Nobody Cries at Bingo (6 page)

We lived on Okanese, which was located in a block of four reserves, collectively known as File Hills. The others were Peepeekisis, Starblanket and Little Black Bear. Peepeekisis was the biggest, Starblanket was the smallest and Little Black Bear was the rankest (according to my mom and the local police.) Altogether, about 2000 native people lived on File Hills; if you were willing to put in the work, you could amass a tidy sum of candy.

The idea of hitting all four had never occurred to us before. Mom had a tendency to pack it in as soon as the bottoms of our pillowcases were full. Even when Mom got ambitious, she'd only hit houses on Okanese and her relatives who lived on Peepeekisis.

With Gerry, we went to every single house that we saw. And if there was no one home then we would pile up garbage in front of the front door. Before Gerry came along, I didn't even know what the “trick” part of Halloween meant.

“I thought trick meant that people could give you candy or do magic tricks for you,” I said to Gerry as we dragged an old car hood onto someone's porch.

“You poor kids. Didn't anyone teach you the true meaning of Halloween? It's all about getting up in people's asses and showing them how to have a good time.”

“What if they get mad?”

“Then screw 'em for not being good sports!”

Gerry really got into those tricks. They took more time than the treating. After we had dragged a lawn mower, a doghouse and a bag of soil onto an unfortunate family's doorsteps, it was already late.

My siblings and I stole a glance at our driver; surely by now her mouth would be forming a frown that would only become deeper as the sun went down. Her voice would become sharper each time one of us didn't shut the door hard enough. And like our mom, Gerry would start muttering under her breath about how no one understood how tired her legs were.

Gerry showed no signs of slowing down. Her eyes were fiery as she steered the Bronco over ruts. As our heads bounced against the Bronco's ceiling, we admired Gerry's energy. What would it be like to have a mom who could go and go and go?

After we had reaped our destruction on a few homes, she sped away from our reserve onto the next one. We were eager to see what candy the other reserves had to offer.

“Stop at the Youngs! They're rich, they have two trucks!” Instinctively we knew which families would hand out quality snacks. “Mrs. Klein will have caramel apples. Look how fat her grandchildren are! She might even have brownies; I always smell chocolate and nuts on their breath!”

Everywhere we wanted to go Geraldine was prepared to go. Never before had our pillowcases seen so much candy. Celeste and I weren't even tempted to steal from our brother's. We had eaten so much that our mouths were dry and we had to reach for our caramel apples to wet our pallets.

“Where do you want to go next?” Geraldine asked us. I looked over at our other passengers. Her three kids were unspoiled cowboys in the making with their lean legs and hyperactive personalities. I could tell that sweets did not enthrall them as it did my siblings and me. They didn't have what it took to be greedy; that was evident from the way they dug into their bags and chewed their gum first. Gum! Such amateurs. Even now they had lost interest in our quest and were trying out wrestling moves on one another in the back seat. They didn't know lucky they were to have a tireless mom. It was true what the Bible said, “To whom much chocolate was offered, much was neglected.” Or something like that.

It would be up to me to keep this dream going. “Um . . . how about into . . . town?” I pretended to speak hesitantly as if it had just occurred to me. It had always been a fantasy of mine to go trick or treating in town: all those houses, so close together and even, the dream of going door to door inside an apartment building. Imagine it: less effort for a higher volume of candy! Mom never appreciated my elegant breakdown of candy economics, preferring her own logic. “The more crap you eat, the more likely you are to shit your pants.”

I held my breath as I waited for Gerry's answer. I prepared myself for a “no.” “No” was what I was used to. I understood “no,” I told myself.

Gerry was prepared to take us on a new adventure into the land of “yes.”

“All right then, let's go into town!” she said and swung the jeep in the direction away from the reserve, away from mediocrity and acceptance of less towards a future of unlimited mini chocolate bars and cavities. I released my breath and sat back revelling in our good fortune.

Celeste elbowed me. “Look it's almost dark. Mom will wonder where we are.”

“Shhh . . . ” I told her. “There's street lights in town.” They would light the way to our chocolate dreams.

Celeste looked afraid. This is what our mom had done to us, made us afraid to reach out for the unknown, for the big kahuna, for the giant stash of candy in the sky. I patted her on the leg as it if to say, “Hang with me, kid, and I'll take you all the way to the top.”

We were nearly off the reserve when Gerry spotted a side road. “Who lives down here?” she wondered aloud, then shrugged and went down the road anyway. As was the fashion all over the reserves, the road twisted around and around with no rhyme or reason until it came onto a clearing. There was a small house with no car in front of it.

“Aww, nobody's home,” I whined, which was difficult since my mouth was stuffed with fudge.

Then there was a movement behind one of the curtains. It was furtive but this was enough welcome for us.

“Yay!” Another home to plunder!

All six of us paraded up the steps and pounded on the door. David laboured behind on his short legs, his pillowcase nearly as big as him. We pushed him to the front, as his cute face was always a favourite with old ladies and this had to be an old lady house with its squeaky porch and fussy plants.

The rest of us stood behind him, our chocolate smiles fastened in place. They faded a bit when a young woman opened the door. Oh no, not a babysitter!

A babysitter meant that the parents had forgotten about Halloween, gone to bingo and left a young person to dole out the disappointment. Behind her, a baby boy and girl were sucking on their thumbs. They had no costumes, just big smiles at seeing a group of children in their kitchen. They hung onto the young woman's jeans shyly.

She invited us inside where we screamed our greeting. “TRICK OR TREAT!” It came out as a rowdy soccer hooligan yell.

The little boy held up his hands and begged her to pick him up and protect him from us. He called her Mommy as she slung him onto her hip.

“Mommy?” I mouthed to Celeste. The girl couldn't have been much older than Tabitha who was sixteen.

The young woman feigned fear at our costumes. “Oh you little monsters! What am I going to do!” She asked our names. We gave them loudly.

I looked around the kitchen, a little confused. Where was the bowl of candy? Had she given all of it away? I searched the kitchen and noticed how bare it looked. There was no loaf of bread on the counter, half open, half closed with peanut butter and jelly confetti strewn in front of it. There was no bag of cookies with the cookie tray half in and half out where the last person had violently searched through it looking for the chocolate chippiest cookie. There was nothing on those counters that would tempt the skinniest mouse. The little girl smiled up at me. She didn't have a big belly or chubby cheeks like the babies in my family. Realization hit my brain like an ice cream freeze on a warm day: we had gone one house too many. This was one of the houses that Mom was talking about when she told us not to waste food. Mom wasn't full of shit.

I stepped away from the front wanting to slink out the door and slide back into the Bronco. It wasn't right to be here, taking from this house. Surely the young woman's fresh smile would transform into a pursed mouth as she shook her head side to side. “No candy here, sorry.”

She didn't do that. With more grace than hostesses twice her age, she complimented our costumes and gently pinched David's full cheeks (everyone had to do this, they were that plush and tempting.) Then she opened her fridge, which I knew even before she opened it would be as barren as a wintry grainfield. Somehow she produced two oranges. She sliced each orange into three pieces and wrapped each piece in plastic wrap. Then she dropped the small packages into our bags. We said ‘thank you' reverently — even my little brother whose lisp made it come out, “fank you.”

Into the Bronco we went, one little monster at a time. Gerry could tell something was wrong. She'd sent a bunch of marauders into the house and five sad zombies had emerged.

Dylan, Gerry's eldest, showed her his orange pieces. Gerry examined them. We sat silently in the driveway as she decided what to do.

Finally, she put the jeep in gear and we sped down the windy road away from the young girl and the two small children. I knew that the Bronco would not be turning towards town — I was disappointed — but less than I normally would have been.

By the time we made it home, it was already dark. My mom stood on the front steps puffing on a smoke and watched us drive up the approach. Her face had a worried frown. Even though Mom knew Gerry was energetic, I don't think she ever expected to see anyone keep her kids out later than sundown.

Though Mom smiled as she thanked Gerry, her eyes were on our baby brother sleeping in the back seat with his head at an odd angle. “Wow, looks like you really wore them out.”

“Lots of kids come by?” Gerry asked.

Mom shook her head. “Not for the last hour. Most people pack it in pretty early.”

“Lazy. Never understand that myself.” Geraldine helped Mom slide the Bronco seat open.

Mom pursed her lips. She gathered Dave into her arms and waved goodbye to Gerry with her free hand. My sister and I carried his bag of candy in for him as the little Bronco roared out of the yard. Most of his candy made it into the house.

Mom immediately sent Celeste and I to bed. We sat on our beds and ate our candy in the dark, quickly and methodically. When I reached the slice of orange they young woman had given us, I unwrapped it gently and popped it into my mouth. I imagined that it would taste sweeter than all the chocolate in the world. It was quite dry. I ate it anyway.

N
OBODY
C
RIES AT
B
INGO

B
INGO TIME WAS AN UNDERSTOOD RULE IN
our family. Just as we knew that if there was a band meeting held on a Friday then Dad wasn't getting home until Sunday, or that my brother David would bounce his head rhythmically until he fell sleep each night, or that if my sister Celeste and I did not get
exactly
the same doll, toy or T-shirt then we would fight until we did, so too we understood that bingo was something that Mom had to do — every night. (Mom vehemently denies that she played every night. My siblings' eyewitness accounts contradict her statements.)

Bingo was held everywhere. In the city, in small towns, on the reserve — as long as you had four walls and some balls then you had a bingo, my friend. There was a bingo every night of the week if you looked for it. And many did.

Around six pm, Mom, Grandma and assorted aunts and uncles would feel compelled to crowd into a car together. No matter that they spent the day fighting over who stole whose hoe or who hocked whose television, at the end of the day they were all willing warriors in the same noble fight. They would hurry one another into the car with their little margarine containers filled to the brim with red, blue, and green button markers and head to the nearest bingo.

Us kids would see the bingo players off as we sat on the front steps, a dog or cat tucked between our legs as we inspected them for wood ticks. We'd interrupt our picking to wave at the grown-ups. Then, as soon as the car was out of sight, we'd squash the fat bloated ticks into bloody mush under our sneakers and head to the backyard to do stuff we weren't supposed to. Having a bonfire and chasing each other around with fire-tipped sticks was always a relaxing way to spend the evening.

If we complained to Mom about how much she went to bingo, she would remind us that our dad was off somewhere drinking to his heart's content. Others of his ilk surrounded him, and at the moment they were draining our bank account dry. “Would you like me to be like that, a drunk who never comes home and never helps out with his kids?”

Presented with the other choice, bingo seemed to be the correct one. Besides, a mom only got in the way during our busy schedule of dangerous evening activities.

The first bingos our family attended were held in band halls, scheduled between the chief's meeting and the first aid training. Our bingo players dutifully travelled from one reserve to another in their crowded car.

Their need for different games and bigger jackpots drove them to try different bingos. First they branched out to Catholic Church bingos, then, disappointed by the lack of high jackpots and the prowling nuns in the aisles, they added Protestant bingos to their schedule. When they ran out of those, they expanded their area to include bingos held in small towns. At first it was awkward sitting next to the same white people who glared at Native people when they walked into their stores, but after sharing a few fingernail-biting jackpots, racism faded into the background as they concentrated on the true enemy:

“Goddamn fuckin' bingo caller!”

“I only needed one number for a fucking hour.”

“Last fucking time I play at this hall!”

Finally when their appetite was whetted and they felt ready, like truly ready, they went to a bingo in the big city. You had to be prepared for that bingo though; you had to feel it in your heart that you could make it among the big boys. (You also had to have enough gas in your tank.)

City bingos were held in huge monoliths built to honour the bingo gods. Dedicated players could attend bingo from morning until night until morning again. Once you entered such a bingo palace, there would be no reason to ever leave again, if you played your cards right, that is.