Charles Manson Behind Bars (7 page)

Charlie replied in a way that told me that I had successfully calmed him down, “Boxcar, shoot me your line so I can show you something.” I threw my car over to his cell. “Pull it,” he shouted after he had affixed something to it. I slowly pulled and looked at the sheet of paper he had sent me. It was a rules violation report. It explained why Charlie was in segregated status. In painstaking detail, the paper outlined Strawberry’s routine search of Charlie’s cell and the discovery of two weapons each about four to five inches in length, one being a piece of cyclone fence, the other, a large sewing needle. Both had yarn woven around them.

I asked if I could keep the report. “Sure.” He agreed.

“Charlie, will you put your John Hancock on it for me?” I requested.

“Send it back.” He commanded sharply.

I put it back on the fish line and invite him to pull. He dutifully signed it and then pounded on the wall. When I had received it back, complete with his signature, I thanked him.

“It ain’t nothing, Boxcar.”

Strawberry was eventually moved to a different unit. He was given a yard to watch over. Why he was transferred, whether he requested it or whether he was forced into the change, I never knew. I was just very happy to have him go. All of us were tired of his “by-the-book” attitude. Charlie was an old man, a senior citizen: why could Strawberry not just overlook the violation, flush the shives down the toilet and give him a warning? We knew that Strawberry would be an asshole wherever he went, in the prison or anywhere else.

Fortunately for Charlie, the charges relating to the violation were eventually dropped. There were some inaccuracies in the report so it had to be re-issued. Originally, the report stated that Charlie wasn’t a mental health inmate and didn’t need assistance in understanding the charges. However, even though he was not on medication, he was still considered a “J-Cat.” By the time the paperwork was corrected and processed, several months had passed. Because this would have violated Charlie’s due process rights, the prison decided to let the issue, and the charges, drop. The administration may also have considered Strawberry’s inflexible attitude. This may have been the only time in Charlie’s life that the legal system gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Other times in his life, undoubtedly, he was not so fortunate, and may have even been the victim of railroading. For a person with the reputation of Charlie, I would expect no grace and no second chance was given for anything he ever did or was suspected of doing.

One day, I was curious about Charlie journey to Corcoran State prison from Vacaville. “How did you end up coming here from CFA?” I asked.

“They had me sign some papers,” Charlie explained, “telling me I was getting out of Vacaville and they brought me here. I was thinking I was gonna get out, but I never did. They lied to me.

“They gave me a job planting grass and flowers when I got here,” Charlie continued. “Juan Corona built a garden along the side of Building One and Building Two. We had watermelons, honey dew melons, strawberries, carrots, chilies, and bell peppers of all colors. We even had cilantro tomatoes. The guards took some of our produce home with them.”

Charlie was not done talking about his early days in Corcoran. “I used to pass out rubber gloves to the tower guards in all the buildings,” he explained, “until this black dude told the guards that I had marijuana. They sent me to Pelican Bay Prison. My heart started giving me trouble there so they brought me back here.”

“They never should have sent you there in the first place,” I commented. “This is your home. You opened this prison.”

“I sure did,” Charlie agreed, and then his tone turned melancholy as he recalled his first days in Corcoran. “They told me I was getting out.”

Charlie also told me that around the time he arrived, the skinheads sent him a letter with the unusual phrase, “88 is Charlie’s Gate.” The Skinheads thought Charlie was going to be paroled in 1988. Since “H” is the eighth letter in the alphabet, “88” meant “HH” or “heil Hitler.” The Skinheads hoped that upon his release, Manson would send them some money for their cause. When he told me this, I suggested that he might get out in “08” meaning 2008, during the thirty-seventh anniversary of his conviction. Anniversaries always generated more Manson interest. Perhaps that attention could be turned into some sympathy.

His behavior shouldn’t keep him in jail, I thought. He was usually cooperative and obedient. The guards treated him favorably for his cooperation. They would give him extra lunches, which he would promptly give to anyone on the tier who might be hungry.

Many people, because of sensationalized media coverage, only know Charlie from the dark video clips on television. They know him for his female followers who shaved their heads and crawled on their knees several blocks to the Los Angeles Courthouse for his trial. However, the girls didn’t enact those crazy antics only for the benefit of Charlie. My friend made it very clear to me that what they did, they did to protest all injustice: that done to him, but also all injustice done to anyone.

Charlie told me that during his trial, he was never allowed to have witnesses speak on his behalf. Only the prosecution was allowed to have witnesses speak about him and the Manson family, he explained to me. He wanted me to see him as much more than the media “boogeyman” or the face of evil that he had been made out to be.

I asked him numerous times whether he was Jesus or Satan. My questioning was usually prompted by an unusual statement from Charlie in which he implied that he was one or the other of the two (sometimes even both). He had this way of implying it, without actually saying it, in his stories and in his words. In response to each of my queries, he would always reply, “That’s who people say I am.” I came to hear that response from Charlie again and again, “That’s who people say I am.”

I have come to see him as intelligent, creative, and God-only-knows-how patient. He has endured a lot of ridicule for the crimes, the murder of seven people. I never believed that he committed them. Even though he has never denounced the slayings done those two fateful nights, I didn’t think that they should be held against him. Refusing to denounce doesn’t make him guilty. The law states that he has the right to remain silent.

He has chosen to hold his peace even as society made him the scapegoat of all if its ills: the hippies, the draft dodgers, the public protestors across America, and the Viet Nam war. It’s easier to blame him than expect society to take responsibility for its own problems. In fact, Charlie has only been convicted for being the oldest and most influential member of the Manson family. He repeatedly denied ever committing or condoning a murder.

Nevertheless, every year, Manson is convicted all over again in the media. If he were ever retried, he would be found not guilty, and would likely come away with a large settlement for judicial misconduct. I asked him once why he didn’t seek to have his case retried. “Even if my case were to be retried,” he confided, “I might end up back on death row for some other murder they would pin on me.” He told me that he had chosen to live a humble life, living each day to the fullest knowing that his time might be short. Not only was he given a life sentence, but his health was not that great.

He was acutely aware of his physical challenges. On various occasions, he told me about his heart problems, his colon cancer, and his emphysema. In addition to his physical ailments, he was also threatened with death every day from the many inmates who would love to make a name for themselves by “offing” the most notorious convict in America.

Parole did not appear to be a likely possibility to Charlie. He told me that many members of the victim’s families sit on, or control, parole boards, which have a major influence on the Board of Prison Term, the committee tasked with the responsibility to decide whether an inmate is paroled or not. These victim advocates see to it that Manson is not granted parole. It would be nice to think that this kind of activity was rare; however, it happens to inmates all the time. I have seen it.

I have a friend who is serving “seven to life.” In other words, he has to serve at least seven years of incarceration, but his sentence could continue for his whole, natural life. The actual length depended on what the parole board would decide. No matter how many AA meetings this friend attended, no matter what he did to reform his life, he never made it out. After sixteen years, the Board of Prison Term recommended him for parole. When the governor’s office caught wind of the plan, it made sure that he was once again denied parole. That was in 1991. Today, he languishes in prison still.

In the years since the early 1990s, the prison system has steadily taken away prisoner’s rights and privileges. Under California Governor Pete Wilson, rehabilitation programs were stripped away from the inmates, sugar was replaced by cancer-causing sugar substitutes, and rules for possessions have been tightened. It seems that politicians would rather build a new prison than a new elementary school in the ghetto. Charlie helped me see this. It is more profitable and politically beneficial to provide money to richer counties and wealthy communities, than to provide funds where they are needed most.

It is better, in some people’s estimation, to buy a pair of handcuffs than to purchase a school book for a kindergarten student, a book would ensure that a child will turn out successful. Currently, there are more prisons in California than in any other state. That doesn’t even include hospitals, federal prisons, camps, or county lock-ups. When you realize the huge business that the prison system is, and consider the people making money off of it, the job security and profits for investors through state bonds or affiliated companies, it gets kind of scary for the powerless inmate. I have only come to understand this lately. I was never much into politics until Charlie explained to me how so much of our world works. Instead of using its power to gain more power and money, the prison system should be about helping others.

When Charlie and I spoke, our discussion was often about how to help other people. Charlie would say, “Love your brother, help your brother, and help one another.” He would also say, “To love your brother is to love yourself. To love yourself is to love your brother.” He would even sing this from time to time.

His main objective in teaching others was to get everyone to help one another like it used to be. “Everyone in and out of prison is your brother or your sister,” he would tell me. “The true convicts were the ones in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, when inmates were there for those in need. At that time, it didn’t matter if you went to a county jail or a federal institution, if you had a need, others would help you. It didn’t matter whether the other person was wealthy or couldn’t scratch two cents together: whatever you needed would be provided. People helped each other with hygiene items, writing paper, and food. No questions asked.”

We do not see this much anymore, we lamented.

Charlie told me, “If we help one another, we make this world a better place to live. How do we say we are for peace in the world when we are trying to sell a rifle that can kill at 300 yards? How do we say we are for better air when we seek huge profits in our oil stocks?” These are subjects I discussed with Charlie. We would go on for hours.

One time, he really made me laugh. He said, “Tell that cowboy he has to stop driving that pick-up truck because it’s causing pollution in the air. It’s causing birth defects, and the cowboy will say that he needs the truck to drive, feed the cows, and go to the rodeo. He reasons that he won’t be around in 50 years so why should he worry. What does he care about the ozone? Or, what the ozone is, anyway?” We would laugh out loud because it is so true--how easy it is for people to be ignorant and selfish, pretending that it does not matter or that problems don’t exist. He may have been referring to President George W. Bush, but I suspect he meant any cowboy. Charlie was not much into politics, except to point out the enticing trap of power that exists in every part of our society.

One night at about 10:00 in the evening, I had prepared and consumed a large quantity of pruno and was feeling pretty good. I called to Charlie to ask him some questions. Probably, I did not have the nerve to ask him these questions while I was sober.

“Hey, Soul. You over there?” I inquired while banging on the wall.

“How are you, Boxcar? I could smell the vapors when you broke the wine down,” Manson said to me.

“Yeah, I knew you would smell it over there,” I continued. “Charlie, there are some questions I’d like to ask you. Do you mind me asking them? They are kind of personal, but I’m sure you won’t mind.”

“What do you want to know, Soul?” He knew I was drunk from the slurring of my words.

“Charlie, have you ever sucked dick?” I dared to ask.

“Yeah,” he replied without elaborating.

“Charlie, have you ever had sex with a man who was, you know, who was behind you?” I think I stumbled over my words from fear and from pruno.

“Yeah, but I didn’t like it too much,” was his reply.

Charlie answered those questions very calmly, but then snapped at me for my timidity, “Why didn’t you just ask me if I was a homosexual instead of beating around the bush and asking about specific acts?”

“I didn’t know if I should ask you like that and have you feel offended,” I defended myself.

“I said it was all right to ask me some questions, didn’t I?” Charlie asked. “Well, then, it’s okay to ask. You dig?” Charlie was raising his voice by this time, but I doubted that anyone else could hear him.

“In that case, I have a couple more questions for you, Charlie.” The pruno was providing me with great boldness. “What is your favorite flavor of ice-cream and what is your favorite color?” He replied that Vanilla was his favorite flavor of ice-cream; red and black, his two favorite colors.

“Have you ever been to Hayward, Charlie? It’s near Oakland.” I was feeling talkative so I kept up my questioning.

“No, I don’t think so,” he told me. “I’ve been to Oakland.”

“Is that right, Charlie?”