Charles Manson Behind Bars (12 page)

As I stepped out of my cell, I determined that this was my time to shine. I felt an emotion like no other I had ever experienced. By this time, I cherished Charlie as a father figure and a brother, and I knew the project I was carrying out would make him as proud of me as any father is of his son. I wanted to be successful and have him admire and enjoy my success. The guard who had momentarily left me alone returned with a broom, mop, and pail of hot water. I took the broom from his outstretched hands and began to sweep.

Once I had completed the first tier, I surveyed the pile of dust, dead bugs, tiny rocks, and old food items that I had collected. I knew that there had to be billions of dust mites and germs in my pile. I cringed as I thought about it. The second tier was not as dirty, but I was able to gather another similar pile that nearly turned my stomach.

I lifted the mop the guard had brought out for me. Dipping it in the still scalding water, the first place I set to work was the area of dried soap right in front of Charlie’s cell. I looked across at Charlie as I labored over the floor. He smiled a broad, toothless smile which I quickly returned. With each thrust of the mop, I could feel my relationship with Charlie growing. We were getting closer and closer. We knew we had done it: we had stolen the floor. This was our tier. We alone had bragging rights to the entire area, the only piece of the planet over which we had any claim. And we staked our claim.

My job of cleaning the floors only took me about forty-five minutes. The guards were so appreciative of my efforts that they offered me seven lunches that were left over from earlier in the day. They also provided me with extra items from breakfast and dinner. The guards regularly collected these items and used them to reward positive behavior. It was an inexpensive way for them to manage our actions. Their eagerness in providing for me showed me how thankful they were, but I was more interested in pleasing Charlie than in collecting more food.

I had done this for Charlie. I cared about the other guys on the tier and wanted them to have a better living space, but mostly I cared about how it would affect Charlie. The soap was gone; the dust was gone. I knew he could breathe easier now that our floor was immaculate. The bare tier lights reflected off the shiny gray paint of the floor. Gone were the scraps of paper that had once clogged up the drains. Gone also were any last traces of Strawberry from our lives.

I sensed how appreciative Charlie was, even if he didn’t put his feelings into words. He showed me a lot of love over the next weeks. Our arguments of the past were no more than distant history. He now knew how deeply I cared about him--and appeared to reciprocate my emotions.

In our friendship, Charlie could be very blunt. He taught me many things, but I didn’t always like how he talked to me—not at first. His tone seemed to suggest that he didn’t respect me. Over time, I came to see how he really did have my best interests in mind. He was blunt and forthright in order to teach me things I needed to learn. At times, I must admit, I require direct confrontation to accept something I have previously rejected or to learn something new. When I explained to Charlie how I arrived at Corcoran in the SHU, for instance, and detailed how I stabbed my child-molesting cellie, I expected to be praised. I was mistaken.

“You stabbed yourself,” Charlie blurted out.

Thinking that he may not have heard me or understood me, I repeated that I stabbed my cell-mate because of what he had done and because of his disrespect for me.

“You stabbed yourself,” he said again. He explained that whenever we do acts of violence toward others, we are doing more damage to ourselves. “We might as well stab ourselves as stab someone else,” he told me. The results for us are the same.

He had a point, I had to admit. It made me consider my actions and the effect that they were having upon me. I had never stopped to think about my behavior in that way before. Charlie may have saved me from many future violent acts, may have saved me from further episodes of stabbing “myself.” I came to appreciate his boldness with me.

Charlie would often say to me, “We are one. There is no you, me, him, they, or them. There is only one!” I heard it over and over until I was sick of hearing it. It became a kind of mantra for him. Whenever I would get angry at someone and vow revenge, whenever someone else’s actions irked me, whenever I spoke of an enemy, Charlie tried to get me to see things a different way, “We are one. There is no you, me, him, they, or them. There is only one!” Hearing that phrase impressed upon me the foolishness of all anger I harbored toward others. Over time, Charlie helped soften my rage. As the months went by, whether due to my maturing or the instruction I was receiving from my friend, I felt the urge to strike back and hurt others less and less.

I expressed my love for Charlie in many pranks, often doing things to him just to see what made him tick. He knew I was testing him. I wanted to know the real Charlie. I knew he could talk a good game, but I didn’t know whether he backed up his talk in his actions and in his heart of hearts. I wanted to know whether he was as tough as he portrayed himself to be. Before I was incarcerated, I often put others to the test. I especially enjoyed it if some little guy was pretended to be tough. Since I am bulked up to 230 pounds in my 6-foot frame, it is easy for me to stand up to a smaller person. Only those who truly carry street smarts and a mental toughness can impress me.

I liked to fiddle with the lock on Charlie’s tray slot as I walked past his cell. I would never do this if he was sleeping. That would violate a cardinal rule in prisons. To wake a sleeping inmate is to disrespect him. Only a truly angry, vengeful inmate will wake another inmate—and he had better be prepared for the consequences. I never wanted to show even the least amount of disrespect to Charlie.

If he was awake, however, and I was feeling mischievous, I would jiggle his lock on the way to my shower. When he would hear it, he would show an immediate and profound fear. He had the look of an animal trapped in a corner. I felt bad for giving him such a fright, especially knowing that his hold on life was so fragile. He had already been the brunt of many attacks, and never knew who wanted to do him harm. Still, by teasing him this way, I had a front row seat to the show of his reaction. He demonstrated fear, but he still was one of the boldest, toughest, and mentally strongest people I have ever met. I could tell that Charlie was never unraveled by fear.

He spoke to me often about fear, not about what made him afraid, but about the need to overcome the fears in our lives. He claimed to fear nothing. “Boxcar,” he once said. “I’m the man who will go and face the fear I have. I’d do that instead of running from it. To overcome my fear is to challenge my fear, whatever fear is, or whatever it means. I’ll eat fear for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ll make fear my friend instead of my enemy. I digest it and conquer it.” He spoke in the soft and philosophical tone of John Lennon.

Once, he told me that you have to keep the fear level up. “Fear is life.” He said. “If others don’t fear you, they won’t respect you. But if they fear you and are afraid of what you might do to them, they will give you all the respect in the world!”

These were no mere words to Charlie. I saw firsthand how that played out around the prison. I saw so many inmates or guards with fear in their eyes, or fear in their body language, as they spoke to, or about, Charles Manson. If they had the chance to talk with him and get to know him, I have no doubt that they would mellow out. They acted on edge, as if something could happen at any moment, simply by hearing the name Charles Manson or seeing him pass by.

I saw Charlie build up that fear level in others in some pretty crazy ways, too. He could stare down an inmate or guard, put on a silly smile, or if he was overly tired, he could growl like a hungry junkyard dog. I saw guards leave the building after hearing one of Charlie’s growls. Others have quickly offered Charlie something or asked him to show them his artwork in an effort to diffuse the situation. It seems that everyone walked on egg shells around Charlie. “Keep the fear level up,” Charlie would tell me. It was a game to him.

Once, he made a voodoo doll that resembled a guard that he despised. He said some evil words, played on his bongos, and pricked it with some pins. As far as I know, the guard never knew about it—fortunately for the both of them.

“I want to teach you things, too, Charlie,” I confided one day, “but how can I teach something to someone who knows everything already?”

“We are all babies,” Charlie opined, “and we learn when we are willing to learn, or we don’t learn. Whether we have learned something already or not, we will pick up something out of whatever lesson comes our way.”

When he spoke this, it became clear to me that Charlie was a born leader. He had confidence and charisma. He was always talking about something new and interesting. He knew what made people tick. Even here, he would not put me down, even though I claimed to know nothing that he didn’t already comprehend. He was a brilliant leader who protected those he led.

Occasionally, I would nitpick at Charlie to gauge his reaction and better understand him. He did not get mad at me very often. It would take a lot of abuse before he would yell at me. Usually, he would just laugh at me or mock me for trying to get his goad.

I learned to never underestimate him, however. He always had some game going. Either he was trying to get the guards to do something or convince one of the other inmates to carry out a project for him. It was funny to see him dance the dance of manipulating others. I began to see him as a “con-troller.” He was a convict, or “con,” and he was always trying to control others, so I coined the term “con-troller.” Being around him was like watching a wrestling match. I never knew what the next moves would be, but I knew it would be fun to watch. It was always entertaining to be housed right next to Charlie.

I got to see a lot of the different faces of Charles Manson, too. He seemed to have different personalities that he was able to call upon at will. Depending on who he was speaking with, he could be coy, aggressive, witty, dangerous, insane, and even demure. I began to see how he often role-played simply to get someone to do something for him.

Charlie and I didn’t always get along. We had our share of disagreements, often annoying each other in one way or another. If anyone tells you that they always get along very well with their cell-mate or friend in neighboring cell, call him or her a liar. No one can live in such confined quarters and not erupt from time to time. All inmates, whether they are male, female, adult, juvenile, or whatever, no matter where they are held, at a federal institution, local holding cell, or state prison, are treated like cages animals. Even zoos provide more living space for their residents.

Inmates come in all shapes and sizes, backgrounds, religious beliefs, and bad habits. Putting them in close proximity doesn’t remove these differences; indeed, it magnifies them. Generally, the toughest part of prison time is handling the diversity of humanity that is found behind bars. It would be hard enough to cope with so many “normal” people confined to tiny rooms. An average population would probably be easier to survive. Behind bars, you do not find typical people or a cross section of society. You encounter men who through circumstances or bad choices find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Not only are there a variety of personalities, nationalities, and religious persuasion, in prison there are multiple personalities, dominators, manipulators, and those who prey on others. As it is, it’s amazing that there aren’t more fights and greater animosities.

When Charlie and I got into it, when we would really have a row, he would go to the guards and ask them to do things to bother me. It really got under my skin when he would talk to a guard to whom he was close and have that guard dog me. Some guards would deny me yard privileges, serve me a small tray at breakfast or dinner, cut my shower short, or lose my canteen slip. I always knew that it was Charlie behind it; it had his name written all over it. I can handle some harassment from guards. That is to be expected behind bars. Convicts learn pretty quickly to swing with the punches. What annoyed me most was the fact that Charlie went to the guards in the first place. How cowardly is that? He is supposed to be so strong, so fearless, and instead of dealing with me directly, he goes to the authorities to exact revenge. I can only wonder about the cost to Charlie. What did he have to do to repay the guards for my harassment? Did he promise to comply with that guard at a later date? Charlie must have been making deals with the devil. He was playing off both sides of the law.

I saw Charlie cozy up to guards more than once. During the first weeks next to me, he got so obnoxious that I began to suspect that he had put LSD in my food. I didn’t know how he could have done that, but the visions that ran through my mind left me no other conclusion. Later, when we weren’t talking to each other, I saw him get revenge on me through the guards. He was able to convince them to shortchange me out of food items and throw my mail around the cell (rather than handing it to me). It angered me that he had such power over the guards and the ability to disturb me; it hurt me that he would do those things to me. Fortunately, our disagreements never lasted longer than a day or two. I was glad to work things out with him after each argument. As we discussed our grievances with one another, I reminded myself that in such an unnatural situation as prison, friends are critical for survival.

There are some inmates who will do the laundry for another in exchange for some kind of payment such as coffee, food, or whatever. I could never do that. I was raised to be self-sufficient and to encourage others to be that way too. I wouldn’t allow someone else to clean my clothes, nor would I want to clean another’s. However, I would have cleaned Charlie’s clothes, even his cell, if I had the chance. That is how much I cared for the man. I didn’t view him as just another inmate. To me, he was my father, my brother, my guide and guru, a person more important to me than my own family.