Lost and

II. East of Twentynine Palms, California

II. east of twentynIne PaLms, CaLIfornIa 27 Chapman is my shepherd; I shall not think. he maketh me to assume the position with my socks off; he leadeth me beside my locker; he restorath my faith in bolt cutters. he leadeth me in the paths of paranoia for hIs ego’s sake. Yeah, though I walk through the gates of Corporate security, I still fear thY evil; for thou still work here: thY rod and thY staff they intimidate me. thou preparest a false cause against me in the absence of my accusers: thou anointeth my reputation with unfounded accusations and cup runneth over with indignation. surely deception and illegalities will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of self-righteous fascism forever. 28 My husband has a problem controlling his anger. he will“blow up”at the smallest things. It is difficult on the entire family. I get especially upset when he fails to control his anger around our children . on many occasions he has thrown and broken things. once he threw a plate over our older daughter’s head and it struck the wall and shattered, almost hitting her. Another time he threw a pop can at Madison’s head. When my husband acts out his anger it really upsets the children. Ryan will sometimes yell at his dad asking him to stop. Peighton screams really loud or cries when Jari has fits of anger. she gets the most upset of all the children. Madison is autistic and doesn’t seem to understand what is going on a lot of the time, but once in awhile she will act really nervous and start to cry. on a couple of occasions when Jari is yelling at me, Jari has banged his head repeatedly against the door jamb and punched himself on his head. on another occasion he repeatedly banged his head on the tile countertop in the master bathroom. on this last occasion Peighton came into the room and saw Jari’s head bleeding as a result of his head banging. Alcohol, drug and sleep deprivation issues: Jari drinks beer almost every day. he also takes some form of speed or prescription drug such as ephedra to keep himself awake after he has worked his late night shift. Jari works the graveyard shift at his employer and has done so for years. he has turned down promotions because he does not want to work day shifts. When he has changed jobs, he has specifically looked for jobs where he could work nights. When we bought our current house a year ago, Jari wanted to keep working nights so he could care for our girls during the day while I am working and we would not have to pay for child care. the problem with this arrangement is that he rarely gets more than a few hours of broken sleep each day. 29 this seems to add to his behavioral problems, and the use of the alcohol and speed has also added to our marital and parenting problems. Marital breakdown: the marriage really broke down last summer. We were fighting almost constantly. In september 2003 I met a man by the name of Nick, with whom I had a romantic relationship until the end of November 2003, when it ended. My husband found out about the relationship on November 25, 2003. At that time he threatened Nick at a restaurant where Nick worked and harassed him. I suggested Jari and I go to counseling which he refused to do initially. We finally attended 4 or 5 sessions but stopped going because it was not helping, and it is plain the marriage is over. Recent events: two weeks ago Jari called me at work and told me he was going to kill me if I didn’t stop lying to him about my relationship with Nick 30 Dear Nick, I know you’re mad at me and probably don’t care what I have to say. But I hope you’ll at least take a few minutes to read this letter. I know I’ve already said it but I sincerely am sorry for what I did. I didn’t call Meredith to hurt you or get back at you for anything. I was way too drunk for my...