Charles Manson Now (19 page)

Because the overwhelming majority of the Manson family members were women, I asked Star to explain Manson’s masculine appeal. “He’s a patriarch,” said Star. “A real man, not a momma’s boy.” She further explained that Charlie is absent of ego at the same time he is fully responsible for his own unique character. “He didn’t really have parents the way most people do. He kind of raised himself, learning from a lot of different people, a lot of different kinds of people. He’s his own person; he’s unique.” Star attributed some of Charlie’s charm to his talent and good looks. “I know that, if nothing else, the other girls simply enjoyed watching him move, like I do. He’s got his own motions.”

I enjoyed my time with Graywolf and Star in the comfort and simplicity of their home. Their space is a testament to their values: small and efficient, absent of frivolities like television. Framed photographs of friends and family members hang about the walls. Star and Graywolf have ATWA friends all over the world, and so there is a small computer set up in the living room. Propped up against the couch are a guitar and a violin. Star and Graywolf are both passionate and accomplished musicians and they specialize
in traditional mountain music. They are vegetarian and Star is a great cook. They spend as much time as possible out of doors.

We spent the rest of my visit going through old photos of Charlie, and I listened, rapt, to the many Charlie stories Star and Graywolf had to tell. Most of the photos were from their visits to Corcoran Prison. These shots depicted Manson in various roles and poses, almost as if he were an actor. There were photos of Manson wearing dark sunglasses, Manson with a Bible, preaching, Manson playing chess, and Manson acting like a goof. The collection is a candid look at Manson, unlike anything I’d ever seen. In a few other pictures he is looking directly into the camera and, though he has aged, he still showed the same intensity, inherent in all of the infamous photographs taken of him in his younger years.

In one photograph, I noticed Star was wearing a string of beads that now were hanging nearby, on a wall by a calendar. Curious, I asked her if the beads had any sentimental value. Star told me that Manson had made them for her out of toilet paper. He’d given the necklace to her the first time they met in person. “He turns the paper back into wood,” she explained. She removed them from the wall and handed them to me to examine. The beads were large, yet light, pretty and purplish in color. It was clear that a lot of care had gone into making them. Already aware of how difficult it can be to obtain art supplies in prison, I asked Star how Charlie had managed to paint his creation. She told me Manson used whatever he could get his hands on: ink pens used for letter-writing, mustard left over from lunch, even his own urine if nothing else were available.

We talked about collecting, some of the other creations
Charlie works on in his cell. Graywolf sat beside me on the couch and presented a small black box. He carefully removed the lid, revealing an object obscured by thin tissue paper wrapping. Graywolf gently uncovered a miniature string-art spider, the most rare of all Manson collectibles, handmade in secret from thousands of knots formed in the thread Charlie unravels from his underwear. Graywolf explained the tenderness with which Charlie forms his art-animals. He talks to them, even sings to them while he shapes their rounded bodies and spindly legs, as if to infuse them with life. They take months to make and are extremely rare, so, though I had heard about them, I had never actually seen one.

I’d spent a full day with Graywolf and Star. It was getting late, and I was getting ready to leave. Graywolf asked me what my plans were for the next day. I explained that I was going to meet and visit with William Harding, another friend of Manson’s, a collector of true crime memorabilia who visits numerous convicted killers across the country. William had amassed one of the largest collections of true crime artwork and artifacts in the world.

Graywolf and Star said they wanted to send me off with some music. Graywolf got his guitar, Star picked up her violin, and they proceeded to play some of the finest traditional music I have ever heard. I was completely taken aback. They played three or four songs for me, we said our goodbyes, and made plans to get together in a few days. As I walked to the door, Graywolf called after me, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” I was confused until he handed me the small black box with the string spider inside. “Serious?” I asked. Graywolf smiled and said, “Yah, just make
sure you give him a good home.” The door closed behind me. I could hear Graywolf and Star resume playing, the music slowly fading as I walked to my car.

Manson called later that evening. He said he’d been ready to visit that day, but hadn’t gotten called down to the visiting room. I explained what happened, and assured him I would contact the warden as soon as possible. I told Manson about the rest of my trip. He seemed pleased I’d connected with Graywolf and Star.

The News

Prison is something that was invented hundreds of years ago that had a reason, but there’s no reason for that anymore. They’re still living in the shadows of forcing people to be in cages and they don’t realize what’s really going on, that everybody that’s doing that is going to be killed. What are you doing? What are you doing with all these kids locked up in cages? What is it doing? It’s not doing anything. It’s just making it worse. What is crime? They don’t care because they don’t believe it, they don’t know what it is. It’s got to be a movie. They’re starting it at the border but then the news press won’t give it to you. What the news will do is they’ll give you a little bit and then they’ll take advantage for their news and work it out for what they’re doing.

They got the little community, the news community, like, they’re not going to tell you that they’re running out of water. They’re going to go somewhere where they can have water, and if you’re running out of water then you won’t know it until after it happens because they’re not going to give you the news. They’re going to give you what they want you to hear. They’re dealing you what they want you to know. And unless there’s a whole bunch of people getting killed at one time, they’re not telling you that there’s a war going on around you. You know, they’re saying, “Oh well, thirteen people got killed at the border over there, but that was drug related, that’s all.” There’s nothing wrong with drugs. They’ve got a big problem made out of drugs. Sell them in a drug store. If somebody wants drugs, give them drugs. They want to arrest everybody, put everybody up against the wall, lay them down on the ground and ruin their manhood over nothing. It’s still a stupid fucking game left over from old movies.

That’s what this state is doing now, man. By the time you get the news it’s too late. By the time you find out I mean, and then when people find out they just read it like it’s coming from somewhere else, like it’s an act, and all you got to do is change the channel, and it’s all right. Man, you can’t talk to them. They won’t listen. You tell them something, and they look at you and say, “Yeah, you’re right.” They shake their heads and get right back in their cars and drive down the road. You tell them they got to give that automobile up, man. They say, “Yeah, we know.” They’re not going to give it up, man. They got airplanes that fly over this place and they got contrails that stretch out fifty miles. And then the guy that owns it, he’s got his own airplane, he’s flying it to Canada.

He thinks that his ranch in Canada will survive because he’s using up all the land here for cotton. And he’s sucking all the energy up out of the planet over here, thinking that he’s got his little biosphere, that he can hide somewhere else and get away because he’s got all kinds of money and lawyers doing what they say and all that crap, so there’s just no end to it. It’s just so big, man.

Butcherman

Butcherman got out of San Quentin and picked up this little hippie chick, and he says, “You know, I just got out of prison, I want some pussy.” She says, “No, I don’t think so.” He says “I’m gonna take it.” She says, “You can’t take it. I’m protected by Jesus.” He says, “I’m Jesus. I’ll just take it, and I’ll be Jesus.” So, he just took it, and said, “See, now I’m Jesus.” She said, “No you’re not.” He says, “I’ll just kill you, and I’ll be Jesus.” She says, “You can’t kill me. Jesus protects me.” So, he hit her in the head with a wine bottle, and put her head under the tire. When the highway patrol busted him, he was driving back and forth over her head on the highway, and he had his Bible with him. They got him and put him back in the nut ward, and put him in the cell next to me. He had a single-edged razor blade, and he was using it to make picture frames. This cop came up to him, and said, “You’re not bad, you’re just a punk.” And here’s where he got the name Butcherman.

He stood up to the cop and said, “Mister, you don’t even have any idea what bad is.” The cop said, “I know what bad is.” Butcherman took the single-edged razor blade, and grabbed his [own] ear and cut it off, and then he grabbed his other ear and cut it off. He had both his ears in his hand, and he stuck them in his mouth, and he chewed them up, and he spit them in the cop’s face. He said, “That’s bad, you son of a bitch!” He said, “As soon as I get out of my cell, I’m going after your motherfucking ass. If I did that to myself, you know what I would do to you.” He said, “I’m Wilson, you remember that!” And I said, “I christen you Butcherman Wilson.”

So, Butcherman would come out on the same exercise yard as me, ‘cause everyone was trying to get me pushed over the edge, and they sure wanted someone to take care of Butcherman ‘cause they couldn’t handle him, no one could handle him. All the doctors turned tail, and ran like rabbits, like they was all runnin to Canada, trying to get out of the rain. You know how that goes. That place was thriving with insanity, everybody was crazy. You up on Pat Kearney? He was the guy who went and got all those Roscoes. He cut them off and put them in mason jars, the trash bag killer. He was a hell of a dude, man. He had a valid point of view, according to me. He didn’t think that fear should be God. People were using fear to get that Roscoe over as God, so he said he had God in a mason jar.

Can You Lie?

Well, an intelligent person realizes you got to have someone to blame so everyone else can get off, you know, find someone that you can put the blame on and you blame them and then you go on about business as usual. I find there’s two people you can’t lie to: first person or the last person. If you lie to the first person, there ain’t nowhere you can go to get away. You can only run in one direction. If you lie to the last person, there’s no way to get away. You can only run in one direction. And if you’re in the middle and you lie, you can most of the time get away with it for a long time before it catches up with you. But the idea is, like, to give a fuck, really?

IX
MURDER FOR SALE

After I left Graywolf and Star, I found my way back to LA, then to Hollywood. I had driven by a tourist spot, The Museum of Death on Hollywood Boulevard, several times over the previous few years, but I’d never stepped inside. Things were different this time. The next day I would be meeting with William Harding. An expert in true crime and serial killers in general, he is often consulted for various projects, papers, articles, and books. William is unique, not only because he has amassed one of the largest collections of true crime memorabilia in the world, but also because at the same time he has befriended some of the most notorious inmates in the American prison system. As I endured everything on my mind, Hollywood seemed to lose its luster; things began to seem surreal. The Museum of Death looked like the perfect destination.

The Museum is situated about a mile from the tourist area of Hollywood Boulevard. The building itself invokes a curious combination of charm and foreboding. I noticed first the huge, white, wrought-iron gates guarding the exterior, designed to intimidate any would-be thief. Atop the gates grow thick, impenetrable vines, which burst into a halo of red blooms about the cranium of a large cross-hatched rendition of a grinning human skull.

I had seen Manson memorabilia on display before. I’d encountered his art for sale in a New York City gallery and, in Tennessee, I’d visited the Ripley’s museum, which boasts a Charles Manson exhibit complete with a set of Charlie’s prison
clothes. The last time I traveled to Niagara Falls, I found myself face to face with a Charles Manson replica in a wax museum. Manson is a pop culture phenomenon, an icon, and so I felt pretty confident that the Museum of Death would possess some interesting Charles Manson relics.

A soon as I entered, I was greeted by its curators, JD and Cathee. They were incredibly knowledgeable and excited to explain the exhibits. I paid the small admission and ventured inside. One of the first rooms was dedicated to the entire embalming and burial process. There were rows upon rows of equipment beside funeral-home handouts like promotional fans and matchboxes. The size and content of the collection could be overwhelming; there was truly a lot to take in. JD and Cathee told me they’d spent years collecting the macabre treasures and the carefully laid out displays showed how prized each piece was. Taxidermy, specimens suspended in jars, and some of the most disturbing photos I’d ever seen. Suicides, autopsies, murder scenes, the aftermath of a man hit by a truck. There was graphic documentation of just about every way a human being can cease to exist. I saw stuffed remains of animals that had once been the pets of celebrities like Jayne Mansfield and Liberace. A diorama featuring the Heaven’s Gate suicides had been constructed; it featured an actual bed seized from the scene and clothing worn by one of the deceased draped over a lifeless, life-sized figure. The purple cape adorned with patches of the cult’s logo was mind boggling to behold. I walked through a room dedicated to serial killer artwork, which featured pieces by Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, and Ottis Toole. I was surprised to find nothing of Manson’s on the walls.