Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (25 page)

Try as he might, Charlie couldn’t attach himself to Melcher the way that he had with Wilson. He saw Melcher at Wilson’s house, went out sometimes with Melcher and Jakobson and Wilson, but he was never able to wangle an invitation to one of Melcher’s legendary parties at Cielo Drive, let alone get invited to hang out with Melcher and Bergen there. He heard a lot from Wilson and Jakobson about what a great place Melcher lived in; for his parties he’d usually have a live band, and even
though the house itself was kind of small,
guests entered through sliding glass doors into a good-sized party room and there was the great view of the city down below. Most visitors never even got into the bedrooms or any of Melcher’s private places. There was a guesthouse on the property near the main house and Rudi Altobelli, who was renting to Melcher, lived there. Melcher had some big speakers set up and the music would echo down into the canyon. Cielo Drive was actually a wild sort of place, lots of curves and hanging trees along with its steep incline and narrow road going up and down—it was tough for cars going in both directions to pass each other—and deer were everywhere. There were signs all along the high hill for drivers to watch out for them. Melcher offered out invitations sparingly, and the closest Charlie got to his house was when Wilson gave Melcher a lift home one day and Charlie tagged along in the backseat. When they got to his house Melcher didn’t invite them in, apparently because he didn’t want Charlie past his front door.

Even when they were together at parties in other places or out on the town with Jakobson and Wilson, Melcher kept Charlie at a courteous arm’s length. He wasn’t obnoxious about it; he’d learned from his movie star mother how to seem friendly but standoffish with people you didn’t want to know better. Melcher still hadn’t listened to Charlie’s music, and Charlie felt certain that if he did he’d be won over. But Charlie was also perceptive enough to realize that Melcher wouldn’t appreciate being nagged to listen before he was ready, so he bided his time. Besides, he still had Wilson and Brother Records.

Charlie spent the next weeks trying to bind Wilson closer to him. The Beach Boys’ drummer was invited to go along with the Family girls on their garbage runs, and Wilson got a huge kick out of wheeling his Ferrari into a supermarket back lot and watching the women dumpster-dive. Though Wilson was never overt about it, Charlie also picked up on the fact that he had a strong racist streak; they privately shared their disdain for blacks, with Charlie being careful not to let the girls overhear since this was a contradiction of his teaching that everyone was the same. Above all, Charlie played to Wilson’s wounded ego; the middle Wilson brother was certain that he could write and record more great songs if the rest of the band would only let him. They talked about writing some
together. Wilson thought he might get some informal help on lyrics from a buddy; Charlie believed he was being invited to become the Beach Boys’ songwriter. He began composing new material—“Garbage Dump” in honor of the Family’s food gathering (“You could feed the world with my garbage dump/That sums it up in one big lump”), and “Cease to Exist,” a tribute to Charlie’s preaching (“Submission is a gift/So go on/Give it to your brother”). Charlie would claim later that he wrote “Cease to Exist” as a message to the rest of the Beach Boys to surrender their egos and work together as a cohesive unit, but the song is addressed to a woman, urging her to cease to exist and “come and say you love me” by giving up her world. Charlie passed the songs on to Wilson for his consideration, telling him that although the music could be changed,
the lyrics had to remain as Charlie had written them.

Charlie also continued cultivating Gregg Jakobson. Maybe Jakobson hadn’t successfully sold Melcher on Charlie yet, but he still had connections with dozens of other producers. So Charlie let Jakobson play with Ruth Ann, and frequently shared long philosophical conversations with him, since Jakobson, too, was interested in that sort of thing. Jakobson didn’t completely buy in to Charlie’s blather.
Sometimes he’d bluntly tell him, “You’re full of shit.” Charlie let it go because the rest of the Family wasn’t around to hear it, and because he still needed Jakobson. But Jakobson was with Charlie and his followers enough to notice that although the girls all worshipped Charlie, they feared him, too. They’d flinch sometimes when he corrected them for some perceived selfish or egotistical misstep. That certainly didn’t square with Charlie’s message of love and acceptance for all. In fact, Charlie was adamant about not referring to him and the Family as “hippies,” a term he disdained because of hippiedom’s inherent pacifism. Charlie sometimes hinted at a coming Armageddon when violence would sweep over the world. Hippies wouldn’t be able to deal with it. In fact, Charlie said, he and the Family were really “slippies” because they were people who’d slipped through the cracks of society. Slippies rather than hippies—Charlie was so good at word play like that. All summer, the Family treated Jakobson like one of their own. The women nicknamed him “Angel” and said Jakobson was perfect because he’d been adopted as an infant. His biological parents never had the chance to ruin him.

To keep Charlie happy, and to get some idea of how his songs might sound on tape,
Jakobson booked a quickie recording session for Charlie at a small studio in Van Nuys. Charlie brought the Family along; on some tunes the girls sang amateurish, quavery backup. Charlie ran through “Garbage Dump” and “Cease to Exist” and a dozen others.
The results were listenable but not much more. It was hard to tell whether Charlie was no more than an average musical talent or else hampered by limited studio equipment. But he was pleased with what he heard. Through Wilson and Jakobson, Charlie now knew quite a few people in the L.A. music scene and he offered the tapes to anyone willing to listen and help him get signed to a label. John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and mega-agent Rudi Altobelli, whose client list included popular folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, both heard the tapes and passed. Charlie’s faith in himself remained unshaken. If people like Phillips and Altobelli turned him down, that reflected poorly on their judgment, not his music. He hung on to the tapes in case anyone else important might be persuaded to listen to them. More than ever, he was determined that Dennis Wilson had to come through for him with Brother Records. They were friends, so Wilson owed it to him.

Charlie and the Family weren’t the only strays who found their way to Wilson’s place that spring and early summer. Wilson retained his habit of inviting over lots of people that he’d just met. One day while he was out hitchhiking—just about everybody young in L.A. did it, even rock stars; it was part of the friendly Love Generation lifestyle—Dennis was picked up by a tall, lanky twenty-one-year-old in a battered pickup truck. Charles Watson was a Texas native, originally hailing from the tiny hamlet of Copeville outside Dallas. Copeville, where Watson’s parents ran a dinky gas station/grocery, was so small that the few kids from there went to high school in nearby Farmersville, whose two thousand or so residents qualified it as a metropolis compared to Watson’s hometown. Watson was a standout at Farmersville High, starring on all the sports teams (honorable mention All-District running back for two straight years in football), working on the school newspaper and in the drama club, even winning an award for a fire prevention poster.
Girls gushed about his blue eyes and bristly crew cut. During the summer Watson and his buddies
worked in Farmersville produce sheds sorting onions and water-skied on a nearby lake during their time off. When Watson went about fifty miles to college in Denton, everybody thought he had about as promising a future as a kid from Copeville could hope for. Most guys either got married or joined the Army once they graduated high school.

But Watson discovered drugs in Denton; he dropped out of school and briefly worked at the Dallas airport. Soon his old friends back in Farmersville and Copeville heard that he’d left Texas for California. Since Watson always excelled at everything he did, the rumor spread that he’d gone off to Hollywood to star in Coca-Cola commercials. The girls who’d known him in high school were convinced he’d become a movie star because he was so cute.

In L.A., Watson scraped by working in a wig shop. His main interests were scoring all the weed that he could and immersing himself in the laid-back California lifestyle. Like everybody else, he loved the proximity to celebrities that L.A. offered, and when he picked up Dennis Wilson thumbing a ride one day he was thrilled to be invited back to Wilson’s place. When they arrived, Charlie and the Family were already there and both Charlie and his girls made a big impression on Watson. Charlie apparently had everything that Watson wanted—women, a philosophy that eliminated any sense of guilt, and regular tripping on drugs. Watson, in turn, was exactly what Charlie always wanted, a potential male addition to the Family who had exceptional skill as a mechanic and the willingness to follow orders. It didn’t take much persuasion on Charlie’s part for Watson to beg to join his followers. He was soon known by the inevitable nickname of “Tex,” and proved helpful to Charlie by cheerfully running errands. Along with Charlie, he was the only member of the Family actually to go to Terry Melcher’s house on Cielo. He went there to borrow a car for a quick trip north.

•  •  •

Tex Watson wasn’t Charlie’s sole new male recruit. Dean Moorehouse, who just months earlier had been ready to shoot Charlie, showed up asking for permission to join the Family. Moorehouse liked the drugs and, it soon became apparent, was even fonder of the girls in the group. Charlie denied him permission to become a full-fledged Family member—after
all, he was Ruth Ann’s
father
—but Dennis Wilson took a shine to him. He hired Moorehouse as a combination gardener-handyman and set him up with a bed in a small cabin out by the swimming pool. Moorehouse promptly became a fixture at Wilson’s, prowling the grounds and reminding everyone of Santa Claus with his big belly and white beard.
Soon some of the Family women began complaining about Moorehouse pawing them, and gradually he became persona non grata, occasionally called on by Charlie to run errands and allowed just enough contact with the girls to keep him loyal.

Teenager Brooks Poston was a much more valued arrival. He showed up one day at Wilson’s and was immediately awed by Charlie. Charlie was glad to add another guy to the group, especially one who brought along his mother’s credit card. The Family used the card to cover whatever incidental expenses popped up for the rest of the summer, often for parts to repair the school bus, which kept breaking down. Otherwise, they had no real need for money because Wilson subsidized them. The women frequently raided his closets, not to wear the clothes they took but to cut them up and make them into nice robes for Charlie. Wilson paid for the Family members’ frequent doctor’s office trips to be treated for sexually transmitted diseases (which were often passed on to Wilson himself), and when Susan Atkins had problems with her teeth, Wilson got hit with the dental tab, too. He had to cover it and the other Family expenses by forwarding the bills to Brother Records for payment, and management there griped to him about it—how long did Dennis intend to subsidize these freeloaders, anyway? Wilson had no answer for that, beyond a growing certainty that Charlie had no intention of going anywhere until he got a recording contract from Brother Records, which Wilson knew, though Charlie didn’t, was unlikely. Still, the guy was always interesting and the girls were always fun. Wilson let things go on as they were.

Wilson could do that, but Charlie couldn’t.
Gurus or any other spiritual leaders are expected by their followers to keep things interesting and moving forward. Status quo is unacceptable because that offers disciples too much time to notice personal flaws or failings in a leader. The Beatles lost faith in the Maharishi at his camp in India after rumors spread he ate meat and made sexual advances to female followers. The Beach Boys’
devotion to Maharishi was shaken when he proved to be a financial black hole on a national concert tour. Charlie wasn’t famous like the Maharishi, but he had the same constant pressure to measure up to the Family’s worshipful expectations. To a great extent, he had so far. All of them came to Charlie feeling broken in some critical way; he soothed their fears, reassured them that they were special and had the potential to become even better by listening to and following him. He gave them a sense of belonging that most had never felt with their original families. Thanks to Charlie’s influence on Dennis Wilson, they enjoyed luxurious hospitality in the mansion of a rock star. Where they’d previously felt lost and miserable, now they felt loved and happy, just as Charlie had promised.

But the novelty would inevitably wane. Dumpster-diving and riding around in a battered old school bus would eventually seem routine, even boring, rather than adventuresome. For now Wilson remained a gracious, generous host, but who knew for how long? Charlie hinted broadly that Wilson ought to join the Family full-time. Wilson seemed to consider it, but he never took that step. He identified himself above all as a Beach Boy and was unwilling to give that up, along with the material possessions he loved, to become a doglike Manson follower. Most dangerous of all for Charlie was his ongoing inability to secure that elusive record deal, not only for the threat of not achieving his dream of worldwide fame but also for the danger of his followers seeing him fail to accomplish something. All it would take for some to lose faith would be the slightest armor chink, and the turndown by Universal and the apparent lack of interest at Brother were potential clues that maybe Charlie Manson wasn’t superior after all, let alone the possible Second Coming of Christ. Charlie needed to provide a distraction, some fresh mission to occupy the Family’s attention, and around the end of May he announced it.

Since the Family was staying together forever, Charlie informed his followers,
they needed a permanent home. He assigned Susan Atkins, in mid-pregnancy, to lead some of the others back to Mendocino County and look around for some suitable site. It might be a house or else someplace out in the country where they could make long-term camp. Pat and Yeller would go along, and so would Mary Brunner and infant Pooh Bear. They could take the school bus and send back regular reports. Putting
Susan in charge was a masterstroke by Charlie—she loved the extra authority and took it as a sign that Charlie had confidence in her. She did her best to mimic him as she ordered the others around. They were resentful, but they still did what she told them to. Meanwhile, Charlie had one of his most volatile followers out of the way for a time. The plan to find a home base signaled to all of the Family members staying behind that enjoying Dennis Wilson’s largesse was only temporary—indoor plumbing, a swimming pool, stocked refrigerators, and fancy stereo systems were not part of the group’s ultimate goal, which as Charlie explained it was to achieve the highest possible level of existence by ultimately giving up everything except their love for one another.