Links on a Chain

Chapter 3

“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 s*x 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 w***e. 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.