Charles Manson Behind Bars (3 page)

In his seventies, Charlie is no longer the imposing figure that he once may have been. Gone was the erect posture, the wiry musculature. When I met him, he wore his hair long and shaggy with a long, grey beard to match. This would change as so much about him seemed to change from week to week. Over the next few years, he would braid his beard, trim his beard and hair much shorter, and then cut off all hair from his entire face and head.

As I came to know him in his later years, I learned that despite his age and his graying, Manson’s power was anything but gone. Rather than being impotent, he revealed himself to be a person of great inner constitution and determination. His eyes gleamed with a focus that was piercing. His stance always demanded respect and fear: he carried himself with a strong presence, yet remained coiled like a rattlesnake giving the impression that he could strike out at any moment.

I continued to wipe down my new home, hoping to rid it of all the dust, toothpaste and semen stains of its former inhabitants. The cell was in pretty good shape when I first entered, but you can never be sure. Even as I scrubbed, I knew that it would get dusty again and often. There would be spilled food and the unavoidable grime of living so close to the more than 250 men in the building. There were nearly 5,000 inmates in the entire prison complex. Even though no one else would enter my cell, apart from some guards during the unavoidable, periodic shakedowns, the mere proximity of people would necessitate frequent cleanings. I am a neat freak, unlike many other inmates, so I could and would spend hours perfecting the cleanliness of my surroundings.

There was another bang on the wall next to me. I maneuvered over to the front of the cell to see who was making the noise. When I put my face by the cell door, I heard the old man speak again.

“You got a fish line?” He asked me.

“No.” I responded.

“Here, I’ll give you one. Just a minute.” Manson moved away from the front of his cell where he could speak with me, and then I heard him return.

A small wooden stick emerged from the front of his cell. I could see that it had been fabricated entirely out of newsprint. Gently, it nudged the long fire hose filled with sand that guarded the bottom of my cell. Once an end of the hose was pulled away from my cell, just a few inches from where it had been placed, Manson threw a weight over to me. Attached to the weight was a long string that he retained. When I had grasped the weight, he ordered me to pull. Attached to the other end of the string was a collection of food items that slowly made their way into my cell. There were pouches of coffee powder, a package of sugar donuts, and a couple of instant soup mixes.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely.

“Don’t say, ‘thank you,’” Charles insisted. “I only do what a brother is supposed to do.”

“Yeah, but I say it out of gratitude and respect.” I objected. No inmate was going to have the final word in a conversation with me. It didn’t matter if he gave me things or not. He probably had some angle, anyway. Like most people in this world, he likely gave first, and then asked for repayment later. I was ready for this guy. I made a mental note to always be ready with this guy.

At the time of the last count, I boarded up my window. “Boarding up” means to cover the cell window with soap, water and paper so the prison guards cannot complete their count. A guard came to attempt the count. He stopped at my door and I said that I did not have any blankets. I had asked for a rag earlier to clean the cell. I used one of my socks, instead, when no rag became immediately available.

“I just want some blankets and I’m cool.” I explained.

The guard told me not to worry, “I’ll bring you some blankets before I leave my shift.” After forty-five minutes, he came back with two state-issued, wool blankets. I spread out my sheet over the bed. Before climbing onto the mattress, I banged on the wall that separated me from Charles Manson.

The old man responded, “Yeah?”

“Hey, Charles, see you tomorrow,” I promised.

He replied, “All right. Good night, Soul!”

I lay on bed for a while just thinking. Here I was settled into my new home. Everything seemed to be going as well as could be expected. In the cell right next to me, not five feet away, was the worst serial killer in California, possibly the world. This should be interesting, I thought.

What? Was there no empty cell available next to Adolph Hitler? I laughed to myself. Will Joseph Stalin be in the cell on my other side?

The darkness closed in around me. How did I end up here? I wondered. Am I really that bad of a person?

I am housed alone in a Security Housing Unit (SHU) because I nearly killed a cellmate at my previous prison. It’s not that he was undeserving. He was lucky to get off as easy as he did. As a result of my actions, however, I languish, at least for the foreseeable future, in a solitary cell. The prison administration wants to ensure that what happened to him never occurs to another man.

The cellmate was a child rapist, a predator and a pervert. I have no use for people like him. There is no place on Earth for them, as far as I am concerned. When he and I were first placed together in the same cell, he told me all about his arrest and trial. He assured me that he had no interest in kids, never had, and that he had been falsely accused and imprisoned. He told me that there was a girl who lived near him who constantly attempted to get his attention. When he refused her advances, she got revenge by accusing him of rape. I offered a sympathetic ear, since I know full well that not everyone in the prison system is guilty of the crimes for which they are incarcerated—or any crimes for that matter.

Two months into our cellmate roles, I began to see a different side of my cellie. I noticed that he watched many shows on television that featured adolescent girls. He loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among other programming designed for the younger viewer. It became clear to me that he was paying undue attention to preteen girls on the tube, making inappropriate comments and staring intently. I then began to doubt his claims of innocence.

Please understand: I am not against graphic humor or the ribald joke. I can cast my wit as well as the next inmate. I enjoy a good laugh to ease any tension I am experiencing. Not having access to women makes the humor all the more necessary. Naked women and sexual conquests are a major staple of inmate conversations. However, jokes and humor behind bars never include the abuse of innocent children. All of us have daughters, nieces, sisters, and mothers, who we will protect to the death. Any threat to a young child is a threat to all of us. Consequently, child rapists are the most hated group in prison, far beyond rival gang-members, terrorists, and even imprisoned police officers. There might as well be a price on the head of each sex offender that touched children. Most convicts will harm or kill such an inmate, should the opportunity arise. For me, the opportunity presented itself.

One night, as my cellmate staggered around in a drunken fog, my rage erupted. I rushed him and struck him in the chest with my prison-crafted knife, slashing at him with the shank I concealed in my other hand. I flailed at him until I knocked him out. I continued wailing on him for an eternity that was likely less than five minutes.

“I told you motherfucker, not to fuck with me!” I blurted out, drunk and high on some pills I had taken. “Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? I told you, motherfucker, didn’t I, you stupid son of a bitch? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

I dropped his head in the toilet and flushed it. He belonged there, I thought. Piece of shit! The toilet flushed again and again as the water level rose around my victim’s head. I was only mildly aware that I was the one causing the flushes. I pinned my cellmate’s face deep in the toilet bowl. Knocked out cold, my victim would not know what happened to him until the next morning—if there was a next morning for him. I pushed him away from me in disgust and watched as he crumpled in a heap beside the shit hole.

I dipped my fingers in the pool of blood that was forming around my cellmate, and painted my cheeks with two, six-inch lines of blood. For good measure, I put blood on my forehead. I wiped up some more blood off the floor and gave myself a red sash across my chest from my left shoulder to the right side of my waist. I wanted to parade myself as a victorious warrior, defender of the rights of the victimized child. I was too drunk to think coherently, but it made sense to me at the time. I wanted to make him feel as lowly as the children he abused. I think I succeeded. Unlike him, however, his victims had been innocent minors. I felt pretty good about what I had done; I guessed that others would thank me.

I gathered up my weapons and flushed them down the toilet. I would have to find new razorblade pieces and affix them to plastic handles once the furor of this episode died down. I flushed any other contraband I could locate because I knew that there would be a complete investigation and my cell would be searched from top to bottom.

My next step was to call the guard. It was his job to remove the body and clean up the mess. I didn’t want to face up to what I had done, but the cell was covered in blood and there was a body crumpled on the floor. There was no getting out of this one. I turned on my radio and cranked up the volume when I found the song “You’re Still a Young Man” by Tower of Power. Bracing myself for the inevitable consequences of my violent actions, I kicked the door to my cell as hard as I could. “Get my cellie out!” I yelled.

The watchman who had looked up at my kicking responded. “Why?”

“Because I killed him.” I confessed.

A week prior, I had begun to set my trap. I started to brew some my special blend of prison-made wine. Pruno, as prisoner brewed liquor is called, is as popular as it is plentiful. I had saved up about forty apples, thirty small packets of syrup, and some hot chocolate powder. As part of my preparation, I pulled out my kicker (fermented pulp from a prior batch), and proceeded to create new wine. I knew it would take some time to brew, but if there was one thing I had a lot of, it was time.

Pruno is a crude homemade wine. Though we were a few hours drive from Napa Valley and some of the finest wines in the world, we couldn’t enjoy such pleasures. Prisoners are forbidden to possess or consume alcoholic beverages. The prohibition stopped few inmates from drinking, however. Through trial and error over many years of prisoner experimentation, the procedure of crafting prison beverage had been raised to an art form. Any prisoner can now detail all the intricacies of making an alcoholic drink in a cell, but if a convict is caught with hard liquor, punishment is severe and certain.

The most common recipes for pruno require fruit and sugar, whatever fruit and sugar happened to be available. Raisins are popular and usually plentiful. Grapes and apples are also commonly used. Corn syrup and honey can be utilized in place of, or in addition to, refined sugar. The fruit is mixed with water to make a sludge which is carefully placed over some heat source. In a pinch, room temperature will work though the process is much slower. A heating vent or hot water from the sink is preferred for a quicker batch. As the fruit mash ferments, it produces alcohol.

Many prisoners keep a stock of fruit sludge that can be used to start new batches. This stock, called kicker, is hidden away, out of sight of the guard’s eyes. It is brought out and a portion of it is added to a new blend of fruit mash and sugar. The kicker hastens the fermentation process by introducing alcohol and useful enzymes. Once depleted of natural sugars, a portion of the mash is preserved to become kicker for a future fermentation.

Sugar is the best ingredient for large quantities of alcohol because it ferments quickly and enables even a small portion of stock to produce gallons of brew. There is an art to adding the correct amount of sugar and ensuring that it is completely converted to alcohol. Too much sugar or too short a fermentation period gives the liquid a sweet taste without enough alcohol. Seasoned veterans in a state penitentiary can be as skilled in the art of beverage making as any brew master at Budweiser or any enologist at an upscale winery.

I smashed the fruit until it was a mushy applesauce. I put this and some kicker into a fresh garbage bag with some scalding water to start anew the fermentation process. After two days, I added the syrups. I concealed the bag under my bed, carefully wrapped in a blanket. In all, I had about two gallons of mixture. I allowed it to ferment another five days, a short amount of time for a prison mixture. I was able to speed up the process by heating the mixture three times a day: I lowered the bag into my toilet and doused it with the hottest water I could produce. The blanket served the dual purpose of hiding the bag from curious prison guards and insulating the mixture to keep it warm while it cooked.

When the short fermentation period was complete, I strained the pulp from the wine. I set aside the new kicker for a repeat process that likely would not happen if my plans were successful. I was so excited looking over my new pruno! Never before had I created it so quickly; never before had I made such a large batch. A warm feeling came over me when I thought about my “party” that night. I am not sure if I was more excited to drink to my heart’s content or to serve my cellie a nice, cold dish of revenge. Never would he lie to me again about hurting some poor defenseless girl, and never again would he be able to harm a child without thinking about how he had been paid back by ol’ Wino!

The last step, after straining the mixture, was to cool it. This was achieved by lowering it, still inside its bag, into the cold water of my toilet. Knowing that I was doing this under the watchful eyes of the prison guards, and actually getting away with it, was so rewarding. It gave me a high that was better than any sexual experience. I would get years worth of bragging rights once my plans were successfully carried out.

Just after lunch, when I had reasoned that the wine had been sufficiently cooled, I split the bag open and filled my cup for the first sip. The pruno tasted as sweet and citrusy as it smelled, reminding me of some after-dinner wine at a trendy restaurant. It was as good as anything I had previously concocted, despite being very sweet. Given more time, I could have baked off more of the sugar and raised its alcohol content, but I did not want to wait. Today was the day I had scheduled for my party, the day I would exact my revenge.