An Encounter in their high school locker room changed Jimin's view, it leaves him unsettled. He is infected by troubling thoughts and dreams. Who will provide him peace now?
It is a warm and humid night. I trek across campus, past the looming engineering quad, then down a tree-lined residential road. I pass in and out of bright pools of light collecting under the halogen street lamps, accompanied only by the staggering cacophony of cicadas clustered unevenly in the trees.
Eventually, I come to the large, two-lane road, cross it and pass under a buzzing neon sign to enter the gas station. Inside, the fluorescent lighting is bright and harsh. The clerk, a stout brunette, gives me a skeptical look when walking in.
I must seem menacing to her, a Korean guy appearing in the middle of the night. I smile and give her an innocuous little wave, annoyed with myself for going through the charade of making myself seem small and harmless. But it seems to put her at ease; she goes back to reading her magazine behind the counter.
I move through the aisles, tired and ravenous, collecting junk -- a few bags of chips, some Dr. Pepper, a couple of candy bars. The healthiest thing I find is a bag of unsalted mixed nuts. I grab that, too.
I am contemplating a huge pickle floating in a plastic pouch of brine when a pickup truck pulls up and disgorges three rough-looking guys. I wince as they come bounding into the shop. At school, we call these guys "townies" -- local guys with tattoos, trucks, and strong regional accents.
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I am suddenly very exposed, bracing for them to notice me. At first, they don't -- they chat up the clerk, buying scratch-off lotto tickets and cigarettes. By the way, they are talking, loudly and with exaggerated slowness, I can tell they're drunk. Then one spots me.
"Hey Chink," he calls. I don't look at him. Luckily, they all seem to be heading toward the door, away from me.
"Hey Corona Virus, why don't you fuck off back to China, you fucking virus?!" the same guy yells. His friends howl with laughter and then they are gone, out the door. I watch them whooping it up outside in the parking lot.
One of them pounds on the glass of the window, pointing at me and giving me the middle finger. I wait for them to pile into their truck and roar off before I bring my items up to the counter. I doubt he was interested in having a discussion about the fact that China and Korea are different countries.
In any case, I am too hungry and tired to get all that upset. Honestly, I have heard a lot worse. Since the Covid pandemic, I've been physically threatened, pushed, and spat at.
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Airports are misery. At school, I usually feel OK, but I can never really forget that this is America, and I look like the enemy. That I am always subject to scrutiny, suspicion, and interrogation.
"Don't listen to those assholes, sweetheart," the clerk says, ringing me up. She chuckles, gazing toward where the truck had driven off. "Bunch o' shitheads."
She looks at me and asks, "Where are you from, anyway?"I eat a candy bar and drink most of Dr. Pepper before I get back across the big street. I open a bag of chips and try to eat them slowly as I walk back to my dorm.
The sugar and fat flood into my bloodstream and I relax a bit. The night is quiet and beautiful. As I walk along the dark sidewalks, a bright, gibbous moon peeks through the trees.
Somehow, despite having just walked from campus, I take a wrong turn on my way back. I find myself on a street I don't recognize.
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