A Fine Day for a Subway Ride by Roger Helms

I refrained from taking the lunatic asylum bait, having promised my mom, Jeanette, that I’d try being civil to Papa, who rules over a substantial college saving plan. My parents warned me that my intended major – American Studies – will not equip me to pay off a six-figure loan upon graduation. Papa told me any career-unspecified degree is just a BA in BS.

Through the whipping wind, my dad and Papa now charge toward me, heads down, Papa hanging onto his yellow CAT bulldozer cap, my dad hanging onto his winged-note St. Louis Blues cap.

Papa gives me a broad smile. “Well, Abbie, the city certainly looks better from up here. You can barely see the trash piled on the sidewalks.”

I had explained that Manhattan has few alleys, so trash day means sidewalk pickups.

Papa turns to my dad. “I expect to see a column from you, Johnnie, about the trash.”

My dad is an editor at the Hannibal Courier-Post, which Papa calls The Curious Pest. My grandpa has long been disappointed that his only son became a journalist instead of taking over the family farm.

“Dad,” my dad says to Papa, “let’s focus on Abbie.”

“Maybe some binoculars would help,” I say.

“I wish I had brought some binoculars,” says my dad, obviously trying to follow my sarcasm while moving away from it. “So much to see from up here,” he adds, sweeping his arm over the grand aerial view of Central Park.

My dad thinks he’s so clever, motives hidden, but I accept this distraction, holding my arms out in a way my aviator jacket billows out like wings. There’s so much tension I’d be happy if the wind lifted me into the air, which my parents worry could happen. My clothes always hang on me because I shun double zeros, the fashion industry’s creation of a “zero-zero” obscene. I hate how thin I am. That’s supposed to be a good thing, but boys call me Twigs. My mom, a fifth-grade teacher, assures me I’m pretty, that my flaming red hair is attractive, and that boobs are overrated. I try not to care but that’s hard. Why does everyone want to change me, detour me, stop me, or trash me?

“One thing I can’t see,” says Papa, “is why the hell Rockefeller’s name is on this center. The land beneath was long owned by King’s College.”

“Well, Dad,” says my dad, “he financed the building.”

“So? He didn’t create it. The architects and engineers created it. It’d be like the patrons of artists in the Middle Ages getting their names on all the paintings.”

I nod, finding rare agreement with my grandpa. “That’s right, Papa. Honor the right people. It should be called The Lenape Center.”

He pulls his cap lower. “Whoa, Abbie! Why?”

“The first owners of this island, Papa, were our ancestors.”

“They did not own it, Abigail. And you should stop claiming to be one.”

Papa abruptly walks away.

Our family has Native American blood, if thin. Many relatives on Papa’s mother’s side are members of the Kansas Delaware tribe, descendants of the Lenape – the supposed sellers of Manhattan. The supposed is because the Native American concept of “ownership” did not match the European concept. Papa thus says the Dutch were the ones swindled, since the sellers didn’t own the land.

I face my father. “Why can’t you just speak up against your father?”

My dad gives me a repeating hand motion in front of my face that looks as if he’s chopping the air. He uses that gesture often. It means “cut your words.”

“Sometimes, Abbie,” he says, “silence is best. That’s the course I’m charting.”

“A course toward what?”

“The money.”

“What about embracing our heritage? Or at least fully embracing my embrace.”

I turn and stomp away as resolutely as Papa did, my steps like my dad’s hand chops.

Boys started calling me Twigs back in middle school. I cried, which made them laugh, which made me want to hit them. I thought the situation might improve when I revealed my Indigenous heritage. It didn’t, so I started yelling at them, which made them call me Twigs on Fire. That made me want to hit them – until I decided it fit. I feel like I’m on fire, a fire in my soul that’s got to either burn out or flame up.

Mom keeps telling me I’d be more attractive to boys if I’d smile more. Maybe so, but I’m no fake.

My dad has joined Papa, my grandmother, and my mom, all looking south toward The Empire State Building. My grandma, Lilly, is terrified of New York City, believing I will be stabbed on campus, near campus, or in the subway.

Today’s logistics are complicated by Grandma’s demand that we spend only a day here, combined with her refusal to ride the subway. To make it worse, she now refuses to take another cab ride, not over the seatbelt but the $70 fare. My grandparents made a bundle upon selling the farm, but the prices of things like college and cabs better match their expectations. They have always lived near – and now in – a tiny rural town of 1,800 people. Hannibal, which they consider a big city, is ten times larger than their town. New York City’s metro area is a mere ten thousand times larger.

Despite Grandma’s subway and cab refusals, Papa still insists we must see the 911 Memorial and the Statue of Liberty before this evening’s return flight. When my dad told him, on the bus we had to take from Columbia, it would be impossible to make the flight without cab or subway rides, Papa acted as though he was being denied his Constitutional rights.

I now see my mom rolling her eyes at something her father-in-law is saying. Mom’s long red hair whips around in the wind, much like I imagine her great-great-great grandmother’s hair must have whipped around upon coming into New York harbor. My mother can trace her roots back to the great Irish Catholic potato famine emigration, but she doesn’t seem proud of that fact. Maybe it’s because her family turned Protestant.

Papa is now haranguing his wife about something. Her short white hair flickers in the wind like bald eagle feathers. All my grandma knows of her own heritage is that her father’s side of the family came from West Virginia.

While my mom is not troubled by Columbia University, it’s no secret she has dreams about the money she and my dad have saved for themselves, not for me. The large sum is partly from an inheritance my mother received, and partly from Papa’s college savings plan taking them off the college savings hook.

Due to the $80,000 per year cost, my parents said I couldn’t go, even if accepted. When I was accepted, however, Columbia awarded me $50,000 per year in scholarships and grants. My mother instantly revealed that Papa’s college savings plan, called a 529, would exactly cover the rest for all four years. I’m quite sure my grandpa never imagined his only grandchild would apply to an Ivy League school, let alone be accepted.

I know I should be grateful Papa is even considering giving me that much money, but I’m not. I’m not because he set the money aside for me, no strings attached, then pulled out a lasso. He insisted on today’s visit before deciding if he’ll transubstantiate his 529 into what he considers a worthless degree from a university he considers radical in a city he calls Babylon.

Both my parents love New York City, having taken me on seven previous trips here because they’re theatre fans. Maybe they feel some guilt over that now, since I fell in love with the city, too.

The whole family suddenly marches toward me, looking resolute. I expect a “no way” is coming, but I’m prepared. I’ve told my parents about my Plan B, which is to work on, or near, a reservation until I’m 21, then go to Columbia as a non-traditional student, paying my own way.

“I have given in to Duane,” Grandma tells me. “I will take the subway. If I end up stabbed, I’ve had a pretty good life.”

I laugh before realizing she is dead serious.

“Don’t worry, Lilly,” says Papa. “The chances of getting stabbed on the subway are one in a thousand.”

I huff at him. “If it was one in a thousand, Papa, there’d be about two thousand stabbings a day.”

He pretends not to hear, motioning us toward the elevators with a “Wagons Ho” gesture. A direct subway line leaves from Times Square, which Papa also wants to see and is fortunately within walking distance. On the bus ride from Columbia, which required a transfer, Papa loudly observed on the first route that buses don’t even have seat belts. When the second bus took us by Central Park, I suggested a horse-and-buggy ride through the park instead of Top of the Rock. Papa axed that idea by telling Grandma horse-drawn carriages are easy targets for robbers.

The subway surrender also creates time to see the New York Stock Exchange, which Papa wants because he despises it. He says it’s just people getting rich off other people’s hard work. That’s another rare area where I tend to agree with him. Most of the time I despise his comments. Like when I told everyone two years ago that I would accept only money for Christmas, which I would then give to the local food bank. They all mumbled that was “admirable,” but it made them feel guilty upon opening their own presents. I thus told them to go back to giving gifts but give an equal amount to a food bank.

They seemed mostly okay with that idea, but last Christmas when anyone opened a halfway expensive gift, Papa shouted, “Hoowee! Some poor family’s gonna eat well tomorrow!” That made me yell, “Fine! To hell with the hungry!” They all laughed, but I was angry, not joking. We finally agreed that helping the hungry would be voluntary and on the honor system next year, meaning the poor will go hungry.

I should not have been as angry as I was. I’d already learned most people are fakes. Papa is an especially big one over his heritage. I knew nothing about that heritage until I was ten because my dad never talked about it. He didn’t because Papa never even mentioned it to him growing up. I’ve learned Papa, however, also knew nothing about his Native American blood – not until his mother was contacted by a relative about a settlement over a broken treaty. The relative had proof that my Papa’s mother’s great-great-grandmother was a full-blooded Kansas Delaware.

Everyone on that side of Papa’s family, including him, took the money, about two thousand dollars, and most became tribal members. Papa, however, spurned tribal membership, never even mentioning it to his own children. My dad’s sister, Ruth, finally learned about it from a cousin. Aunt Ruth soon embraced it and told me about it. Like my aunt, I thought it was cool, and it made me want to explore that heritage. We learned anyone with proven lineage could become a member of the tribe, so we both became members, and I started accompanying my aunt to powwows and drum circles.

I’ve tried to have “discussions” with Papa about our heritage, but he always cuts them off, saying, “If you don’t live as a Native American, you aren’t one.”

I do struggle with that, thus my Plan B. I would happily work on a Kansas Delaware reservation, but we have none. I’ve learned that less than a quarter of the five million Native Americans in the US live on reservations.

Walking through canyons of glass and concrete, Papa points out every pile of trash and any unpleasant smell. Times Square’s movie-screen-size advertisements finally greet – or assail – our eyes. Such a large crowd has crammed into the square’s central triangle that human rivers form, snaking past each other, many people in line for show tickets.

Papa puts one arm around his wife, waving his other arm theatrically over Times Square. “It looks bright and shiny on the surface, Lilly, but it’s what’s underneath. They don’t show you that.”

This pronouncement, of course, is meant to keep her on his side. I think, however, that if our subway ride is uneventful, she will tell Papa to give me the money. Grandma normally dotes on me. She needs a bathroom before descending to the subway, so we head to M&M’s World, the store’s cartoon candy characters and bright colors sufficiently non-threatening.

I linger in the store, in an aisle near enough to my parents that I overhear them.

“Your dad isn’t going to give in, John. And I don’t want Abbie following through on her Plan B. Let’s give her what we have. It’s almost as much as the 529, and we can save for the rest. I worry Abbie might end up, like, estranged.”

“Don’t worry,” my dad says. “You have plans for that money. It’s yours and you deserve it.”

“You keep calling it all my money. But half is what we would have saved for Abbie if your father hadn’t said he was handling it. You should remind him of that.”

“No, don’t pressure him. You came around on your money without me pressuring you, right?”

“Came around? You mean you’re quietly trying to manipulate me – and everyone?”

“No, I -”

I hear a big huff and see my mother stalking out of the store.

To my face, Dad has called my Plan B an interesting thought. He believes he’s the family peacemaker, keeping his own opinions to himself. I’ve heard him defend his method by comparing it to Aesop’s fable about the sun and wind – that blowing hard only makes people pull their coats tighter. I’ve wanted to tell him that silence is not the same thing as warm sunshine. But I haven’t. I’ve kept silent, maybe hiding behind the idea I don’t want to hurt my parents.

At the subway entrance, Grandma halts on the top step. My dad puts his arm around his mother. “Mom, the chance of being hurt down there is far less than the chance of being hurt up here. Okay?”

She remains frozen.

“What are you afraid of, mother?”

“Just… just being closed in, down underground, with unknown people who do disturbing things.”

“We’ve taken dozens of subway rides here, mother. We’ve seen or heard nothing truly disturbing.”

Grandma allows my dad to lead her down the dark concrete steps, through the turnstiles, and onto the southbound platform. A young man, his guitar case clam-shell open, some bills and change inside, busks beneath a line of colorful advertisements on the wall. He sings Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

A northbound train arrives on the far tracks, wheels shrieking metal-to-metal. It brakes to a stop on the dark, grimy track bed, disgorging passengers from its nine silver cars, new passengers rushing to board.

The southbound N train soon thunders toward us, its screech-grind halt accompanied by the odd burnt scent of its electric power. The car stopping in front of us is crammed full, but enough people get off we’re able to stuff ourselves in. I coach Grandma to hang onto a chrome stanchion as the train jerks back to life. Once it reaches full speed, two seated young men, one white, one Black, give up their seats to Grandma and Mom. A tattooed young Black girl across the car stands for Papa, but he waves her off.

Dad, Papa, and I hang onto the chrome tubing in silence – the entire train silent, save for the rumble of train wheels. Most riders bury their faces in their phones. My dad’s Blues cap pegs us as tourists, likely evident without it.

At the first few stops, more people get off than on. Seats open next to Mom and Grandma, so we all sit together, my dad on one side of me, Papa on the other. I rest my head back against the window, our seats facing the center. One stop later those still standing do so by choice, lots of orange plastic seats vacant.

“Look,” Papa says to me, “no seat belts on the subway.”

“Just what the hell is it, Papa, about seat belts?”

My dad squeezes my arm hard, like pressure on a puncture wound.

Papa smiles, unruffled. “The government has no right to restrict my freedom by trying to protect me from myself when I’m not harming others, Abbie. Even Alexander Hamilton, that staunchest of Federalists, would be appalled by seat belt laws.”

“Alexander Hamilton, Papa, never rode in a car. And you wore a seat belt on the plane.”

“Planes are different. Turbulence can be encountered unexpectedly.”

“It can sure be encountered unexpectedly when another car crashes into you, Papa.”

“It’s not up to the government to tell us what to do if our choices would only harm ourselves.”

“Oh, so then you do support the legalization of drugs. I’m surprised, Papa.”

“No, I do not, Abbie, because -”

“I just want to know, Papa, what you have against New York City.”

“My concern, Abbie – our concern – is for your safety.”

“And yet you’re somehow not worried about me not wearing a seat belt?”

“That would be your choice.”

“Well, it’s my damn choice to go to Columbia! And it’s my choice to embrace my Native American heritage. Do I not enjoy the freedom to honor my past and decide my future?”

My voice and Papa’s both grow louder, some riders staring.

“Don’t I, my dear granddaughter, have the freedom to care about your safety? If you were killed in this city, it would devastate your whole family.”

“If you were killed in a car crash because you weren’t wearing a seatbelt, my dear Papa, that would devastate the whole family, including me – your damn pig-headed principles notwithstanding.”

My dad lets out a moan, probably seeing all that money flashing away before his eyes like the windows of trains passing us in the opposite direction.

Papa stares at me. “Quit using such words.”

“Why? Do I not have the freedom to use the words I want? Am I not free to make my own decisions when I’m not harming anyone else? Would you not be worried if I bought a gun? How about if I became a police officer? But of course, unlike Grandma, you’re not worried about my physical safety, right?”

“Stop all this!” Grandma shouts, every face in the car now turned toward us. We’ve disturbed them as she feared they’d disturb us.

I know I should stop, but something is burning within.

“You don’t really want me to go to college, do you, Papa?”

“That’s ridiculous, Abbie. I value a proper education.”

“So, Columbia is not a proper education?”

“Claiming you’re Native American was certainly not proper.”

“I was fully honest about my heritage, Papa.”

“If you don’t live it, Abigail, then you aren’t one.”

“Then this family, Duane, should stop claiming to be Christian.”

Papa throws his arms into the air and looks up, as if asking Jesus to explain reality to me. Then he openly sneers at me. “Why not decide you’re Irish, like on your mother’s side? People would have no trouble believing that with your flaming red hair. And, hey! The Irish were discriminated against when they came here, so that should attract you. Go ahead – add that bit of victimhood to your quiver.”

Before I can say anything, he pokes a stern finger in my face. “And I believe, Abigail, that the Christianity you claim requires respect and love for your elders.”

“You mean like our Native American elders?”

“No, like the founders of America – the ones guided by that vision of inalienable rights endowed by our creator.”

“Have you ever actually read the Declaration of Independence, Duane? Do you know it explicitly refers to Native Americans as merciless savages?”

“Well, Indians were savages. They demonstrated that in scalping the Colonists.”

“When those Colonists you claim, dear Papa, attacked Indian villages, they often bound up every man, woman, and child, then took turns clubbing each savage to death before scalping the corpses.”

“I think you’ve heard a lie there.”

“It’s not. Look it up. Maybe subtract that bit of ignorance from your quiver.”

My dad suddenly, violently, makes his word-chopping gesture.

We all go silent.

I stare down at the dark subway car floor, its scuffed, black-and-red pattern like stars in the night sky overlaid with blood.

The young Black girl whose courtesy Papa refused whispers under her breath, “You go, girl.”

We walk to the 911 Memorial, our silence louder once we start circling the engraved names of the three thousand people whose ashes are below. Watching the endless walls of water cascading down the black boxes feels like the inverse of the hope I felt on Top of the Rock.

I stand apart from the rest, watching the waters fall. My dad soon slips up beside me.

“I want you to know, Abbie, that I really want you to seek peace in this fight with your grandfather.”

“And just what the hell kind of peace do you mean? One where you just give up? Sometimes it’s a good day to die, Dad.”

I turn my back to him and start walking toward the Financial District. Everyone follows when I do the “Wagons Ho” thing.

When we pass near the famous bronze bull, Papa extends one arm toward it while turning to me. “I’m sure you’re about to slander that as the golden calf, right? But it’s meant as a symbol of American knowhow and drive.”

“And a very good symbol, Papa. Just gore anyone in the way. Maybe put the survivors in a pen, then keep moving in the fences, selling off all but the most desolate land in violation of signed agreements and anyone’s definition of morality.”

Papa spreads his arms out, as if embracing everything around us. “Like it or not, Abbie, our knowhow and drive is what defeated Native Americans.”

“Smallpox and lies defeated us,” I say.

“Stop with the us. They were tribal, warring against each other before and after we came. It was -”

“And who is this we, Dear Papa?”

“As I was trying to say, it was tribe against tribe with changing alliances. In the French and Indian War – which should be called the French and British War – many tribes fought beside the French and many other tribes fought beside the English. They fought each other constantly.”

“And Europeans never did that?”

“We are Americans.”

“And Americans don’t do that?”

“Some Americans fail to embrace their American heritage.”

“No American, Papa, gets to expunge their lineage, as if created from dust. We should all want to know our whole story. In fact, why don’t you check out your whole story. Take one of those genetic tests to see how many other ancestors you can disrespect.”

“There’s the Stock Exchange!” my dad yells, sweeping his arm out, clearly hoping to end our battle before something burns down.

Silence seems to breed within us all as we turn down pedestrian-only Broad Street, where the Exchange’s five-story Corinthian columns proclaim temple-like grandeur. Papa sneers at the Exchange until I look at him. Then he suddenly nods toward it, a tiny genuflection. I don’t bother telling him how fake he can sometimes be.

Everyone’s attention is soon drawn to the adolescent-appearing, skirt-wearing, Fearless Girl statue. Tourists take far more pictures of the four-foot-two bronze girl than the Exchange. I know her history. She was first placed facing off against the bull but had to be moved due to both artistic and political objections. She now faces the Exchange, bronze fists on little hips.

My dad turns our attention and feet toward the Statue of Liberty. He soon discovers, however, that the next tour boat is full, the one after too late to get us back in time.

“But the Staten Island Ferry,” he offers, “is quick and gives a pretty good view for free.”

With free vanquishing the fear of being ripped off, Grandma approves. Walking to the ferry landing, we join the crowd funneling toward the mammoth building where one orange passenger ferry is always about to arrive, or one about to depart. Inside the long bank of glass doors, the crowd begins to accordion, penned up like cattle.

“I’ll squeeze ahead and save spots on the top deck,” I say.

My dad reaches out and grabs my arm, worry in his eyes even though I’ve been on the ferry twice before. I half pull away, so he half lets go. When the attendants drop the rope, the crowd begins pouring down a wide aluminum gangway as if multicolored water. I soon spring up the first metal staircase, managing to guard a statue-facing bench, room for four, no seatbelts – no one mentioning that fact when they arrive.

Papa stands at the railing, the rest of us seated, everyone looking across the bay. The Statue of Liberty is almost facing us. The engines rev hard, diesel fumes wafting as the ship moves, swift but smooth, past distant Ellis Island. Lady Liberty seems to rotate toward us.

At the point our path brings us closest to France’s gift, we all stand at the railing, me ending up between Papa and Grandma. I’ve been much closer to the statue, even getting to climb up into the crown, so I mostly look at my relatives’ faces. Only Grandma’s appears untroubled, showing childlike wonder.

A cold sea wind flaps our jackets and stirs the waves. My dad suddenly squeezes between me and Papa, who has been unusually silent. Lady Liberty seems to rotate on by now, starting to face away.

I don’t look at the statue. I look out to sea, through the Narrows at the harbor’s entrance.

My dad whispers into my ear. “Don’t worry. Your mom and I will give you the money.”

“I don’t want your damn money.”

My father looks as though I just shot him with a flaming arrow.

“Please, Abbie. All I want is peace in this family.”

“Meaning just shut up, right, Dad? Let things play out, lose steam, and be forgotten. At least Papa lets everyone know how he feels. But I don’t want Papa’s damn money, either. I don’t want anyone’s damn money.”

My mom throws her arms into the air and spins in a frustrated circle. Grandma seems frozen, like on the top subway step.

My dad gives me a side hug, his body tense, desperate.

Papa jumps around to my other side, giving me a grandfatherly hug that feels even more desperate. Both press their heads against mine.

I do not acknowledge either man. I fix my eyes on the horizon between the Narrows, the wind whipping my red hair into flames that dance around their heads.