02. dawned on dee / the dawning of dee / dee dawn, dee dawn, dawn, dee - Sick Sacraments

02. dawned on dee / the dawning of dee / dee dawn, dee dawn, dawn, dee

After going through the motions of showering and straightening up the 

house a little, she had brewed herself a cup of gourmet coffee, and 

was now sitting at her custom-designed breakfast-nook, staring at her 

comatose cat lying near the microwave and shuffling her deck of 

cards. Dee had reached a phase in her life where the deck of cards 

would define the rest of her day.

She was ready to play solitaire. If she won, she would move on to 

answering her email and surfing the web for love. If she repeatedly 

lost, she would take a mood-altering substance, make lunch and remain 

in a state very much like her cat for the rest of the day.

Dee had been shuffling the same deck of cards for years. The worn 

cards felt good. The rustle they made gliding through her fingers, 

the rhythm of cutting, mixing and bridging the cards. With each 

shuffle, her olfactory sense would be slightly stimulated by the 

musty smell emanating from them. The game of solitaire was one 

true constant in the life of Dee Griess.

It started as the only child of seventh-day adventists in the middle of 

the delta in a farmhand trailer park surrounded by acres of tomato, 

melon, and squash plants. Throughout her childhood fairy-tale dreams  

had been her only release from the boring life of growing things 

around her. It was not until adolescence that she learned how to play 

the game.

As one turn of the card often leads to another, her rural existence 

took a dramatic turn when her father was hit by a train while plowing 

the fields. The accident left him with a limp and an oversized thumb 

where his left hand used to be. With the large financial settlement 

awarded him to compensate for his injuries, he bought the farm.

Still shuffling, she remembered the chagrin of lying in her virgin 

bed, forced to hear her mother’s multiple and prolonged orgasms as a 

result of her father’s handicap. She was glad to get out of the 

trailer park and no longer have to endure the neighbors’ smirks.

The memory still caused her to blush, and she removed a cigarette 

from her orange Guchi distressed leather cigarette case and lit it with the 

disposable Dik lighter. After taking a puff and quickly exhaling, she 

placed it on the lip of the crystal ashtray so heavy it could only be 

picked up with two hands.

Dee cut the deck and began to deal the cards for a game of klondike, 

the only type of solitaire she knew by heart. According to the rules 

written by Boyle, the first twenty-eight cards went facedown in seven 

equal piles. Then one more card was added to each pile face-up. The  

remaining cards were placed facedown in a stack.

Through the repetitive motions that followed, it was not long before 

the rest of the game became routine and she was off wandering the 

luxury suites of her mind in search of a good hand.

She opened a door onto the happiest year of her life, when her father 

after months of recovery was suddenly flush with money. Dee, the 

country-pumpkin, went from nice country girl to rich suburban bitch 

within a year. Not only did she change classes, she also changed high 

schools.

Coincidentally, as her bosom began to blossom and her hips to flare, 

she was also able to shop at the trendiest stores at the Fashion Fair 

Mall. Wearing trendy clothes and flush with a sizeable allowance, she 

was a popular person soon after her arrival at Bullocks High. It was 

only a matter of time before she connected with Martin. Good-looking, 

well-dressed, with wheels, he was her masculine counterpart in the 

popularity poll. As an item, they were the obvious choice for king 

and queen of the senior prom. And as history often takes its toll, 

the passion of prom night soon began to show, and Dee entered the 

next phase in her life and wilted into motherhood.

The jack of hearts closed that suit and brought her back to play. 

There were no black queens showing. She took another puff of her  

cigarette and searched for one more move. Resigned, she tossed her 

hand onto the nook, gathered, shuffled and dealt another game.

For Dee, the only moment really requiring concentration was 

when she saw the top card on each of the piles to start. After placing 

the ace of spades from the fifth pile above the row, she turned over the 

next card. Unable to continue, she peeled off the first three cards from 

the stack in front of her. The top card was the queen of spades but 

unfortunately there were no red kings showing on which to place the 

bitch. If only she’d come up in the last hand, she thought, I 

would’ve been able to get on with my day.

She peeled off three more cards, then another three, and another. As 

was the game of klondike, so was her life. One hand simply led to the 

next, one after the other, regardless of whether she won or lost. 

When Dee’s father got hit by a train, the family got rich. When she 

got pregnant, she got a husband and a house. When Martin landed a 

good job as an ad-consultant at a local firm, they had money of their 

own. When Bianca was ready for school, they moved to a new house near 

a Steiner elementary school, and added a dog, named Bambi. When it 

was run over by an ice cream truck, they got a labrador from the 

pound. When Bianca and the dog’s constant needs alarmed Dee, she got 

rid of one. When her second child was born, the popularity of a prime- 

time TV drama inspired his name.

New baby, new house. Screaming kids, new house with olympic-size 

swimming pool and large backyard. Teenagers, new house with separate 

entrances and four-car garage. Young adults, places of their own. 

With Martin quite successful, a big house that was pretty much hers alone.

The credit cards were always there when Dee needed to fill her void. 

Using credit improved her wellness. She had purchased large ticket 

items on whims from door-to-door sales representatives. The kitchen 

and bathrooms were remodelled with each move. She ordered frequently 

from TV shopper clubs and the internet. Her latest inspirations for 

home and garden tips were from Mother Steward. At some point, 

however, she had reached a critical mass in home, garden and self- 

improvement, and was realizing that the credit card was no longer 

fulfilling its purpose.

Dee’s dawning took time. At first she was not sure that something was 

wrong. She knew she was living in paradise. She only had to turn on 

the television to know that she was living better than most of the 

world. Her search began with neighborhood chats across privet fences, 

which led to camaraderie with like-minded sisters whose husbands had 

corralled them in the gated-community while they roamed the hills for 

greener pastures.

Social games soon followed, held in kitchens, at pool-sides, country-

clubs and wellness centers, and more stories of entrapment were 

shared. Based on her sisters’ advice, Dee had started dealing with 

the new age. She became known for bidding her hand with thoughts of 

her current spiritual leader in mind, and the new-fangled 

restrictions she adopted in play, enabled her to keep her frustration 

in check, for a time.

She lost. Unable to play the third, sixth, ninth or twelfth card, she 

gathered them up, shuffled three times, and went again through the 

motions. The routine was so repetitive that she was soon back to 

analyzing her psyche, rehashing old thoughts and wondering if she 

should take a Valium.

What Dee did not understand was that her apathy arose from having 

passively accepted her feeling of helplessness. Her helplessness was 

rooted in her general mistrust of the world around her, and this in 

turn, created the fear that nurtured the apathy. A circle so vicious 

hardly anyone could escape.

She was overwhelmed by the barrage of opinions, advice and 

information inflicted on her by the mass media, pop-culture and 

technology. She was afraid to drive through parks and ethnic 

neighborhoods at night because of all the violence television and the 

newspapers told her occurred there. She had been numbed to the 

scandals of well-known personalities through over-exposure. She 

feared upgrading household appliances to newer models. The new toys 

designed to make her life easier, required a degree in computer 

science before washing clothing or making a phone call.

Because she did not have to care, she shut off. She exercised her 

democratic rights but fleetingly, often opting out on election day if 

early polls confirmed her wishes. She did not feel the need to 

recycle, letting others sort her trash. She parked her car in spaces 

allotted to the handicapped, having convinced her psychiatrist to 

give her a permit. Dee caught herself staring absently at the cards. 

She could see no way out.

She tossed the remaining cards onto the tiled nook and pushed 

them into a pile. Leaning back on her spanish wrought-iron breakfast 

stool, she took the last puff of her third cigarette, ground it out, 

and blew the cloud of smoke towards the cat. While stroking the 

comatose creature, she questioned the significance of the cards in 

making her wait so long. She had been playing for almost an hour and 

still had not managed to assemble all the suits.

Dee eased herself off the stool, which farted softly as air rushed 

back into the crushed cushion. She stood, for a moment, frozen with 

the realization that joy now consisted of solitaire, participating in 

cybersex, and drugs.

She went to the bathroom. As she placed a latex glove on her right 

hand, Dee thought about Martin’s wandering libido, and the conditions 

she accepted to remain married. At first totally distraught, she had 

learned to accept the trade, fearing a return to a poor country life  

as the alternative. If she kept a blind eye, so did he. Thus Dee and 

Martin lived a perfectly dishonest little suburban life together. 

Separated but equal. She raised the kids, he paid the bills. Whereas 

Martin was content to live the lie openly, Dee understood it as a 

necessary evil. Unfortunately, nothing of quality and distinction 

ever seemed to wander into her life. Dee was not looking for pure 

passion but for a passion for life. She inserted the Valium into her 

rectum, threw the glove into the waste-basket next to the toilet, and 

washed her hands.

She stood at the breakfast nook, looking at the cat and remembering. 

Her first attempts with the single men hanging around the country-

club had brought the gossip too close to home. She had extended her 

radius to community college night classes and actually got a 

certificate in macramé and the spanish language, but no crafty 

hombre. Meanwhile, she dabbled in cyberspace but was disappointed 

that it did not elicit any tangible results. Although as a virtual 

product she had not had much success, she still felt cyberspace was 

the only option left, and continued to hope that someday one of these 

virtual men would indeed become her reality. In summing up her 

experiences, she would admit the men she had met were occasionally 

good sex partners, but just did not meet her criteria for 

substitution. Martin’s most enduring quality was providing well for 

his wife.

Her stomach growled. It was time for a break. Dee went to the kitchen 

and decided to make herself an egg-sandwich before returning to the 

cards for a last try. Assembling the ingredients, she realized that 

she was in limbo and had been so for a long time.

While waiting for the eggs to harden, she opened the jar of 

mayonnaise and spooned a couple of globs into a bowl. Oily. Slimy. 

Slippery. On its own, quite disgusting. Only really good in 

combination with a substance. And so was her limbo life.

The timer rang, and she removed the eggs from the stove and 

shocked them in cold water. While carefully peeling the eggs chip after chip, 

memories of her internet experience dropped into mind: how after only 

a few surfs, hundreds of offers were suddenly deposited into her 

mailbox; how she was forced to open a new email account and adopt an 

alias; how her first attempts at the cyberdating game had been a 

farce. Having found what she thought was a respectable dating site, 

she realized after a while that she was spending a lot of time 

communicating with octogenarians, vets and horny priests.

But being a consumer product means trudging on, always on the 

lookout, always disappointed no matter how low the expectations. So, 

determined, she continued, and was currently spending the most time 

with a site on which the personal ads tempted the opposite sex with 

short, sexually-laden descriptions and kooky photos. After finding a 

photo of herself dressed as a cow for a halloween party, it was easy 

to write the description. That her reality was virtually aided by one 

too many Valium and some alcohol helped.

Buttery sub. cow seeks new pastures.

Love 2 B milk’d.

All hairy bulls please reply.

Fraulien Debby

After smashing her eggs into the globs of mayonnaise, adding salt and 

pepper, and mixing, she slipped two white pre-sliced pieces of bread 

into the toaster. Her face suddenly flushed with embarrassment, 

remembering how the first replies sent only corrected the spelling of

her alias. Then, there were the generic replies, listing size,  

preferences and hobbies, illustrating to Dee that they probably did 

this regularly. Occasionally, however, something foul landed in her box.

Dee had been shocked by her first glance at the photo in one email, 

momentarily thinking it was Martin who had answered her solicitation. 

But she ruled against it, when she noticed that the headless man was 

absolutely hairless and had included a haiku about shaved genitalia.

Another email, which she regularly received, came from san-

ysidro@yahoo.com. The attached photo showed a creature resembling a 

whale with dark circles under its pink eyes. It was beached on a 

queen-size waterbed decked out with blue satin sheets. Black body 

hair poked in random clumps through its freckled practically 

translucent skin. It lay naked on its side pinching its genitalia 

like an air valve. The expression on its face gave Dee the impression 

that it might lose the battle and deflate at any moment.

Dee put a piece of toasted bread on a plate, spread the egg mixture, 

covered it, cut it into two triangles, and added some fat-free BBQ 

flavored potato chips on the side. Back at the breakfast nook with a 

glass of red wine and her snack placed next to the cat, she picked up 

a triangle and took a careful bite to avoid dripping. While eating, 

she shuffled and dealt the cards, and with them, dealt herself 

another round of introspection. Just then, the Valium started to kick 

in and the cat lifted its head and yawned.