Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (30 page)

The isolation of Barker Ranch was a significant advantage, but the drawbacks, particularly in maintaining adequate supplies of food and drugs, tipped the scales in favor of Spahn. The dilemma for Charlie was that he’d just convinced his followers that Barker was where they belonged. Their belief in him might be shaken if he now told them that it was better to return to Spahn. He needed a reason for the reversal in message, and just before Thanksgiving Dennis Wilson gave him one.

Dennis Wilson was not a man to hold a grudge, and though he lacked self-discipline he was also not a fool. “Never Learn Not to Love,” his reworking of Charlie’s “Cease to Exist,” had turned out well. It wasn’t the best song on the Beach Boys’ forthcoming album; “Do It Again,” a tuneful tribute by Brian Wilson and Mike Love to the good ol’ days of sun and surf, would be the first cut released as a single, and “I Can Hear Music,” a remake of an old pop tune, was scheduled as the second. But “Never Learn Not to Love,” with Dennis credited as sole composer, was considered strong enough by the rest of the band to be a candidate as a B side to one of those releases or, at least, a third single culled from the album. That meant considerable extra composing royalties for Dennis if “Never Learn Not to Love” backed a hit. So he not only stood to earn back some of the money it had cost him to host Charlie and the Family, it was possible that future collaborations with Charlie could result in more income. True, Charlie probably wouldn’t be happy when he found out what Wilson had done to “Cease to Exist,” but if it was presented right—Hey, you got a song recorded and it might be just the beginning, isn’t that great?—then maybe he’d quickly get past it and there’d be more collaborating. Besides, Wilson wouldn’t mind more time with the girls in the Family. He
knew Charlie had brought most everybody to Barker Ranch, so toward the end of November
Wilson decided to drive up there, tell Charlie the good news, and insist that he come back to L.A. for a proper celebration. Wilson invited Gregg Jakobson to make the trip with him. One of the vehicles that the Family used to move to Barker was a jeep that belonged to Jakobson, and they’d never returned it. So Jakobson said he’d go to get his jeep back, and he also thought it would be a chance to see Ruth Ann again. It took forever for the two of them to get to Barker; to Jakobson, it seemed like falling off the edge of the world. They arrived to a warm welcome, and Wilson told Charlie the edited news that his song had been recorded, it was going on the new Beach Boys album and let’s go back to L.A. and party. Charlie was thrilled.

Charlie felt that he couldn’t be away from L.A. at such a critical time; surely all the important record industry people who listened to the album—it was going to be called
20/20
—would think “Cease to Exist” was clearly the best song on it, and they’d want to snap up the guy who wrote it. The Family would have to be moved back to Spahn right away. Charlie didn’t reveal to his followers that his personal ambitions were the reason they were going back. He explained that winters in Death Valley were just as brutally cold as the summers there were broiling. The buildings they were living in weren’t heated. Out of consideration for the Family’s health, Charlie had decided to lead them back to L.A. When winter passed, he’d see about returning to Barker Ranch. Everyone was happy, Charlie most of all.

Wilson and Jakobson spent the night at Barker. Wilson was allowed to romp with the girls of his choosing. Jakobson, inconveniencing Charlie because he wanted his jeep back, wasn’t allowed to have sex with Ruth Ann. Charlie wanted to send a message to Jakobson, but he also didn’t want to alienate him since Jakobson still might prove useful in getting a record deal. So Charlie told Jakobson he could sleep with Leslie instead. Jakobson was initially angry, but Leslie was pretty and he thought she was a sweetheart, so he went along with it. The next day he and Wilson and Charlie headed back to L.A., with most of the Family following after them. Charlie left a few members back at Barker, just so nobody could move into the Family’s place.

•  •  •

There was an immediate complication.
Squeaky approached George Spahn to ask if the rest of the Family could move back to his ranch, certain that he’d agree. But Spahn surprised her by saying that they couldn’t; he’d decided that having longhairs around made the place look bad. Charlie, preoccupied with his imminent rise to recording fame, didn’t feel like trying to convince Spahn otherwise. The old man permitted a few Family members to hang around sometimes—he didn’t want to lose Squeaky’s ministrations. Meanwhile, Charlie found a two-story house on Gresham Street in Canoga Park above Topanga. There was enough money to rent the place for a couple of months. Charlie got the Family moved in and waited for the Beach Boys’
20/20
album to be released in January; big things would undoubtedly happen right afterward. Meanwhile, he kept the girls busy with garbage runs and the men working on cars. It occurred to Charlie that if they did live out in Death Valley again, it would be a good idea to have a fleet of vehicles capable of navigating the area. So Tex and the others began renovating cars into dune buggies. Charlie preached and supervised acid sessions, and at night amused himself by soaking in a hot tub while
Leslie read to him from the Bible, always the Book of Revelation. Charlie loved all the imagery, and some of it made its way into his sermons. More and more now he referred to himself as the Second Coming of JC, his term for Jesus Christ. Sometimes he ordered everyone to
baaa
like sheep because he was the Good Shepherd, and they did.

Charlie not only interpreted the Bible for his followers, he defended it to them. Though they all respected and feared him, sometimes Charlie’s edicts elicited at least mild protest, especially among the women when he reminded them in some new way that they were completely subservient to the group’s men.
He always cited the Bible as the basis for his rules—like modern-day evangelical fundamentalists on cable TV and talk radio, Charlie explained that if something was in Scripture it had to be true, and he would not tolerate any debate. They should not, could not, take issue with Charlie, who was JC come again, or the Word of God. Later, Charlie’s former followers ridiculed the widespread belief that the Family practiced Satanism or even sympathized. Charlie was Jesus
returned to earth, and Satan and all his followers and works were the enemy, not allies.

It was more difficult to keep the Family busy in town than on the Spahn and Barker ranches, but around the same time Charlie and his followers returned to L.A. the Beatles released their new album. It was a double disc set, crammed with twice as many songs for the Family to listen to over and over as they’d had from
Magical Mystery Tour.
The band titled it
The Beatles
, but the defiantly blank cover was a stunning departure from popular rainbow psychedelic designs. Almost instantly the album acquired a new, universal name: the
White Album.

T
he
White Album
consisted of thirty exceptionally eclectic songs, ranging from ersatz music hall to frantic rock ’n’ roll to a children’s lullaby. Though their fans didn’t know it, the Beatles were wracked by dissension throughout the entire recording process—at one point drummer Ringo Starr actually quit the band, though his departure was never made public and he was coaxed back within weeks. Two vinyl discs resulted from the internal squabbling because none of the Beatles allowed any of his songs to be cut in favor of compositions by the others. Critics generally praised the album—after all, it was by the
Beatles
—but after embracing previous releases by the band as clear-cut social commentary, many listeners couldn’t find any consistency or theme this time.

Charlie wasn’t confused at all. He gathered the Family around at the Gresham Street rental house and had them listen to the
White Album
over and over.
He demanded that they pay special attention to the songs “Piggies,” “Blackbird,” “Revolution 1,” “Revolution 9,” and “Helter Skelter.” Though each tune on the record had prophetic significance, Charlie explained, these songs were musical road maps to the immediate future. “Piggies” described the disgusting sense of entitlement enjoyed by the very rich and powerful, and concluded that
they needed “a damn good whacking.” “Blackbird” predicted an uprising of the downtrodden blacks—this was the moment for them to arise. “Revolution 1” was a call to arms. “Revolution 9,” a pastiche of electronic effects and sound bites including the clatter of machine guns and human screams, was the soundtrack of the coming fury, and “Helter Skelter” provided a formal name for the chaos soon to come. In the best Dale Carnegie tradition,
Charlie made certain that his followers felt these interpretations were theirs as well as his;
he gravely asked everyone for comments about the songs, then wove whatever they said into a larger context. Everyone should feel incredibly proud, Charlie declared—not only was the
White Album
the Beatles’ collective call to arms to the entire world, it was specifically directed toward Charlie and the Family. Sometime in 1969, the Family would return to Barker Ranch in Death Valley, and the Beatles would join them there. Charlie determined this based on a line in the song “Honey Pie” that referred to crossing the Atlantic. With his usual assumption of superiority and entitlement, Charlie felt certain that the Beatles would come to him and his followers. To get the process under way he sent letters and telegrams of invitation to the Beatles’ office in England. There was no response, but Charlie wasn’t deterred. The Beatles were only part of the truth he now revealed. He preached to the Family that a black uprising was imminent
not just because the Beatles said so, but also the Bible. In fact, the Bible prophesied not only the uprising, but also the Beatles themselves, and Charlie Manson, too. It was all in the final book of the New Testament.

The Revelation to John, commonly misidentified as Revelations, concludes the Christian Bible on an unsettling, apocalyptic note.
John, the narrator, has been banished to an island by unnamed authorities for preaching the gospel of Jesus, and as a reward for his faith Jesus has granted him an understanding or revelation about the signs that will herald Christ’s return to earth. John, in turn, writes about what he has learned to a series of Christian communities so they will have some warning of what is about to happen. For some Christians, Revelation is entirely symbolic and simply represents a promise that Jesus will come again; to others, it’s a literal account of what is going to occur, horned beasts and all.
For imaginations fueled by frequent, copious doses of LSD, it was all too easy to believe not only John’s apocalyptic prophecies, but Charlie’s unique interpretation of them.

Revelation, Charlie explained, predicted that locusts would come, and locusts were, of course, beetles—the Beatles. John said that the locusts would have “scales like iron breastplates”—according to Charlie, these were the Beatles’ guitars. And there was more: Revelation also told of
angels coming to earth, with the first four being the Beatles. The fifth, “given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit,” was Charlie. The bottomless pit was the hole in the Death Valley desert, the one Charlie had already told the Family about. Revelation and the
White Album
, with assistance from Charlie, made it clear: There was about to be an uprising of the oppressed in the world, mostly the blacks, who had been held down for too long. Everybody had a turn in power, and now it was going to be black people’s turn. Something called Helter Skelter, an event or events still to be determined, would set off the battle. The blacks were going to kill most of the whites and enslave their surviving oppressors, which was only fair. Whites had made blacks their slaves and now roles would reverse. But here was the kicker:
Just as the Bible foretold—and the Bible was always right—Charlie would lead the Family to the bottomless pit, where they would remain in hiding as the world above descended into chaos. After a while—it didn’t matter how long, because time didn’t matter, hundreds of years, perhaps—the Family would expand to 144,000, the equivalent of the twelve tribes of Israel and the number specified in Revelation 14:3. Meanwhile, blacks would discover that they lacked the intelligence and organizational skills to run the world. So Charlie and the Family would emerge from the bottomless pit and become acknowledged rulers, Charlie of course the first among them. He’d already convinced many of his followers that he was Jesus reincarnated. It didn’t take a much greater leap of faith to buy into this new vision. Charlie stressed that everyone had all the proof that they needed—Revelation and the
White Album.

The Family was overwhelmed by this news. Charlie maintained rigid control with his usual methods of carrot and stick. The women in particular were reminded that if they remained loyal, while they were down in the pit living in a wonderful underground city there, they could change into any creature they wished. Several wanted to become winged elves, and Charlie promised that, when the moment was especially near,
they’d begin to feel budding wings growing on their backs. But a terrible fate awaited anyone trying to leave the Family now, he cautioned. All of them were white, and
any deserters who weren’t killed in the coming racial cataclysm would undoubtedly be made into slaves serving black masters. Their choice was slave or ruler.

There was an unexpected defector. Tex Watson, previously one of Charlie’s most compliant followers, suddenly found Family membership claustrophobic and sneaked away. He stayed in the L.A. area, though, supporting himself by dealing drugs in tandem with a new girlfriend. Through the bikers, Charlie had an excellent network of informers and probably soon knew exactly where Tex was. He was in no hurry to reclaim him; while most of the Family was preoccupied with the new prospect of Helter Skelter, Charlie also had to concern himself with his long-anticipated breakthrough as a musician. The Beatles’ double disc set was fine but Charlie’s album, the one that producers would beg him to record after the Beach Boys’ version of “Cease to Exist” was released, would surpass the
White Album
both commercially and as a harbinger of the future.