TITANIC ~ A Yoonmin Story

It's Been 84 Years...

The porter bows his head in reply. "Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."

Pilwoo never tires of the effect of money on the unwashed masses. 

Namjoon finally opens up his mouth to talk. "These trunks here, and twelve more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in the rooms."

The Hanjin man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running. 

Pilwoo breezes on, leaving the minion to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch. "We better hurry. This way, loves." He indicates the way toward the first class gangway. They move into the crowd. Pae Sulgi, Jimin's maid, hustles behind them, laden with bags of her lord's most recent purchases... things too delicate for the baggage handlers.

Pilwoo leads, weaving between vehicles and handcarts,  hurrying passengers (mostly second class and steerage) and well-wishers. Most of the first class passengers are avoiding the smelly press of the dockside crowd by using an elevated boarding bridge, twenty feet above.

They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute. A health officer examines their heads one by one, checking scalp and eyelashes for lice.

They pass a well-dressed young man cranking the handle of a wooden Biograph 'cinematograph' camera mounted on a tripod. Kim Taehyung (whose father founded the Biograph Film Studio) is filming his young bride in front of the Titanic. Kae Minji stands stiffly and smiles, self conscious. 

"Look up at the ship, darling, that's it. You're amazed! You can't believe how big it is! Like a mountain. That's great." Taehyung's loud voice rings out.

Kae Minji, without an acting fiber in her body, does a bad Clara Bow pantomime of awe, hands raised.

Pilwoo is jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is bumped again a second later by their father.

"Steady!!"

"Sorry squire!" The Satoori father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.

"Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath."

"Honestly, Pilwoo," his wife speaks up. "If you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid poor family."

"All part of my charm, dear. At any rate, it was our darling son's beauty rituals which made us late."

"You told me to change." Jimin piped back. 

"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, dear. It's bad luck."

"I felt like black." Jimin muttered.

Pilwoo guides them out of the path of a horse-drawn wagon loaded with two tons of Yuja fruit, in wooden cases, for Titanic's Victualling Department. 

"Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to your execution." Jimin's father said.

Jimin looks up as the hull of Titanic looms over them... a great iron wall, Bible black and sever. Pilwoo motions him forward, and Jimin enters the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.

His fathers hand closes possessively over Jimin's arm. Pilwoo escorts his son up the gangway and the black hull of Titanic swallows them.