Links on a Chain E-Book

Jon V Kofas

• Herausgeber: The Little French eBooks
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A third generation Norwegian, Freddie with a gambling addiction and nostalgic for the sixties counterculture, inherits the low-budget motel on the city's outskirts. Against the background of the moral majority movement of the 1980s, Freddie faces not only a moral dilemma, but an existential one.

Leseprobe

LINKS ON A CHAIN

Five Days in October

Jon V. Kofas

LINKS ON A CHAIN

Five Days in October

Jon V. Kofas

[United States Government Copyright Office TXu 2-164-056]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Published 2022

Index

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter I: Valhalla Dreams at the Roadside Inn

(Friday, October 16, 1987)

Anniversary Nightmares

Early morning dew jolted me into full consciousness. Gazing out at the fog-covered backyard, my eyes fell on my dog Skoll scrounging for food in the chicken coop. Next to him in my sculptured animal garden, the cow ignored the chickens tirelessly pecking away at food remnants from the previous day. Taking a deep breath, I struggled to clear my head from early morning drowsiness. Ethereally gliding from the old wooden windows into the stuffy apartment the morning dew brought the latest nightmare into my consciousness.

So vivid were the images, they felt more real than my dreary life. In the Valhalla valley of the dead, the dream thrusted me into realm of myth and superstition. Out of nowhere, my deceased father was calling me home. Dressed in a Viking outfit and covered with the skin of a polar bear, he was holding a long rusty dagger with both hands. I asked if he was lonely in his ancestral land. He stared at me with blood-covered eyes. Before I realized what was happening, he grabbed my neck with his icy hands. Like claws on my warm skin, he was puncturing my flesh. “Dagfred, my boy,” he growled in his native Norwegian tongue. “Here in the Hall of the Slain, Odin delivers souls.”

Frightened and disoriented, I tried running away from the eerie apparition. The coal-covered air in the valley was chocking me. Chills down my spine froze on my skin. Held by a powerful magnetic force from beneath the earth, my body was hardly moving. As I struggled to lift my feet off the ground, I felt his blood-covered eyes following me around the valley. “The gates of nothingness are open for eternity, Dagfred. In death, you’ll understand the worthless life you have lived my boy.”

Inside my head, I was protesting, but lost the ability to speak. The grip of his clawed hands around my neck must have muted my vocal cords. Looking around the valley, my only thought was that death playing a chess game with the knight in the Swedish film “The Seventh Seal.” I signaled that I wanted to wager my life in a game of poker, the game in which I found my escape. If he lost, he would help me escape from the valley. Unmoved by my unimaginative ploy, he growled that I had failed as much in discovering my purpose as I had in enriching the lives of others.

Frightfully vivid, the nightmare did not awake me until the crow of the rooster accompanied by my dog’s persistent barking. After a big loss at the poker game the previous night, profound guilt about my nihilistic life consumed me. That Friday, the fifteenth anniversary of my father’s purchase of the motel, I dreaded the idea that the old motel was the only thing connecting me to the real world. Prone to superstition, desperation was driving me closer to an omen from beyond the grave about my gambling addiction. Bedtime stories about superstitions of our ancestral land my grandfather often shared with me and my sister had stayed with me. “Our forefathers believed the fox to be more cunning than any beast,” my grandfather explained. In the distant Nordic lands, the mystery of their lives carried greater fascination than the dreary reality of Apple Valley, Minnesota. My skepticism aside about the mysterious powers of devilish foxes, trolls, goblins, and gnomes, the fox lurking behind the henhouse was a premonition of more losses at the gambling table.

Against the early morning fog, the tree line separating the motel and the adjacent cattle farm, the yard resembled nature’s green wall protecting my motel from the outside world. Yielding to fate of the wind, the treetops reached for the clouds, collecting nourishing moisture. For a gambler surrendering to fate for the thrill of fulfilment, the calming force of the tree-line afforded tranquility. With every drop of morning dew, the angels’ teardrops washed away nightmares from the night before. Baptized in nature’s blessings, dawn was delivering another day of eternal renewal.

As a teenager, I often joked about angels gambling in Heaven to make eternity exciting. To set me on the path of the Lord, my mother chastised me for blaspheming. “It would take all the angels in God’s Heaven with the Virgin Mary’s blessing to cleanse your wicked soul.” Castigating me into embracing the Lutheran church was her way of sharing maternal love. The closest I came to experience ephemeral spiritual transcendence was in the solitude of the motel’s backyard near the animals behind the tree-line.

Upon opening the chicken coop, the turkeys and chickens fought their way around my feet to claim their share of the grain. Pecking away, they took turns at my mud-covered shoes sprinkled with corn kernels. The slow-moving turkeys lost ground to the chickens. Amid the commotion, the cow tilted her head toward my dog barking and looking toward the motel’s parking lot. Drenched with morning dew, the parking lot resembled a junk car lot. Just two weeks before Halloween, nature left traces of autumn’s brownish-yellowish brush. Thin layers of ice-coated leaves formed nature’s quilt over everything in sight.

Free of ambitions for riches, I isolated myself at the low-budget motel whose anniversary I needed to celebrate that day. Most of my former college friends had already traded in ideals of working for a better society for the race to greater wealth. Two horseshoes above the large oak door in the motel lobby adorned the rustic look of the original structure when it was a originally a barn. Converted into a motel in 1953, it served the spontaneous and planned needs of those who could not afford fancier places.

The original owners named it Strassen, the German word for ‘Roadside’. Amber, the voluptuous middle-aged manager often joked that ghosts of guests with tragic lives had cursed the place. Those staying more than a week were usually running away from debt collectors, marriage, some wretchedness they invited into their lives, or whatever calamity life threw at them unexpectedly. Most were hoping for an unsolicited visit from Lady Luck that rarely knocked at the roadside motel.

The only one flirting with Lady Luck was Abdi, a recently paroled black man. After I realized he had already left for work, I breathed a sigh of relief. Every time I passed by his room, I prayed he would not encounter Elmer, the trucker, who worked for the same company. Along with a variety of white-power bumper stickers decorating his truck, Elmer had pasted the effigy of Jesus just above the gun rack on the cabin’s rear window where he displayed the confederate flag. Right below it, magazine pictures of naked models facing Jesus made it difficult to determine where Elmer’s taste for carnal temptation ended and religious convictions began. Hardly the first guest whose Holy Trinity included Jesus, guns, and naked models. Elmer’s cultural smorgasbord displayed on the truck was deliberately provocative.

As soon as Amber saw me walking toward the lobby, she turned down the volume of Christian evangelical radio. Sitting behind the counter petting her dog, she kept flipping pages of a tabloid magazine and making the appropriate grimaces depending on what was in the magazine. For a woman in her late fifties, she was more alluring than women half her age. Taking small sips of coffee, she waited for me to say something -presumably about the motel’s anniversary.

“Sweetheart, I ought to do something special for you today,” I assured her. “What did we do last year? Hey, all things considered, we’ve held up pretty well since the old man left us. As long as we keep these rooms filled and our expenses under control, we’ll be just fine. It’s all about your magic touch with the guests. Sometimes, when the light hits you just right, I believe you can even bring my father back from the dead.”

Pleased with the compliment, she smiled and ran her fingers through her long light brown hair. Appreciating that I admired her as much as my father, she kept our Platonic relationship as close to a marriage as either of us cared to experience. “You’re awful nice to a lonely old lady this morning. Are you going to ruin it by asking for gambling money? Alright, how much did you lose last night?” Too embarrassed to complain about my losing streak, I looked away. Sipping coffee, she flipped magazine pages with her right hand, while using her left to gently stroke her dog sitting on the counter.

After she turned off the “no vacancy” sign, she reminded me that even in tough economic times the motel made enough money to support my gambling hobby. “If my nightmares are an indication, lady luck won’t even flirt with me. Unless I win tonight, I may spend the weekend watching TV and eating chocolates with you. I thought of borrowing a few bucks from my sister, but I’m just superstitious about asking for money on the anniversary.”

Puffing on a freshly-lit cigarette, she asked how much I needed. Instead of confessing about money anxieties, I murmured that we could not afford room vacancies. “Baby, don’t you worry about the vacancies. Before the end of the day, I’ll have these rooms rented out. There’ll be gambling money in your pocket tonight. But you better turn to Jesus for your salvation and do it before it’s too late. It’s the only way your luck will change. There’s sure as Hell no salvation at the poker table.”

Against the background of a blast of morality from Evangelical radio, cigarette smoke seemed less harmful. Between preaching the word of God and asking the faithful to send money, the radio preacher was admonishing listeners about Armageddon. Excited at the prospect of mass annihilation, he warned of inescapable divine punishment. Religious doom and gloom on a daily basis filled the void in Amber’s soul. She dusted off cigarette ashes on the countertop next to the dog and emptied the ashtray. Rhetorically, I asked if removing sins was as easy as emptying an ashtray.

Comforted by a copy of the Bible next to the dog on the lobby countertop, she pointed to the glam magazine photographs of models wearing expensive jewelry covering delicate parts on their sculptured bodies. As much as she was devoted to Evangelical radio, she lived vicariously through tabloid magazines. “Look here, baby,” she singled out the photograph of an heiress sitting in an expensive car wearing designer clothing and expensive jewelry. “This here is what fame and fortune look like these days. Who can afford this stuff in this town? Well, maybe old man Gretz’s family and that’s about it. One thing for sure, nobody staying at your roadside motel.”

In honor of my father’s memory on the motel’s anniversary, she was wearing a new dress adorned by a cross and a long gold chain around her neck. As the years were taking their toll on her voluptuous body, her spirit had rapidly drifted between Jesus and glam magazines. Appeasing her demons through faith, her sense of belonging in Christianity kept her going. Not wishing to dampen her enthusiasm, I made no comment either about religion or about her flowery perfume making me dizzy.

Lifting her sparkling brown eyes ornamented by long fake eye lashes, she asked if she looked festive for the motel’s anniversary. I nodded without saying anything, prompting her to call my attention to her wrinkled-free face. “Baby, the glow you see comes from deep inside my soul. Now, be honest. When I look this good, don’t you feel too? I know it makes our guests feel good. Some of them are nice enough to pay me a compliment. A few try to see how far I’ll go to accommodate their stay. The cheap ones try to get free dessert during their stay. Real men treat me like a lady. They know there is nothing free in life.”

To reinforce her sensual self-image, I complimented her that no matter the words about Jesus coming out of her mouth, her carnal body language spoke much louder. “Just because I don’t have a college education like you and your sister, doesn’t mean I’m a fool. Before they open their mouth, I spot the ones lusting after me. Most are down on their luck. They just want something to make them feel good, that’s all. I’m nice to them, always from a distance like a proper lady.” Between demons and angels, Amber had struck a compromise with her conscience on what constituted carnal sin. Carefully positioning the cross between her breasts, she caught a glimpse of me in the mirror gawking at her. When I lowered my eyes, she realized I was entertaining sinful thoughts.

“There aren’t many women around these parts who can afford the clothes in this magazine,” she sighed with a tint of resignation. Calling my attention to photographs of models, her expression revealed admiration and envy. “This recession is taking its toll on working gals like me. Thanks to your father, I live at the roadside rent-free. Most of my friends in town work a second job to make ends meet. All these experts on the radio and TV are saying there is plenty of money in this blessed land of ours. I haven’t seen it. Neither has any of my friends. Oh well, it’s all in the Bible. Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. Truth be told, some of us have never seen years of plenty. There were times in my life when I thought I was just close to grazing in greener pastures. Oh well, the Lord is still my shepherd.”

With every breath she took after puffing on a cigarette, I imagined her aspirations of unfulfilled dreams evaporating like smoke coming out of her mouth. Coughing and holding her chest, she noticed I was shaking my head with disapproval. “Don’t judge me like I’m some kind of sinner. My nerves and my hips need these cancer sticks. As soon as I finish the pack, I won’t buy another until Sunday after church. The way I see it, for every dollar you gamble, I spend pennies on cigarettes.”

Dead-end lives, numbing boredom on the edge of town drove both of us to bad habits that Amber considered vices. She needed to feel something as much as I did; anything, other than the sounds of animals in the backyard and vehicles passing in front of the motel on Cedar Lane. Our lives intertwined with those of the motel guests were as nicotine-stained as the walls in the motel. Even after Michelle, the housekeeper, bleached the walls, the stench of cigarettes and alcohol remained part of the ambiance, much like the lives of dejected souls staying there.

Shortly after my father died of heart disease, Amber talked about giving up smoking and I pledged to stop gambling. Pointing to his portrait behind the counter, she reminded me that he was watching over us. Paintings and photographs in the lobby honor his native Norway while they adorn the faded paint on the walls. I wanted to remodel the lobby with bolder colors befitting the 1980s. Amber’s nostalgia for the 1970s prevented me. “Every time I walk in here,” she intimated in a soft voice, “I feel his spirit all through me. If you paint these walls, it’ll be like bleaching out his spirit.”

Shoving the magazine aside, she suggested we honor his memory by keeping the motel a historic site. I joked that historic sites need not be flophouses for wretched souls. “I was one of those wretched souls fifteen years ago when I found the Lord and met your father. It was right before he bought this flophouse. In a small town like this, there was plenty of gossip about a former exotic dancer like me dating a married businessman like your father. If I minded what people said behind my back, I would have gone out of my mind years ago. Thank God he didn’t sell the motel and both of us have a roof under our heads. Folks staying here sure are down on their luck, but at least the place is cheap.”

I felt guilty for taking the last dollar from people who could least afford it. Not just farmers in the southern part of the state, but northern miners from the Iron Range had a place to crash at the roadside. Squinting her eyes through a cloud of cigarette smoke, Amber defended our guests with whom she felt a special connection. “I don’t care what anybody says,” she cried out, trying to control cigarette-induced coughing. “Folks staying at the roadside are the salt of the earth. Not all, but most of them. They’re not snooty like your sister and her crowd. The Lord provides for all His children, even lambs down here at the roadside. Even when we lose everything, we keep our faith in Jesus.”

Drawing her attention to the front-page story on the local paper, I asked if Jesus could stop farm foreclosures. Already familiar with the news, she asked me not to blaspheme on the motel’s anniversary. Resigned to fate, she felt good leaving everything in God’s guiding hand. “It’s too damned depressing to think about what’s happening to some good Christian folks,” she sighed. “It takes me back to my childhood. Now, you see why I listen to Christian radio?” She turned the volume higher and extinguished the cigarette.

Vividly describing horror and salvation stories, the preacher reassured listeners that Jesus was on their side, provided they observed conservative evangelical doctrine and sent a contribution. Thanks to the voice of God coming through the mouth of the preacher, Amber felt connected to a larger spiritual family. “Say Amber, I thought salvation and prayer were free. This man sounds like he’s selling tickets to heaven. I guess the more money you send, the more salvation you receive. Hell, it’s no different than buying groceries.” Unmoved by my blasphemous sarcasm, her ears were glued to the sermon. Grateful that salvation was available on radio all day long, she relied on the sermons to fill the void in her life.

“Well beautiful, how would you like to hear all about my latest dream?” Without saying a word, she turned off the radio and put down the magazine. “Well, it seems that I was lost in heavy fog of the Valhalla valley. It was neither day nor night, just as my grandparents described it when I was young. There was no tree or flower in that valley. Not as much as a bird, or any living thing. When my father came out of the thick fog, he was wearing some sort of ceremonial military uniform. It looked like he was about to perform a ritual for Viking gods. For a devout Lutheran, he seemed at home in the company of pagan gods and heroes. I looked around but there was no way out of Asgard, no way back to Midgard world of the living. I felt endless loss and emptiness. Instead of comforting me, he reminded me that I had accomplished nothing in an unexamined life of gambling. The motel’s anniversary has me on edge, that’s all.”

Taking a sip of coffee, Amber said nothing. She gazed at the photographs, posters, and paintings on the walls and mumbled that my father was proud of his heritage. About a month after I dropped out of college, he closed the deal on the motel. Disinterested in running the motel, I had no choice as it was the only job without supervision I would ever have. “You were certainly cheerful the day he closed the deal,” I reminded Amber. “I can still remember the somber tone in his voice when he handed me the keys. He acted like a clergyman performing a ceremony. The motel keys were to open gates to Heaven. I felt like I was about to enter purgatory instead of this low-budget motel.”

In apparent disapproval, she shook her head and turned the volume on the radio even louder. Condemnatory words of the boisterous preacher warned that God will strike down evildoers when they least expect it. The more horrific the description of tormented sinners, the more animated became the preacher. “God has commanded me to speak directly to all of you out there. A Holy war is taking place right here in this great nation of ours. It’s a war between God-fearing folks and vile homosexuality, nasty feminism, and humanism threatening our way of life. Teachers, politicians and entertainers are polluting the purity of our Christian nation. God has condemned all of them into the darkness of Hell. In the name of God and His glory, you must do your part to win the spiritual war in our nation.”

Switching from apocalypse to monetary contributions, he asked those seeking forgiveness to send cash or check, and God would return the amount tenfold. If the contribution were large enough, sins were forgiven on the air. “Does this mean that if I send money, my Viking nightmares would disappear?” Ignoring my sarcastic remark, Amber lit another cigarette and took a deep puff. As though to give thanks to God, she raised her head toward the ceiling to exhale. When I remarked that religion has yet to cure her smoking addiction, she became interested in my nightmare.

“It sounds to me like your father’s spirit is trying to stop your gambling. He sure was strict with you. Around these parts, all these older European immigrant families are no different from your father. Knowing him, he’d expect you to do something nice for the motel’s anniversary. If we fill these vacancies, I may even visit his grave later in the afternoon. Just pray I don’t run into your mom. That woman will shove me right down there with him.”

When I was young, my grandfather wanted me to know that his family crossed the Atlantic in 1917 to settle in Minnesota under very difficult conditions. Only five years old, my father left with his family from a country immersed in turmoil during the First World War and Russian Revolution. Despite hardships subsisting on a small farm, my grandfather spoke nostalgically with pride about his birthplace. He insisted that Santa Claus’ first stop was in his magical Norwegian village close to the Nidelva River near Trondheim Port. Dreaming of a better life in the new world, a decade after they settled in Minnesota, they found themselves in the throes of the Great Depression.

“Did my father ever tell you that his marriage to Kristine was a business arrangement? Not that my mother complained, not so long as the Lutheran Church blessed the marriage. She obeyed her father and accepted her fate. Even so, she claimed that Norwegian women had rights much earlier than all others. Of course, my mother and her family would have none of that liberal sinning.” Listening attentively, Amber was looking at my father’s portrait on the wall. Five years since his passing, it was still difficult for her to talk about coming between him and my mother.

“Yes baby, I know all about how he married one of the richest gals in the county. It was mighty generous of her father to give the furniture business to his son-in-law. Your dad made that store the pride of southern Minnesota. Not that I could afford what he was selling in that place. There were times when I’d go in there to look at some of the fine pieces rich folks buy for their fancy homes. Mind you, I never embarrassed him in front of his customers.”

A few days after he closed the deal on the motel, he shipped a wood-carved couch from his furniture store to adorn the motel’s lobby. I tried to move it from one side of the room to the other, accidentally denting the leg. To remind me of my character flaw embodied in the dent of the couch, he refused to have it repaired. His father would have done the same with him. The austere culture and hard times of his generation molded his life to seek order and purpose in the journey toward faultlessness emanating from flawed experiences along the way. As insignificant as furniture dents appeared to him, they symbolized flaws in my character. Immersed in the abyss of nihilism, my gambling seemed to be the most satisfying escape from finding purpose he sought in life’s most inconsequential things.

“Did you ever wonder if he was as religious as he wanted people to believe,” I asked. After she shrugged her shoulders, she replied that my father would never change his mind once he settled on something. “You’re right about that. Even when I was a teenager, I could tell it was important to him that people accept the image he projected. On the other hand, his relationship with you proved he was willing to violate some commandments and defy social conventions. No one dared to tell him that was a flaw in his character.” Uncomfortable discussing her affair, especially on the day of the motel’s anniversary, she shoved the glam magazine toward the edge of the counter and placed the Bible under her elbow. Over the years, she had shared some secrets, but kept the treasured ones to herself.

“Your father was like one of those grand characters from black-and-white movies. Back then, men knew how to treat a lady. Oh sure, he was a bit cold and distant. That cracked rib cage from the war injury left him walking kind of stiff. Not that he ever complained. Every time the weather was damp, I knew he was in pain. Yes, he enjoyed spending time with me, but his family and business always came first. I respected him for it. Hell, I knew my place in his life. He came into my life when I needed him most. God sent him my way and that’s all I need to know.”

The Born-Again Stripper

An unexpected gift with bitter-sweet consequences in his life, my father’s affair with Amber coincided with his heart problems. To reinforce his faith in the struggle for his life, he needed her to temper the fear of eventual demise. In his declining years, the former exotic dancer filled the void of his monotonous marriage devoid of spontaneity and excitement when he needed it most. Not surprisingly, she filled emotional needs he kept concealed. For her part, Amber craved respectability to overcome the image of a socially shunned former stripper converted into a born-again Christian.

“Are you daydreaming again Dagfred?” she nudged me. Ignoring her, I was looking toward the parking lot for new customers. “You’re not worried about gambling losses, are you? Most men your age daydream about beautiful girls, not playing cards with men every other night. Too bad you didn’t take after your father. He was the romantic in your family.” Coughing from the depths of her lungs, she boasted that the Lord protected her from evil because of the love in her heart and pleasant thoughts. “Freddie, give Jesus a chance, if you want to turn your life around.”

For a middle-aged woman who once lived an exciting life as an exotic dancer, evangelical sermons in her daily routine filled many needs, some of which she kept secret. “Radio preaching brings back bad memories from my youth,” I complained. “My parents kept pushing religion down my throat. They insisted it was the road to success. I confided in my sister that for me God must have been like superman commanding an army of angels waiting to punish skeptics like me making a wrong move. There was also the highway to Heaven as reward after death. To get there, I had to forgo sex and gambling, and everything else I liked. The same day I poured out my soul to Kaja, she went and told my mother.”

Exhaling cigarette smoke circles, she growled that Kaja is not a good person, even though she is a good Lutheran. In the same breath, she scolded me for shying away from celebrating my Norwegian roots, in Minnesota of all places. “You’re tall, skinny, and blonde, just like a hippie from the sixties. If you cut your stringy hair and that ugly beard, you’d be a proper looking man for Sunday services. I look my best for the Lord on Sundays just like I do the rest of the week for everyone else here at the roadside.” She reached under the counter and switched off the ‘no vacancy’ sign. Inviting the dog to climb onto her lap, she held him as naturally as a baby climbing onto his mother’s bosom.Rewarding him with a biscuit, she blew cigarette smoke away from his face.

With a nostalgic expression, she gazed at a photograph of herself when she was a waitress at Bob’s Diner. “A businessman like your father rarely walked into that grease joint. Heck, I knew he was married. There were other women eyeing him, but he chose me over the rest. I’ve been with better-looking men in my time. None treated me like a lady the way he did. When he bought this old place, I knew he wanted to be with me away from town. For a married man, that’s some sacrifice, huh?”

To conceal his involvement while elevating her social status, he employed her to manage the motel. On the surface, at least, the motel covered up the image problem of a conservative Lutheran businessman having a former stripper as a lover. Playing with the golden cross hanging on her chest, she kissed it and whispered that she still cherished him. “Some think I was with him because he was rich. Not to brag, but I’ve been with some very rich men in my time. True, they made me feel like a whore. Your father made me feel special. Oh, how I miss that feeling. I was born unlucky. It was the year the stock market crashed back in twenty-nine. I was only five when my dad passed away. Pneumonia killed him. A few weeks after he lost his job at the meat processing plant, he died. My mom worked odd jobs. Sometimes she brought home men after work. She always locked the bedroom door. I could still hear her cry after the men left. She had to survive. It wasn’t easy. Some folks were not as lucky as us.”

Reaching into a half-empty pack, she slowly pulled out another cigarette and stared at it before lighting. Despite the thin veil of religious conformity that kept her from lashing out at the world, she resented gossip that stigmatized her mother. “She died of a heart attack. Healthiest woman I knew just dropped dead in the prime of her life. It was a couple of months after I graduated from High School. She kept waiting for the right man to come along. Lots of them came and went to pass the time, but never the right one to take care of us. Not that the right one ever came knocking on my door either.”

Her eyes fixed on her mother’s picture just beneath my father’s portrait, she rolled the cigarette around her fingers. On the motel’s anniversary, bottled up emotions had surfaced. “You may not be lucky at cards, but you grew up in a comfortable home,” she sighed. “People like you and your sister don’t need luck. From the time you came out of your mother’s womb, everything was handed to you. Lady Luck is too busy flirting with rich folks like you to bother with me and the poor bastards staying at your motel.”

Trying my best to suppress deep-seated guilt, I shrugged my shoulders. Behind the forced smile, she knew I was torn between the ugly reality of my gambling addiction and empathy for her and for the roadside guests down on their luck. “Ever since I was a teenager, I played the cards fate dealt me,” she murmured. “Thank God for this body of mine and whatever talents I had that helped me through some rough times in life. Even when I gained a few extra pounds, there were men who were still interested. Lord only knows it makes me feel good to know I’m still desirable. All and all, I’ve done alright with what God gave me.”

Placing her hand on her mother’s picture on the wall, she whispered a prayer. “God bless her soul, she was the prettiest woman I ever knew. With a little bit of luck, she could have made it in the respectable side of any town.” After her mom passed away, Amber stayed with her aunt until she finished High School. She worked odd jobs until a strip club owner spotted her and offered generous rewards in the exotic dancing business. Not only did she manage to become financially independent, but she also gained self-confidence and self-worth.

“Dancing was always my way of expressing myself. It doesn’t make me a sinner because I made men happy. Along the way, a few of them took advantage of me. In that line of work, things happen to women.” Cautious about a sensitive subject, I asked why she quit, if she enjoyed exotic dancing so much. Pouring a drink of whiskey from a flask, she looked away. “Did your employer force you to sleep with customers? I’m sure you didn’t leave because you found religion on the dance floor.” Continuing to sip whiskey from the coffee cup and petting her dog, she looked at her face in the pocket mirror, puckered her lips and pushed back her hair.

“For a gal without a college degree, exotic dancing was the best I could do. I had to put food on the table and a roof over my head. When I started out, I was good enough to be a model, maybe even in the pictures. No one discovered me, or any of the gals I worked with. Some men came to the club promising the moon just to get into my pants. Anyway, when I was on the dance floor, I was on cloud nine. Then, before I knew it, I started gaining weight. The more I smoked to drop the pounds, the more I wanted chocolate and whiskey. Still, there were a few loyal ones who came to see me.”

As she was speaking, I recalled why my father was attracted to her; so much so that he risked his marriage and reputation. Not just alluring, but refreshingly honest, Amber had an underlying innocence concealed behind her street-smart persona. Besides an amiable personality and arresting charm, her lack of pretense was endearing to my father who came from the world of business. Five years after his death, she still visited the cemetery. It was usually on Saturday, after first going to the beauty salon so she would look pretty for him. Superstitious and devout, she believed it was no mere coincidence she found the Lord about the same time as my father.

Distracted by the cross adorning her chest, I blushed when she caught me staring again. “My faith keeps me pure at heart. That’s more than I can say for a lot of them hypocrites out there,” she said, smiling nervously while pulling her dress up to cover her chest. “All my life, I had to earn respect from men and friendship from women. I didn’t have money to buy respect like your sister and her rich friends. When you’ve been dancing in your birthday suit for men, taking some of them to bed for a price, it’s a struggle to earn any kind of respect.”

Like Magdalene devoted to Jesus, Amber gave her soul to the Lord, even as she was generous to men with her body. On the occasion that younger men at the motel asked her for a date, she boasted that she was still desirable. Her popularity and seductiveness aside, the affair with my father convinced my mother and sister that the former stripper tarnished the family name. To demonstrate her objection over my father’s affair, my mother occasionally erupted over minor incidents.

Everything from his liberal use of aftershave lotion to his increased aloofness bothered her. On the rare occasion that the motel manager’s name entered the conversation, my mother wondered if Jesus would renounce the cross if he came back to discover that Amber was wearing the sacred symbol. “Is the cross still sacred when it hangs on a chest that so many men have worshipped on their descent to sin?” she asked rhetorically to coax my father into an argument. Naturally, she suspected my father had given Amber the cross.

Careful to safeguard the image of a devoted family man, my father struggled to accept a furtive lifestyle. Like my mother, Kaja expected him to confine his happiness and unhappiness, as occasion warranted, to the family. His failure to do so resulted in both my sister and mother’s surreptitious resentment. Torn by conventional devotion to a philanderer, my mother resorted to prayer more than ever, while he became more withdrawn than usual. His inability to reconcile a conservative public persona, while carrying out a secret affair, took its toll on a guilty conscience and manifested itself in frigid interactions. Unable to find a solution for the moral dilemma, his heart condition deteriorated. His sudden death left my mother feeling guilty that she contributed to his condition.

Lost in the fantasy world of the glam magazine and evangelical sermons, Amber believed that destiny had delivered my father to her. “Yes, I was living in sin. Like Jesus said about the woman accused of adultery, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.’ Now, be a sweetheart and take my precious pooch for his morning walk. When you’re back there in the yard, would you pick up a pumpkin from the Shultz farm? If I get ambitious tonight, I’ll make a pumpkin pie to celebrate your father’s anniversary. How that man loved my pumpkin pie.” Amber ate vegetables only from the Shultz farm that used chemical fertilizers and pesticides. I relied on manure from the cow, chickens, and turkeys, with the occasional overflow from the motel’s septic tank to fertilize and stimulate growth in my garden.

“If you feel like cooking tonight, I could sacrifice a chicken,” I suggested. “Hilmar would never admit it, but “Blót” animal sacrifice ran deep in his Viking veins. He would appreciate it if we celebrated in his honor the Viking way.” Smiling, she turned up the volume on the radio. Every few minutes, the preacher was asking for money to fight sinners who included everyone from abortionists to decadent homosexuals and liberals opposing gun rights.

“The light of the Lord is shining right through me,” he declared in a screaming voice. “God is coming to the faithful through my voice. Open your hearts and your wallets right now. Show your faith by asking God’s forgiveness. Do it for your eternal salvation and call now with a pledge.” Unable to protect her from charlatan preachers trying to separate Amber from her meager savings, I reflected on my gambling addiction with which she could not help me either. “At least if they overcharge at the store for a dress, at least you have the dress,” I observed, trying to persuade her not to send money in exchange for an illusion. She immediately replied that they uphold family values.

In honor of politicians supporting family values, evangelical leaders were indeed molding public opinion for the presidential election of 1988. God had predetermined the country’s chosen leader who supported Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Only skeptics like me remained in the dark. “These days, preachers, big money and big media decide what people should think. It’s like we live in some village during the Holy Inquisition six hundred years ago. Televangelists decide who is elected on earth and who is selected for Heaven. The more money you have, the better chance you have of a front-row seat on both Heaven and earth.”

Upset that I was defaming the religion, she lit a cigarette and put the magazine under the counter. After a few puffs, she advised me to pray more and gamble less. “Freddie, you know gambling makes you crazy unhappy. After dinner with your mother, can you stop by my room and have a drink? We may even have a slice of pie and remember the good times with your father.” Frustrated, I murmured that gambling was my religion of choice, otherwise, I would die of boredom in Apple Valley. Showing exasperation after a deep sigh, she looked at her face in the mirror again, adjusting her hair and applying more lipstick.

“Sometimes, it seems the older I get, the lonelier I feel. My heart and my arthritis are telling me that I need a man’s warm shoulder to cry on tonight. Maybe I should have thought of that when I was in my thirties. Can you imagine me a housewife with kids? Truth be told, childhood memories scare me to raise a daughter in this upside-down world. If another one like your father comes along to sweep me off my feet, I just might say yes and never look back. For now, I have my church, this cute doggy, and you when you’re in a good mood.”