid off exit five and into the stalled evening backup on the Macombs Dam Bridge. Could practically see the stink rising off the asphalt, hot garbage curdling in the alleys behind restaurants still alight with laughter. Young bodies sweating on dance floors, steaming on sidewalks. Standing-water deluge burbling back from the belly of a gutter swollen happy from the morning ’ s storm. 
 
 Streetlights hummed lullaby. Hair stores and bodegas and pizza joints tucked in under storefront grilles pulled shut for the night. Car exhaust and cigarette fumes phased through the sides of the bus as they rolled through Harlem. 
 
 Straight onto him. Osmosis. From an area of high-density to low-density, diffusing through metal and curtains and other bodies. Straight towards him. 
 
 And got him good. It burned the lingering scent of cut-grass from his nostrils, rubbed the dryer sheet perfume from between the fibers of his clothes. The acidic tang of fresh tomatoes in his mouth flossed away, the half-moons under his nubby fingernails blackened, regreased. Got him right there, scoured the mom-and-pop and cared-for smells right off of him. 
 
 The bus groaned to a stop in front of FIT on 7th. He lugged his suitcase from the floor, arms rashing on the prickly carpet seat, and clambered out of the canned pine air of the bus on sea legs. Into the fug. He shucked off his jacket—necessary for the ride—and there it was, the smell, wrapping him in a greasy bear-hug of an embrace, cheap perfume, cheaper cologne, moldy clothes, old newspaper poached in puddle of urine, choking laughter, taxis slamming brakes, `` spare change, spare change,'' a shout to a friend across the street. 
 
 All of it. Smell of it in his hair, that he might never noticed had he never gone away. Just the filth he ’ d been turning to live in, an effluvia his father swatted away, his mother Febreezed—part of him now. 
 
 He could happily poach forever in the damp, heavy heat of New York City. He was home. 

