Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (38 page)

There was nothing humorous about the overall meaning. I saw this as the support I had been looking for that Manson’s clan had been to my home and doused the porch with their satanic stew. It scared me for a long time, forcing me to reconsider my goal of writing a book. I had played with this fire for nearly twenty years, had escaped relatively unscathed, and was now safely ensconced in a stress-free retirement. Manson had told me many times that my “intrusion” into his life would cost me. Now I understood. There’s a price to pay for entering a madman’s domain.

Why fuel the smoldering flames by writing a book? Why the hell not? Why let Manson dictate my life? Wasn’t it Manson himself who told me to get out of my paper-bag world and act with my balls and not my brain? Well, my brain was saying bag it, it’s not worth it, but my balls were screaming, “Fuck you, Charlie!”

On October 10, 1995, I met with Vacaville’s police chief, Lee Dean, and told him about the threats and dumpings. We met again on the sixteenth, this time joined by two captains. They were sympathetic, but powerless to do anything. I had been aware of that going in. The purpose was to let them know that if something happened to me, they could find a lead in Hanford. I also contacted the Department of Corrections Special Services Unit and asked them to have Manson’s latest keeper scrutinize his mail a little closer. I had balls, but I was no fool. (After I contacted the police, Sandra sent me a letter in January 1996, saying “We don’t care about your book.”)

Seething over the October threat, I decided to take the gloves off and fight back. “You’re a real pain in the ass!” I wrote. “I thought you told your followers to do their own thing? Well, that’s what I’m doing, telling them to stay out of my business. So, damn it, shut up and leave me alone! Don’t try to intimidate me and my family. Quit telling me I’m into money and controlled by fear. Maybe I’m too stupid to realize that I’m supposed to be living in fear.… Let me lecture you for a change. You have always done what you wanted, made your own laws, fucked everything you could, sang and danced all night, pigged out on drugs, horsed around with the rich and famous, sleazed around with whores and cut up a few nice people. You let your followers do the really heavy-duty stuff. Still, you got nailed. You have defended yourself to me many times. I accepted your reasons. So why don’t you accept my reasons for not believing you? Because I disagree doesn’t mean I lie.

“Writing about you is crazy, especially if I try to describe your nothing, upside-down, paradoxical philosophy which doesn’t make sense to anybody but you and your closest followers.… Your idea that I’m using you is pure bullshit. You were in prison when I got there. I took care of you better than most administrators. You’ll never know all the things I did for you. But that’s history. I know your fear, and how you use it and use those you trust to instill it.… The one time fear made it big-time with you was after the Family did the murders in L.A. when everyone ran to the desert to hide, searching for a big hole. Fear came creeping into you then. Fear of being hunted down, shot at, thrown in a dingy old cell for the rest of your life to rot. Fear happens to us all at some time, because death chases us from the time we are born. Most of us fear the end, because they think it is the end. But, Charlie, the dance goes on. You must know that. Even you, Charlie, have had to watch your back. You and I both know, but that’s our secret.”

Charlie’s response, paraphrased and translated into something resembling English, was as follows: “You should think seriously about whether you want to dig into this [writing about him]. You may wind up on S-wing where I did some time [the padded cells]. You are not very stable and won’t be able to handle the pressures involved in writing about me.… What are you going to tell about me?…

“You are a good man, but you don’t see the truth and work in lies. You and society need a scapegoat. That’s me.… There is only one god. To get there you must go to zero, count backward, go through me and start from my reality. I came to save you but you wouldn’t listen.… You have always been my angel, my saint, my soul, my father.…

“I could beat you and drag you like you used to do me, but so far, I haven’t. I just let you pass by, get married, have kids, raise cops and lawyers who chase after money and forget about everything else, while Jesus never died, but went into the witness protection program.”

That response obviously did nothing to ease my anger. However, instead of firing back at Charlie, I decided to give Sandra Good a taste of my stinging pen: “I have always respected you and Lynette. Your intelligence, loyalty, and determination are rare commodities in our society. I shall call you imitators of the master rather than followers or Family members if that offends you. I understand where you are coming from, but you and Lynette are known for your witchy little intimidations. That stuff can only damage what little we have in common—Charlie.

“I too am from a square environment, middle-class Oakland, like you. You dated a friend of mine, Gary,… many years ago. He was a brash, outspoken loudmouth who told me you were sort of weird. But that’s ancient history.… The book is not about the murders and the prosecution. The “Bug” [Bugliosi] did that. Mine is about the prisons years, mainly from 1971 to the present. There is stuff about you, and Lynette too, but it’s mainly about prison life.… Over the years, Charlie and I fought a lot about philosophy and values. I agreed with him about the environment, children being neglected, the greed of our society, but I never bought his cruel, heartless methods. Charlie was an abused, neglected kid, strapped and whipped, pushed around, told to get lost by his mom, or so he said. His mom countered that he was a spoiled brat who always got what he wanted. Things haven’t changed. Probably, she just gave up on him and he gave up on her. His resentment went from anger to hate, then vengeance. He went to one reform school after another, then one jail after another, and lastly, to prison, all told 48 years! Too much for any man. He finally found love with a bunch of kids who hadn’t grown up, who were looking for a good time. Like Charlie’s mother, they all sold him out by acting crazy, killing people, and as he claims, forcing him back to prison.…

“Some of your group now say that Charlie made them do it. ‘He ordered us,’ they crow. Once faithful followers, turning on him, pointing the accusing finger. ‘It was him! He did it!’ They said it in books, magazines, on TV and radio. Now only you, Lynette, and a handful of faithful followers hold on to him after 25 years.

“He blames the defectors, society, even me, for his downfall. He’s an angry man who blames Blacks and Jews, saying Blacks messed up the gene pool and Jews hoard all the money. He feeds on the hate virus and the disease has spread. History may rewrite itself, revolution may come, but time is running out for him. He and I grow old. Cancer hides in our bones, ready to wake up and grow in our limbs. Our brain cells dissolve into a universe as we plod along. Soon, all the earth in us to earth returns.…

“In the final analysis, we stand alone.… Everyone sees things their way, personally, subjectively, no matter what the facts. If you need a god, there’s one for you! They’re on sale all over the world.… We need something to believe in and we are afraid to think for ourselves, to be left alone.… Charlie has his capsule and you have yours. I have mine and Lynette has hers. You have tried to enter Charlie’s capsule, but you cannot stay. Your life is separate, but in your fear, you cannot let go of his capsule. Only when he dies will you be forced to be your own navigator.…

“You and Charlie have used fear and terror to motivate people. You used it on me. All you really see is fear and terror, not love or compassion. That’s why you all went to prison. You’ve done terrible evil, striking fear into those who see your deeds. People die, but life goes on. What have you accomplished? You get publicity, name recognition. For what?… You suspended your life, entombed your talents, castrated yourself, foolishly believing you have accomplished something. What? Killing a few people? What exactly does that prove? Does that glorify Manson? Create majesty? Charlie thought it gave him great power, exhilaration, exultation. Now he spends his life in prison playing his funny little games and mind trips, hoping an AB, a Black gangster, or an angry Mexican doesn’t kill him.

“He has always sent people like you to do his dirty work. Amazingly, you have been faithful to him and I can do nothing to stop that. Once, I tried to turn Lynette away from Charlie and she almost went mad. Instead, she chose to remain madly in love with him, while wishing to cut off my head. It was the futility of your lives that drove me crazy, not any fear you and Charlie held over me. It was the senseless striving, the wasted energy, the lost moments, the loving, touching tenderness that you all started with, and the missing of the precious time you had to be truly happy. That’s what broke my heart.

“Can’t you see that there has been too much blood split? Will you ever see beyond a prison cell, beyond a madman’s dream? You have traveled so far, yet you have only a fading voice left, echoes of the past.

“I know you cannot see where I’m coming from. Charlie says it’s religion, God stuff, a momma hang-up, early child programming. He says that I’ve been searching for the source of the Nile all my life, and it’s him, right under my nose.… We all look for the truth, a bit of happiness, a God. Some say they have found it. Some swear by it. But there is much that man does not know and never will. I guess Charlie is your truth, found too quickly and too soon.…”

Charlie, Squeaky, Sandra, and I have continued to trade similar letters to this day.

*   *   *

On August 10, 1996, I decided to drive to Corcoran and renew my love/hate relationship with Charlie. We’d traded some serious threats in the mail the previous year, so it was time to kiss and make up. Officially, I was going to visit Roger Dale “Pin Cushion” Smith. Pin assured me that Charlie would be in the visiting room entertaining his own guests and we’d have a chance to chat.

I arrived a day early to scope the place out, learn the procedure, and determine if I had the right color pants. Khaki and blue Levi’s are forbidden because a quick switch could enable a prisoner to posed as a civilian and flee. My light green trousers were borderline, so I made a note to go to a Mervyn’s department store later that evening and purchase a gray pair. Before leaving, I tried to track down a female counselor Manson had recently threatened to kill over some trivial matter. I wondered if she was being hassled by the Family on the outside as well. Manson had similarly threatened a female lieutenant six months before. Unfortunately, neither officer was available. However, I was able to track down a report that included Manson’s cryptic, handwritten response to one of the women’s charges. The officer stated that she was performing her routine duties when Charlie spotted her on the floor and shouted, “You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you. I’ll find your babies and kill your babies too. I’ve killed women and their babies before!” The shaken officer reported that there had been no prior conversation, and that the verbal assault was unprovoked.

“Sad,” Charlie scribbled in response. “No one will talk to her. She needs someone bad. She wants some attention bad. I’m under people’s needs and they come to me twisted and distorted. There was nothing said. It’s bunkum.”

Same old Charlie, covering his horrendous behavior by proclaiming to have the ability to unearth deep-seated psychological needs in his victims. He wasn’t terrorizing her. He was helping her cope with her loneliness!

I motored to the front gate at 7:30 the next morning and was curtly told to queue up on a side road where forty cars were already waiting. As with most prisons, processing visitors is a tedious nightmare. The friends and relatives of cons are frequently forced to suffer their own indignities for a chance to huddle with their incarcerated loved ones. It was such a different, and quite unpleasant, experience for me being just a regular schmuck with friends in low places. It took ninety minutes before I even made it to the visiting room. Once there, I was thoroughly searched head to toe before being allowed to pass through a metal detector to make sure I didn’t have a zip gun up my ass like the guy back at San Quentin. While enduring that ordeal, I noticed a tall, skinny man with long, stringy hair tied in a bun just ahead of me. He was dressed in flowing hippie clothing and looked like a throwback to the 1960s. I’d spied him earlier when he drove up in a battered yellow Volkswagen. “That’s Charlie’s visitor,” I whispered to myself. “Got to be.”

A meandering shuttle carried us to the maximum-security visiting area located a half mile inside the complex. Finally, I’d reached my destination and was immediately greeted by a grinning Pin. I was going to hug the big buffoon, but I didn’t want the visiting-room officers to get the wrong idea. Across the room, Manson was sitting at a table deep in conversation with the hippie guy. I’d nailed that one. Charlie’s head was clean-shaven, making the ever present swastika on his forehead even more pronounced. He sported the same old mustache and goatee, but this time it was neatly trimmed. His tan, healthy appearance was a startling contrast to the previous year, when his hair was long and gray and his old-man beard was white and full. He looked twenty years younger—and far more menacing.

Charlie glanced our way and gave me a sly smile of recognition. After speaking briefly with Roger, I walked over and shook his hand. “I’ll talk to you later,” I said, not wanting to cut in on the skinny hippie’s action.

Pin had been acting as my intermediary, trying to heal the wounds of the past year so I could interview Charlie and tie up some loose ends for the book. Pin had assured me things were cool, but I needed a frank, up-to-the-minute read on the bald one’s ever changing moods. “He’s still upset about your threats, but that’s fading,” Pin acknowledged. “He also remains angry that you turned down mail privileges for Lynette and Sandra all those years.”

“Even if I wanted to, I would have been overruled,” I protested. “There’s no way anyone was going to let them correspond—” Pin waved me off, signaling that I didn’t have to explain. He understood, but we knew Manson never would. Charlie believed in the power of the individual. He didn’t subscribe to a chain of command, and therefore would forever put the blame on me. It was an interesting philosophy coming from the ironfisted leader who uttered the now infamous command “Do what Tex tells you to” the night of the Tate murders.