Chapter 16

"So all I need to do is walk?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Just walk and I'll film you. Since she's excited to be in D.C., we have to show some landmarks."

I rolled my eyes. "I get that. But what makes this street famous?"

"It's M street in Georgetown. It's like going to New York and never going to Times Square."

I looked around. The street was crawling with young people but that wasn't anything special as it was Saturday. There were quite a few restaurants and even though it was fall, it was still warm so all the outdoor sitting areas were occupied.

I looked at him. "I'm still trying to figure out what's impressive about this." The street was crawling with clothing stores but even if I had money, judging from his raggedy jeans and 'army' t-shirt, was I supposed to go shopping with him?

He shook his head. "You're such hater. Besides, this isn't about you but about Rachel."

I raised my brow. "Who is Rachel?"

He hissed. "Do you even pay any attention to me? Your character's name is Rachel."

What? I looked at him from the corner of my eye. "She's Korean, isn't she?"

"So what? That's the name I came up with so deal with it."

I chuckled. He probably couldn't think of a better name.

"Okay, just start walking ahead of me and I'll film you from behind."

I walked ahead and put my hands behind me. "Don't look at my butt!" I joked.

"Even if I looked, what would I see?" he quipped.

Small butts were in fashion. I turned around and stuck my tongue at him then kept on walking.

"Hey!" he yelled a few minutes later.

The urgency in his voice stopped me cold in my tracks. I turned around anxiously. "What's wrong?"

He put the camera down and frowned. "Nothing's wrong." He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the front of some steps. "I told you there was cool stuff here," he said proudly.

"Huh?" I looked around. Was I missing something?

"These are the famous steps."

"Oh, really? They are interesting," I said, hoping that I could, in fact, find something interesting about them. "I mean, they are narrow and pretty high and look old." I looked down the street. "Georgetown seems to be a mixture of old and new. I guess it's pretty cool." I smiled. I was quite impressed with my artistic eye.

He frowned. "You don't know where these steps are from, do you?"

I widened my eyes. They were from somewhere else?

"It's from The Exorcist." When he saw that my blank expression did not change, he shook his head. "You know, the movie about the possessed girl. The one where her head spins around," he said impatiently.

I shook my head. "Sorry, I haven't seen it."

He glared at me in amazement then turned around and started walking briskly.

I chased after him. Was this guy really angry at me because I hadn't seen some stupid movie?

"Hey you, look at me!" I yelled, suddenly getting an idea.

He kept walking and luckily, we'd gotten to a less busy part of the street so there weren't as many people around.

I jumped ahead and tapped his shoulder. "What's your problem? Just turn around."

I saw his shoulders slump before he turned around. "What?"

I started dancing.

He looked at me through bored eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Hey, put that camera on me! We can film our music video here."

"Our video?"

"For our song," I reminded him. "The one you're going to write. The one I'm going to perform?"

He shook his head and started to turn around but I yelled at him to look back at me. Gosh. Couldn't he relax a little?

I danced enthusiastically like a desperate debut singer. "Something something love love something," I started singing badly.

"Those will not be the lyrics to our song," he said as he raised the camera. As I danced and walked forward, he slowly walked backwards and kept the camera trained on me.

"Something something love, oh, I really really love America. I'm so so sooooooooooo happy to be here. Oh, can't you see? Georgetown rocks!" I did a complete turn and kept on dancing in what I hoped was a sultry manner.

Ryan started laughing but kept filming me.



***



"Do we really need to do this?" I asked Ryan for the nth time since we'd arrived at the platform.

"There has to be a subway scene."


"But it's so embarrassing," I said, stomping my foot and sulking.

He laughed. "If singing like an American Idol reject doesn't embarrass you, smiling into the camera in a train shouldn't. Hey, look, the train is finally here."

I saw a relatively empty car pass by us so we jogged further up the platform to catch it.

A few minutes later, I fixed my hair in my little compact mirror and when I was satisfied with it, I brushed my blouse down then cleared my throat. "I'm ready."

Ryan did his signature head shake then switched his camera on. "Remember, you don't have to say anything. Just look happy to be on the subway."

"Did you visit some kind of village when you went to Korea?"

He furrowed his brow and shook his head. "No. Why?"

"You realize that a Korean girl wouldn't be so impressed by with a subway, right? It's nothing special."

He put the camera down. "Look, anyone who visits London takes a photo of the Tube. It doesn't matter if the person is from New York or Rome or Tokyo. It's just a thing you do so don't get offended."

I was about to give a sarcastic retort when I suddenly realized that there was someone yelling on the train. I looked up to see a middle aged man in worn out clothes looking at us and shouting.

Ryan seemed to notice him at the same time because he moved his body in front of mine as a shield. "What's your problem?" he roared at the man.

"You're my problem! What the fu.ck are you doing here? You and that bit.ch? Get the fu.ck out of here! Go back to your country!"

Had we done something wrong? "Ryan, what's going on?" I asked in a small voice.

Ryan stood up while making sure that he was still in between me and the man. I stood up too but he told me to sit back down. Then he turned back to the burly man. "Look, we don't want any trouble. We were minding our business and not talking to you so just leave us alone."

The man burst out laughing. "I am doing my civic duty. We should rid this country of this filth!" the man began before he went into a long rant about Americans being stupid for letting just anyone into their country. I tried to block out what he was saying but I kept hearing references to Virginia Tech and how Americans can no longer be safe in their own country.

Ryan sat back down and wrapped his arms around me. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. My heart was thumping and it was the first time someone had ever exhibited such rage towards me. The guy was slurring his speech a little and I wondered if he was inebriated. There was a slight smell of alcohol but I wasn't sure if it was from him or just the general awful smell of the train.

I looked over at the other passengers in our car – a woman with two young children, three guys and an elderly couple – and although they were sending us pitying looks, I was quite sure there weren't going to interfere.

The man looked like he could turn violent at any moment so I held on tightly to Ryan's shirt. Is this what my father relocated my entire family to America for? I was just too young for this bullsh.it.

The man spat on the floor. "That's you. That's you!" he yelled before spitting again.

I looked away and tried to block him out.

"Just ignore him," Ryan whispered as the train halted to a stop. "Don't be scared. He's an idiot and can't do anything to us."

"Let's get off now. We should just leave and get on the next train."

He shook his head. "We can't let him interfere with our day. That's what he wants so why should we please him? Just ignore him and when he's tired, he'll stop talking."

The elderly couple got off and some other passengers got into our car. I hoped that seeing more people would deter the psychotic man from attacking us but once the train started moving, he picked up from when he left off.

"Hey, you, shut the hell up and leave them alone!" one of the new passengers shouted from a few seats from us about a minute into the man's attack. He was a tall Caucasian man with brown hair and looked like he was in his thirties.

"Mind your business, you sellout!" the psycho replied.

The man chuckled. "Matt," he said, tapping the African American man sitting next to him. "This guy just called me a sellout," he said, standing up and carefully walking over to our side. His friend did the same.

"So this guy likes to pick on young kids trying to ride the train? Man, do you do this for kicks?"

"Mind your damn business," the man repeated in a less confident tone. I could almost swear that his voice had begun to shake.

"What's the problem, buddy?" the brown-haired man said. It looked like he, too, had picked up on the man's shaken resolve. "Why don't you fight us? Or you're afraid to take on someone your own size?"

"Why would I fight you? You're not the problem. You're not the one coming into the United States to live on American soil, live off American taxes then turn around and still hate us."

"You're quite stupid, aren't you?" Matt asked.

His friend chuckled. "Isn't he? He's talking about V-Tech. Okay," he said, hitting his chest. "I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…," he said, turning to his friend.

"And I'm you're worst nightmare," Matt said, jerking closer to the psycho who in turn moved back like the coward he was.

"His worst nightmare? Dude, that's lame. You have to say a name. I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and you're…?

Matt thought about it for a second. "I'm 50 Cent."

"50 Cent?" his friend repeated skeptically.

"Hell yeah! Did Jeffrey Dahmer get shot 9 times and live to tell about it?"

"Good point," the first man said before looking back at our attacker. "So what do you have to say about that? Start cursing at us – we'd love to hear it."

The other man turned around and as the train arrived at a stop, got off.



***



As soon as we got off the train, I bought a phone card from one of the station vendors and called Min Ki.

"Oppa," I said as soon as he picked up. Since I didn't begin with my usual 'Guess who?' I knew that he'd realize that something was wrong and just listen.

When I finished recounting the story, he asked me if I was hurt.

"I'm fine, Oppa."

"But why would the man attack you? Were you being rude?"

"No!" I protested. "We weren't even talking to him or anything and he just start screaming at us."

"And who were you with? Ali?"

I inhaled. Since I'd previous told him that I was no longer friends with Ryan, I didn't have any choice but to say, "Yes."

He growled. "I was on the internet the other day and everything I read about D.C. was just crime. About someone getting mugged, people's houses getting robbed, murders…. What kind of place is that? How do people even feel safe over there?"

"I don't know." I'd thought that he would make me feel better but instead he was doing the opposite.

"What are you even doing in D.C.? If you have to go out, go with your parents or brother. I am sure that he just attacked you because you were girls. If there was a man with you, he wouldn't have dared say anything like that. It's because he knew you couldn't defend yourselves. I hate mofos like that!"

I thought about how Ryan had handled it and if he could have done things differently, after all, those other guys had managed to chase the man off the train.

"But I'm surprised that he was also attacking Ali. She's American, isn't she?"

"She's Canadian."

"Whatever. I'm just saying she's white, isn't she?"

"Yes."

He sighed audibly. "That man was obviously crazy. Jinnie, don't worry about it. The good thing is that you're safe but next time don't go out by yourself, okay? Oh!" he yelled. "I wish I'd been there to kick his ass. Ah!" he said in frustration, "I would have loved to give that as.shole a piece of my mind and show him that he can't just go around attacking people."



***



"Do you want to go back?" Ryan asked me as soon as I got off the phone with Min Ki.

I shook my head. "Let's just finish what we came for," I said, walking out of the station. If we went back home, it'll mean that we'd have to come back to the city another time and I wasn't sure I was ready for that.

"We're going to the White House?" I said, noticing the signs. "I guess it's that way," I said, walking in the direction of the arrow.

"I guess this is it," I said a few minutes later, standing in front of the black fence protecting the president's home. I turned around and faced him. "Are there any lines you want me to say? Should I be happy?" I asked, planting a huge fake grin on my face.

He lowered his eyes and shook his head sadly. "No. You're fine the way you are."

"Okay, but why aren't you taking your camera out of your bag? Let's start filming." The sooner we did it, the sooner I could go back home. I couldn't believe that I was actually looking forward to 'Family Time'.

As if a higher power decided that the weather just needed to match our moods, I felt a drop of rain drop on my forehead.

Ryan and I quickly ran across the street to find some shelter and as we watched the rain beat the streets, I wondered what was going on in his head. We'd barely exchanged a word since we left the White House and no matter how hard I tried not to think about it, I couldn't get rid of the image of that man spitting on the ground and pointing to it.



***



"Instead of going to my house, why don't I just take you home?" Ryan asked as we walked out of Pentagon City Station. The rain hadn't lasted for long and we'd attempted to salvage the rest of the trip by visiting some other sites and filming whatever we could.

I shrugged. "Sure. Do you know the way?"

For the next twenty minutes, we drove and enjoyed the sounds of one of the local pop stations. It wasn't like I didn't want to speak to him but I just didn't know what to say. I still hadn't been able to wrap my head around what had happened to us. When did it become a crime to sit in a train and why the hell did someone feel justified to attack us like that simply because we shared similar features to a criminal?

As we approached my house, I asked him to stop a few meters from my house.

"Why? I'll take you the full way."

I shook my head. "Here's fine. If my father sees you, he'll start asking questions and I'm really not in the mood."

"Okay." He pulled over and watched me disembark. As I was shutting the door, he said, "Su Jin, please don't worry about what happened today. The guy was obviously an idiot and we shouldn't be bothered by the stupid things he said. Okay?"

I nodded but kept my mouth shut.

"See you Monday?"

I smiled grimly. "Sure."