Nobody Cries at Bingo (30 page)

Our driving lessons began with the tractor. Someone had abandoned it in our uncle's field and we claimed it as our first motor vehicle. It was older than all of us put together. Still, it was better than walking. It took five kids to start the grumpy old thing: two of us at the front cranking it, two of us working the sticky gear shift, and one to let out the clutch at the appropriate time. Then the tractor would jump forward and begin rolling. Everyone would climb on and we would enjoy the ride for the entire three minutes that the tractor ran.

Even though the ride was short and had few thrills, driving it taught us the basics of vehicle ownership. For instance, we learned that operating a motor vehicle is often more trouble than it's worth. It took at least half a day of tightening nuts and bolts, pouring diesel over the engine and cranking, to get the tractor started. The ratio of fun to work was around one to three hundred. Despite our dislike of hard work, we persevered, as the ratio of fun to sitting on our butts in front of the television with only two channels was around one to one thousand and one. One channel played only hockey, the other, only Ukrainian programming. By the age of seven, I had seen enough shumka dancing for a lifetime.

The tractor also taught us vehicle safety. Such as you should never put a vehicle into motion until you know exactly where your bratty little brother is. Fortunately for him, David had great reflexes. Every time we nearly ran him over, he threw rocks at us as we bounced to our destination a few feet away. Then we would be forced to jump off the tractor and chase him down and deliver our revenge “charley horses” on him.

We learned to plan ahead. This is an important skill when you are operating a vehicle that eats gasoline like a big butt eats thin sweat pants. In fact, when gas is in short supply, you should know your destination before you leave the yard. Otherwise, you would run out of gas on your own driveway as your drivers argued over whose turn it is to decide where to go.

We abandoned the tractor the day Uncle Johnny started leaving his car keys in the care of his girls. Johnny was a mechanic and let the girls move his cars around the yard. They never hit anything or killed anyone (bigger than a cat) so he entrusted them with the keys when he left for bingo.

Like Celeste and me, they were a sister-sister team but their relationship didn't follow the usual sibling rules. For one thing, Adelle could never lead her sister. Jolene pretty much did whatever she wanted and when Adelle tried to assert herself they would scrap it out. As a big sister, I sympathized with Adelle.

Younger siblings were supposed to respect the older sibling, not bang them over the head with hockey sticks when they weren't looking. I imagined only Napoleon's older brother had it harder than Adelle. She coped by yelling at her sister and when that didn't work, Adelle would throw up her hands in disgust or deliver a stinging pinch. For my part, I tried to keep my sister away from Jolene's influence. Our relationship was delicately balanced, a little in my favour, and I did not need anyone disturbing it.

The sisters would drive over to our house after everyone had left for the bingo hall. Neither girl was sixteen, yet they both felt confident behind the wheel.

“My dad says I should have my license already,” Jolene said, “cuz I'm such a good driver.”

“He never said that! He said you shouldn't drive off the reserve without a license or else he would kick your ass,” Adelle said.

“How come he lets you guys drive without a license?” Celeste asked.

Adelle shrugged. “Prolly cuz he doesn't have one either.”

Though we assured her that the girls were competent drivers, Mom banned us from riding with them. Each time she left for bingo, she would threaten us. “If either of you gets in that car with those girls, I will spank your asses red.”

My sister Celeste and I were thirteen and fourteen, way past spanking age. We no longer feared our mom in any way. We were pretty scared of our dad. Luckily, he was only around once in a while. He was the wildcard that made us think twice before doing something bad.

“What are the chances of Dad getting home tonight?”

“Maybe one in eight.”

“Of him getting home to not getting home? Or the other way?”

“Don't ask me, I hate math.”

So whenever Jolene and Adelle came over, we all jumped in the car to head off on a new adventure. Adelle never went over forty kilometres an hour. That was okay because it made the ride seem longer. Jolene always drove fast which made us feel more like adults. Every once in a while a dog or bird or a plane in the sky would distract her. Her attention would drift and the car would follow. One of us would have to yell at her to get her focus. At such moments, us passengers would think that walking might not be so un-cool after all.

Jolene and Adelle drove over one day and told Celeste and me some exciting news: Shane's family had moved back to the File Hills. They had been our best friends for years before family strife had forced them to move away. They had left in the middle of the night without warning and we hadn't heard from them since. We hadn't seen them in over four years.

Normally if we received news like this we would have to wait to tell our mom, then wait for her to ask around and then wait for her to remember to tell us, then wait for her to do something about it. With access to transportation we could cut out the middle-mom. Jolene drove us directly to Shane and Dylan's new house in twenty minutes.

As we pulled up in the yard, my palms began to sweat as they did every time I encountered a new situation. “You're sure this is the place?”

Jolene nodded. “Yup, my dad came here to drop off their new truck. They bought the orange truck off him.”

The truck was gone but there was a black car parked in the yard so we decided to try our luck. We got out and walked up to the front steps.

“What do you think they'll say?” I asked Celeste.

“I don't know. Probably they'll just be happy to see us.”

I hoped so. We had missed them a lot. Adelle and Jolene were our best cousins but Shane and Dylan were our best friends. After they left, it seemed like the fun had been drained out of our lives.

We knocked on the door. Nobody answered. We tried again with no results. Jolene honked her horn. We looked at the windows. Even if someone didn't want company, a horn usually resulted in a curtain twitch at the very least.

“We can come back later,” Jolene said, and revved the motor. She wanted to go to the store.

We jumped back in the car and pulled out of the driveway so fast that gravel spun out from her tires and hit the side of the house.

“Smart'en up, Jolene!” Adelle called from the back seat. Jolene and Adelle could not sit next to one another without fighting so I sat in the front seat instead. I grabbed for my seat belt and tried to find the clasp for it.

We were a few minutes away from the house when we noticed a car following us. From her view in the backseat, Celeste noticed it first. “Hey, that car is moving fast.”

I looked in the rearview mirror. “Jolene, did you notice that car?”

Jolene checked her mirror and nearly drove off the road as she did so. “I see dust.”

“Uh . . . it's there — don't check! I'll tell you if it gets closer.”

It pulled up next to us.

“He's not giving me any room,” Jolene complained. She beeped her horn and our car veered off the road again.

“How about I'll control the horn?” I asked as I leaned over and beeped the horn helpfully.

The car continued to move towards us. “What the hell-“ Jolene struggled with the wheel as our car swerved in the thick gravel on the side of the road.

“What a dummy! Don't they know there's just a kid driving?” I asked.

Adelle came to the solution quickly. “Brake!”

Jolene sped up.

Adelle got mad. “Brake! You stupid idiot!”

Jolene pressed the pedal harder. She smiled and glanced in the rearview mirror to witness the reddening of her sister's face. I said nothing, as I was too busy watching my rather short life passing before my eyes; I noted that I had spent most of it eating pork chops and sneaking potato chips out of the cupboard.

“Hey, Jolene, how about braking so we can see who it is?” Celeste said.

“Okay!” Jolene stopped the car suddenly.

Adelle bounced forward and hit her sister's seat in front of her because her seat belt no longer worked. “You bastard!” she yelled and reached for Jolene's arm to pinch her. Jolene dodged her in the front seat.

The other car drove past us. Then it stopped and began to back towards us.

“We're all going to be murdered.” Adelle was sure of it. “And then I'm gonna get in shit cuz I'm the oldest.”

“Who the fuck is that?” Jolene directed her question at us even though the driver of the other vehicle was standing at her window.

It was Dylan. He was older and had a mustache. Other than that he looked the same, he had not grown much. He was still thin and you could see that he would never be a big man. He peered in the window. Jolene rolled it down so he could get a better look at us.

“Jolene? Dawn? Adelle? Celeste! What are you guys doing here?”

“We came to visit you.”

He didn't seem to know what to make of this information. “Well, sorry I ran you off the road.”

“Why did you do that?”

“It was a strange car and you were driving all over the place. I thought it was a bunch of drunks.” He leaned back on his heels and stared down the road. “You guys should start heading home, it'll get dark soon.”

That was it? No invitation to stay and visit with him? No promise to come visit us soon?

“Where's Shane?” I asked.

“He went to town.”

“Tell him that we came to see him, okay?” I said.

Dylan nodded and returned to his car.

I glanced at Celeste; she looked puzzled by Dylan as well. Maybe Dylan was so used to leaving people behind that he didn't really care anymore when they were reunited.

Even though we were disappointed by Dylan's reaction, we were still excited by our adventure. We had gone on a mission, faced danger and succeeded. Now we only had to figure out how to bribe our brothers into secrecy.

Our parents didn't understand our desire to see the world. Mom said we should count ourselves lucky because at least we had a TV. “When I was younger, we had nothing to do except chase each other around with a hammer. That was our fun. Nothing but hammer time, day and night.”

Dad was no help either; he would only tease us when we complained about our lack of travel. “If you never go anywhere but school, when you do go to school, it's like a treat.”

Ha, ha.

So whenever Jolene or Adelle pulled up in the front yard, we immediately reached for our shoes. Because we usually had to baby-sit our brothers, we would take turns going on rides in various permutations of Celeste and Jolene or Adelle and me.

One night I went on the first ride with Jolene as my driver, leaving Adell behind to baby-sit. We had no place to go so we decided to investigate a newly built road. Someone had built their house a few miles from the main road forcing the reserve to construct a road just for them. We had seen the grader going in and out of the driveway for months. It was the longest driveway on the reserve; it wound itself through four kilometres of brush and cropland.

Jolene loved curvy roads. “I feel like a race car driver,” she said, as she moved the steering wheel with expert ease.

We felt like grown-ups taking a drive through the countryside as we gossiped about our sisters. The topic then turned to boys. I had not seen a boy in two months so I had little to say on the subject except to reiterate for the 1,008th time that I would probably marry Corey Haim.

Jolene, on the other hand, had ongoing flirtations with several boys from her mother's reserve up north — the infamous — Whitefish Reserve. According to Jolene and Adelle, anything was possible on Whitefish. It was a combination of Las Vegas, New Orleans and New York City, except better because Whitefish also had bush parties. This topic so consumed us that we didn't immediately notice when she began to lose control of the car. It happened slowly and then speeded up quickly. The car swayed way over to the left, so Jolene pulled the wheel way over to the right. The car fought back and we veered left again. The car began to move sideways, and then slowly turn itself around. Jolene made a stuttering sound with her mouth, it sounded like, “whhhhatttt the hellll . . . ”

I kept my mouth shut, afraid that even a word could unbalance the car. For a second it seemed she had gained control. It was a short-lived hope and a second later the car was skidding off the road, then over onto its roof where it settled in the ditch.

The accident happened just like in the movies. During the worst part of it, everything moved in slow motion — real slow motion since we were only going about thirty kilometres an hour. My life didn't pass before my eyes, only gravel, dirt and small weeds that pressed against my window.