EXCERPT

AS ANGRY AS he had been with Cornelius this past week, Frankie empathized. He didn’t want to face the barrage of questions and speculation, either. He could only imagine what it was like as community leader, even one who’d been serving as long as Cornelius had.

“Well, you can’t hide out here all day,” Frankie said. “I got shit to do. The show must go on.”

Cornelius cleared his throat. “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “I need you to put something on Facebook. People gotta know that it’s business as usual tonight at the bingo hall.”

A rare flash of hot rage ran up the back of Frankie’s neck. His voice rose. “It’s not my fuckin’ job to do the damage control!”

“Just calm down, Frankie. We didn’t expect to be dealing with all this today of all days.”

“Well, how did Crusty know, then?”

“We don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him. His car was spotted at the radio station earlier, but he fucked off somewhere after that.”

“You made me sign that paper the other day not to tell no one. Did you make anyone else do that?”

“I did. And I only told the senior administrative staff. ”

“No one on council?”

“No. They don’t think NDAs apply to them because they’re elected and not staff.”

“Well, I guess they know now. You better talk to them.”

Frankie leaned back and crossed his arms in defiance. Cornelius sighed and looked down at his feet.

“Council already knows what’s at stake here, Frankie,” he said. “The province has been firm that if we let the cat out of the bag it could affect our settlement. That’s why we gotta get ahead of Crusty’s fuckup.”

“Well I’m not gonna lie to no one.”

“I’m not asking you to lie. I just need you to calm everyone down and insist it’s business as usual until we can make the announcement. The minister’s coming here next week. There’s gonna be media and everything.”

Frankie clenched his teeth to keep from letting out any more swear words. He was embarrassed by his own outburst moments earlier. But he couldn’t yet look Cornelius in the eyes and so he glanced around the room to give the rage a few more seconds to dissipate. Cardboard boxes of paper bingo cards and colourful dabbers were stacked up the wall to his right, overflow from the storage room. Grainy colour photos from various historic bingo occasions, blown up to fit big frames, hung on all the walls. In many of them, Frankie posed with past big winners and dignitaries from bygone eras.

There he was in a denim shirt with a long black mullet standing beside Doris Geewaydin, her glowing false teeth smiling wide, her twinkling eyes behind thick round glasses. She won the first ever jackpot the night the bingo palace opened. He remembered being especially thrilled for her because out of everyone on the rez, she’d spent the longest at residential school. She died long before the rest of the country started learning out about those horrible places, but he was glad that jackpot had given her a bit of extra money in her waning years, enough to treat a different grandchild each week to the Saturday night buffet at the Chinese restaurant in town.

Below that photo was a clipping from the Sheffield newspaper about a big fundraiser Frankie helped spearhead to fund hosting the All Native hockey tournament in town back in the late ’90s. That massive minor hockey tournament for Ontario First Nations usually took place in cities like Barrie, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay, but thanks to Frankie’s determined calls for donations every weekend, Miskwaawaakong was able to raise enough money to become the ceremonial host community, with the central tournament hub at the four arenas in and around Sheffield.

He knew the other jackpot winners on the wall—from the rez, town, and other communities up and down the highway— had spent their winnings on everything from new cars to massage chairs to even a vintage pinball machine that ended up on the roadside for garbage pickup the following year. Many of the people were still around in varying degrees of health, but most of the ones in the grainy images printed from film had long passed on. Maybe he was the only one who remembered their jubilant call of “bingo” the night they won. His anger ebbed into sadness, which was sometimes harder for him to deal with, especially without booze.

“Alright, Corn Dog.” Frankie let out a deep breath. The chief was only a few years younger, and Frankie was one of the few who could still get away with calling Cornelius his childhood nickname. They played together as kids, drifted socially as young adults, and now past middle age, treated each other as colleagues of sorts. “I don’t wanna fuck tonight up either,” Frankie said. “What do you want me to say?”

“Just do one of those posts you always do the day of bingo. You’re always good at getting people psyched up. Remind them of the big jackpot.”

“Yeah, no problem, but there’s a big fuckin’ elephant in this here bingo hall.”

“Don’t acknowledge any of that jibber jabber going around. That fancy media training firm the Grand Council sent up from Toronto said never to comment on rumours. Just gotta pretend none of it’s happening.”

“They don’t got aunties down in Toronto? Aunties who play bingo?”

The corners of Cornelius’s mouth turned up for a second, then straightened back out. “Just write the post, Frankie. I gotta get going. There’s an emergency council meeting at three.”

Frankie clenched his jaw. “Alright,” he said, “But if my phone keeps blowing up after that, I’m gonna start sending people your number so you can explain all this bullshit. You gonna be here tonight?”

“Probably not. Kerry’s gonna text me if Kaiden’s team makes the finals. If he is, I’m gonna drive up to Sudbury.”

“Must be fuckin’ nice.”

“It is. Baamaapii.”

Cornelius stood up, straightened his jacket, nodded at Frankie, and opened the office door, letting the clattering of floor hockey sticks seep into the room again.

After the chief was gone, Frankie pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened Facebook, which he hadn’t done since turning the device back on. The bottom menu bar glowed red with messages and notifications. He clicked on the “What’s on your mind?” bar and tapped out a message with his thumb, savouring each cathartic stroke: “Fuck U Corn Dog.” He let the insult sit there, gazing at the words and chuckling to himself.

Frankie’s smile faded and he settled back into his chair. He deleted his dig at Cornelius and started typing in the post bar again.