Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars (22 page)

“Hold on there,” Dr. Rotella interrupted. “You’re starting to sound like Charlie. Not all kids are like that. Just a minority. And the reasons are diverse and complicated. You’re letting Charlie get to you. You should pull away for a while, let someone else deal with him and his nonsense. I really think you should consider it, Ed.”

It was a solid suggestion, one that I naturally ignored. Over the months, Dr. Rotella became so concerned about my relationship with Charlie that he invited me on a number of Catholic retreats to see if he could break the spell. These were intense twelve-hour overnight vigils to the Blessed Sacrament that consisted of prayer, sermons, spiritual readings, and meditation. I found them inspirational and soothing, but they did nothing to quell my fascination with Charlie. If anything, my addiction grew.

Dr. Rotella warned me repeatedly that I was heading for a meltdown, but I merely scoffed and foolishly steamed forward, confident that my mental shield was unbreakable.

Dr. Morton Felix was another CMF shrink who Manson loved to jerk around. A passive, rumpled man who smoked a pipe that constantly spewed tobacco fragments on his sweaters, Dr. Felix reminded me of an earthier Sherlock Holmes. One afternoon, the psychologist was startled to discover that an unknown inmate had crashed his group therapy session and immediately dominated the conversation. The strange character wore a baseball hat turned backward (long before that became fashionable) and was toothless. With gums flapping, the guy lectured everyone about exterminating child molesters and Jews, and suffocating women who force their husbands to work themselves to death. Offended by the remarks, especially the grossly anti-Semitic comments, Dr. Felix investigated. To his shock, he later discovered that the inmate was Manson! What was even more shocking was that Manson was a part of Dr. Felix’s group! He had altered his appearance by shaving his beard, getting a haircut, and taking out his false teeth, and was so successful in his ruse that he fooled everybody, including a trained professional. That was Charlie all the way. He’s such a chameleon he can change his shape and colors almost at will.

The final insult came when I heard Dr. Felix complaining one evening that he couldn’t locate a brightly decorated Mexican serape he frequently wore. I had to restrain myself from bursting out laughing. I’d spotted Charlie wearing the poncho earlier that day. Dr. Felix sighed deeply and decided not to report it. Charlie spent the next few months looking like a bad guy from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western—
The Good, the Bad, and the Incredibly Loony.

Charlie’s burgeoning media career remained in full swing, so we got right back into it at CMF just as we had at San Quentin. I brought him the latest batch of requests, we talked it over, and Charlie picked the next journalist to honor with his wisdom. The long-delayed
National Enquirer
interview was finally given the thumbs-up, and Manson had a blast verbally fencing with, and performing for, a pair of the famed supermarket tabloid’s best. After the session was over, Manson posed for a series of remarkable photos that made the forty-two-year-old mass murderer appear cute, boyish, and hip, like he could have easily fit in as one of the Beatles or Monkees.

The reporters, Eric Mishara and Jeffrey Newman, spared no octane when they rushed their scoop into print, referring to Manson as “the messiah of murder” and laying it on thick with the descriptions. “During the rare and exclusive interview,” they wrote, “his eyes were aflame and he talked in staccato sentences, a wild look on his thin face.” When it came to quoting Manson, no hyperbole was needed.

“You see, the average person in the street believes everything that has been written and put on TV about me. They go look at those movies and they read
Helter Skelter
and they think, ‘Wow, what a monstrous monster!’ I’m a monster, maybe, but not a monstrous monster.… I don’t think [Squeaky] meant to kill the President. She was just trying to help us get a better trial and fight for what she thought was right.… Every one of those kids in the Family have saved a lot more lives than they took. If I were to judge the children in the Family, I would judge them as children who love their world enough to do the unspeakable—to do things that no one is supposed to do.…

“No one was picked—no one picked out Sharon Tate and went down there and plotted a course for madness. You have to understand the episode. It was a soul movement, children willing to rise up and change the world. How else were we going to wake up the people that don’t know we cannot destroy our children’s world? I wasn’t there in the house that night, but I was there in spirit.… I’ve never killed anyone with my own hands—but I’ve cut up some people and I’ve shot some people because they pushed me.…

“If I were outside the walls of this prison, I would be living a lot differently. I would be back in the woods somewhere, with a guitar and two kilos of grass … hiding from people like you.”

I thought the article was pretty much on the mark, although I didn’t recall him saying the “I was there in spirit” line. Charlie, however, was enraged, calling it “lies” and threatening to kill the two reporters.

“What did you expect, Charlie? You picked the
Enquirer,
” I reminded.

“I expected the truth!”

“Hell, when your mouth gets going, I’m sure you don’t even remember what you said.”

“I remember everything.”

Following the
Enquirer
splash, Manson hit the big time with Tom Snyder, Diane Sawyer, Ron Reagan (the President’s son), and a host of others. I observed with fascination as he studied his performances and polished his act. He’d repeat expressions and body language that he felt were scary or effective, and eliminate mannerisms that didn’t play as well. It was the same with his long, preachy answers. When he slowed down enough to make sense, he generally pushed his standard agenda about saving the environment, bad parents, abandoned children, etc. The one thing that didn’t change was his refusal to take direct responsibility for the Tate-LaBianca murders.

We got along pretty well during this period. As usual, an external force was destined to poison the well. The years of therapy at her own prison had done nothing to quell Squeaky Fromme’s worship of Manson. The pair still weren’t allow to write to each other, so they were forced to continue to communicate thirdhand. They’d write to mutual friends, or send messages through inmates who were scheduled for release. This meant that everything they received was probably garbled and distorted. It was an imperfect system that blocked the intimacy they each hungered for. Manson pretty much accepted it. Squeaky never did. The moment she discovered that I was back in charge of the circus, the letters poured in. As always, she begged me to allow her to write to him. Sadly, I couldn’t find any loophole that would allow it. Their communications, filled with threats and coded directives for criminal behavior on the outside, were precisely what the corrections department wanted to eliminate.

Rebuffed, Squeaky did the next best thing—she tried to communicate with him through me. Knowing her anguish, I answered all her letters. The problem was, I found it hard to agree with anything she said or felt about Charlie. In fact, in virtually all my letters, I tried to wean her from her aging master, arguing that she was a fool for turning her life over to a worthless man destined to spend the rest of his days in prison. All that did was rile her up. She’d answer with blistering tirades, cursing me for “dissing” Charlie and their special bond. The more I tried to dissuade her, the more frantic and hateful her letters became. One time, she sent a photo of a car that had been completely demolished in a head-on collision. Streaks of dry blood stained the sides. In the background was a garage supporting a large sign that read “Body Parts.” If Lynette had been free, I was certain that another president would have been in serious danger. And if she escaped the attempt, she’d immediately come gunning for me.

Charlie never directly confronted me on my letters to Squeaky, but Pin Cushion said he was really burned up about it. “He hates you for trying to turn Lynette away from him. Other than that, he likes you. He knows you treat him decent.”

I did. And I tried to treat Squeaky decently also, telling her what she needed to hear. She just wasn’t ready to accept it. Despite Manson’s anger, I intended to keep trying until she saw the light. After all, that was my job, to rehabilitate society’s lost sheep. Squeaky could never be rehabilitated until she cut the ties to her strange guru.

On November 6, 1976, Squeaky’s guru was dumped into the hole when officers found a broom handle and half a razor blade in his cell. Remembering how he had voluntarily given up the mop holder at San Quentin, I was curious as to why he was now hoarding this material. He mumbled something about self-preservation and then clammed up. When his week in isolation was finished, he refused to come out. That was typical Manson. Punish him, and he’ll pretend to love the punishment. It was all part of his never-ending campaign to beat the system. I let him stay in the hole a few more days, then sprang him in a manner that kept his dignity intact.

Charlie routinely resisted most of what he was told to do, agitating the guards until their patience ran out. Sometimes he became so loud and abusive the inmates themselves provided the discipline. The phrase “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Charlie” became like a mantra on every wing the former cult leader was housed. CMF was no different than San Quentin or Folsom in that regard. Charlie usually heeded the warnings of his fellow cons, fearful that someone with sensitive ears might slip into his cell one night and slit his bowels. Similarly, whenever he felt threatened, he’d take a swing at a guard, or throw a tantrum, in order to get himself moved. He did this dance my second month at CMF, earning a trip to the psych ward. The docs cleared him, and he came shuffling back. I knew enough by then to toss him into a new cell on a different wing. I didn’t make a big deal about his tactics because he knew more about his enemies than we did, and we would have moved him anyway had he simply told us his life was in danger. He’d never do that, of course, because it was considered snitching.

During my third week, Pin, who had been transferred to CMF, told me that Manson had stopped eating. Investigating, I discovered that the guards, tired of his constant bitching, had threatened to put rat poison in his food to shut him up—permanently. Manson responded by refusing to take the trays the guards handed him. When the guards started refusing to switch them, he became convinced they were poisoned.

“No one’s poisoning your food, Charlie,” I assured him, taking a bite from his lunch. “That would be murder, and it’s easy to prove. The men are just screwing with your head.”

“Well, tell them to fuckin’ stop!”

“You stop irritating them so much and the problem will take care of itself.”

Although that sounded logical, I knew my advice fell on deaf ears. Like a two-year-old, Charlie had a problem understanding “action and reaction.” His brain was incapable of linking the two. I was, however, able to convince him to start eating again.

After Charlie’s first ninety-day evaluation was completed, his case was referred to the departmental review board, a group of central office staffers who monitored notorious cases. I was asked to put in my two cents. “Based on current psychiatric and psychological evaluations, continued programming in Willis Unit is appropriate,” I wrote, figuring a longer stay would be beneficial to him—and me. “Manson is lucid, alert, and functioning in a manageable fashion. Psychiatric support is available in the event of deterioration.” I advised against putting him under less restrictive custody because of the questionable psychological condition of so many of the other inmates. This was, after all, virtually a mental hospital. There were too many sick and injured minds out there for Manson to manipulate. “If Manson is allowed in the general population, it must be recognized that within a short time unwarranted followers and curiosity seekers will flock after him,” I explained. “His ideas, as antisocial as they are, have an in-depth appeal to certain segments of society both inside and outside prison. It is therefore better to retain him under restricted conditions.”

Both of my recommendations were followed. Manson stayed at CMF and remained in lockup. That was fine with him. He liked CMF, and although it was tempting, he knew it was too dangerous for him to be in population among the psycho set. There were still a lot of badasses passing through, and despite Pin Cushion’s mass-attack warning, all it would take was one rusty shank across his throat and it would be curtains. In addition, his racial views were well known. If given the chance, an African American con would surely try to win points with the brothers by stilling Charlie’s voice. This was another aspect of Charlie’s psyche that I never could figure. His instincts for self-preservation were strong. He was like a coyote, always alert and cautious. Yet, when it came to African Americans, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, constantly making blood enemies and putting his life in danger.

Walking through the tier one day, I heard Manson going at it with some Hell’s Angels and other sympathetic cons. “The only things niggers are good for is to cut off their heads and use them for bowling balls,” he cracked. It was just that kind of stupid, tough-guy boasting that was going to get him killed. In this instance, his racist remarks were particularly dangerous. I yanked him from the cell for a private chat in my office.

“Charlie, are you aware that there’s a high-level Black Guerrilla Family member on your tier?” Manson’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. “He came in a few days ago on a psych. He’s a mean, dangerous man. I’d watch my mouth, if you get my drift.”

“I’m not afraid of niggers.”

“I know you’re not afraid, but I’d watch my mouth anyway.”

After that, Manson stayed in his cell, refusing his exercise time on the tier. “I ain’t in the mood,” he spat. When the word came down that the BGF member had indeed heard his crude analogy and was gunning for him, Manson threw a contrived tantrum designed to earn a trip to the much safer isolation ward. Always an expert at manipulating the system, he got his wish—and probably saved his own life.