“Well, yeah,” he explains, “we’ve spent a couple of days and nights together on horseback ridin’ into Mexico.”
“Exactly my point,” the little girl insists. “And . . . apparently . . . you like me?”
“Apparently,” he concedes.
She fixes her eyes on him, and the moment Trudi does that, there’s an audible click sound in the air. It might have just been one of the land-pirate extras playing with the hammer of his pistol, but the timing was exact.
“What do you like about me?” she asks him.
He gets exasperated at having to be this clever, and says, “Oh, I don’t know, Tru—”
She cuts him off before he can say her real name. “Mirabella!” she interrupts.
Correcting himself, he repeats with contrition, “Oh, I don’t know, Mirabella.”
“No, that’s a cop-out, man. You know. If Caleb likes me, he knows why.” Then she instructs, “And you should know why.”
Rick says, “He likes—”
“You like,” she interjects.
He rolls his eyes but goes along with the rules of the game as she has decided it must be played. “Excuse me,” he corrects himself, “I like the fact I don’t hafta treat you like a child.”
“Ooh, great choice.” She claps her hands together in mini applause. “I like that answer.”
He smirks. “I bet you do.”
Pointing her finger to emphasize her words, she says, “So to get back to my original question: You will kill me . . . but you don’t want to?”
“No,” he concedes.
“No what?” she fishes.
He gives in and tells her what she wants to hear, and slowly says, “No, I don’t want to kill you—”
Then she fires back quickly, “But you will?”
“Yes, I will,” he says with conviction.
She holds for a beat, then asks with eyebrows raised, “Are you sure?”
Her question makes him blink.
“Yes . . . I’m pretty sure.”
Her face lights up. “Oh, so you’re just pretty sure now, so maybe not?”
“Maybe,” he confesses.
Then, in a quiet secret voice, she says, “Do you want to know what I think happens?”
With just a touch of comic bite, he says, “Well, I know you want to tell me, so why don’t you tell me.”
She continues to talk in her quiet secret voice, but she does get caught up in the momentum of the web she’s spinning. “Well, I think you think you could kill me. And you tell the other land pirates you could kill me. And you tell yourself you could kill me. But if push came to shove, and you had to do the thing you said you’d do, kill me—you couldn’t do it.”
“Okay, smarty-pants,” he says, “why not?”
“Because,” she tells him, “you realized you’ve fallen in love with me. And you pick me up in your arms and carry me to your horse. And we ride full out—Pony Express style—to the nearest preacher. And at the barrel of a gun, you make him marry us.”
That makes Rick smile, but in a mocking way. “Oh, I do, do I?” he says skeptically.
“Yes you do,” she says assuredly.
“I’m not gonna marry you,” he says dismissively.
“You’re not going to marry me, or Caleb’s not going to marry me?” she clarifies.
“Neither of us is marrying you,” he tells her.
“Why?” she asks.
“You know why, you’re too young,” he says.
“Well, today—yeah, I’m too young. But this is western times. People had child brides all the time back then,” she correctly explains to him. “I mean—back then—it was nothing to marry a girl thirteen years old.”
“You’re not thirteen, you’re eight,” he clarifies.
“And that means something to Caleb DeCoteau?” she asks incredulously. She reminds him, “Five minutes ago, you just talked about how you’d kill me, like that.” She snaps her fingers to emphasize the word “that.” “You told Scott you’d throw me down a fucking well. So killing an eight-year-old’s okay, but marrying me, that’s where Caleb DeCoteau draws the line?”
Rick’s a little lost for a comeback. She sees this and smirks, telling him, “I don’t think you’ve really thought this through.”
“Of course I haven’t thought this through,” he says defensively. “This is your harebrained idea.”
“It’s not harebrained. It might be provocative,” she admits, “but it’s not harebrained.”
Rick gets exasperated and starts to tell her how uncomfortable this whole conversation is making him. “Trudi, I’m not comfortable with—”
But she interrupts him before he can finish. “Jeez Louise, Rick, we’re not doing it! It’s just a simple character thought experiment. They do it all the time at the Actors Studio. The script is the script. And we’re doing the script. In the script, Lancer does pay the money. So you never have to make this choice. In the script, Johnny kills you, so none of this will ever happen. But at the Actors Studio they ask the question: What if the script didn’t say that? Then what would your character do? Then what choice would your character make? It’s simply about understanding who your character is when they’re not dictated by the text.”
“Well, maybe, just maybe, I don’t wanna get married,” he counters.
“Well, you see now,” she gestures with her hand, “that’s a choice.” Investigating further: “So then, it’s not about my age. And it’s not you don’t love me—”
He interrupts, “I never said I loved you.”
She completely dismisses his last statement. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course you love me. So, it’s not my age, and it’s not you don’t love me, it’s just Caleb’s not a marrying-type guy, right?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“So we’re just shackin’ up?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well, it just stands to reason,” she states logically. “We’re together, we’re in love, we’re not married, so we’re shackin’ up. I can do that.” Then clarifies, “For a little while. But at some point I’d make you marry me.”
Skeptical, he repeats, “You’d make me?”
“Yeah,” she explains, “that would be a huge part of our dynamic.”
“What would be a huge part?” he asks.
She explains, “That you’re the boss, you run the gang. They do whatever you say without question. However, when nobody’s around? I’m the boss! And you do whatever I tell you.”
I can’t fucking believe this little midget, Rick thinks.
“Oh, I do, do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“And why do I do whatever you say?”
“Because of a power I have over you. If I didn’t have this power, you’d’ve thrown me down the well, like you said you would. But it’s okay, you like the power I have over you. I mean, I’m the boss, but I’m a good boss, and I would never use my power in a negative way against you. Because I love you. Not as much as you love me. But I still love you.”
“Okay,” he asks, “what if I don’t?”
“What if you don’t what?”
Challenging her theory: “What if I don’t do what you tell me to?”
“Now, remember,” she reminds him, “I would never reveal the power I have over you in front of the gang, or anybody else for that matter. To the world, you’re in charge.”
“Okay, I get that,” he tells her. “But you said, I do whatever you tell me to, right?”
“Yes,” she says. “Like a dog. It’s a command. And you must obey.”
“Really?” he says, smirking. “What if I don’t?”
She emphasizes, “But you do.”
“Now who’s a slave to the text,” he counters. “You wanna play What if? What if I don’t?”
“Well . . .” She thinks about it for a moment. “It stands to reason that there would be a few times—at first—you didn’t. And that’s when I had to punish you.”
&nb
sp; “You punish me?” he asks.
She nods her head yes, then concludes, “And after I’m through punishing you, you always do what I want.”
And it is at that moment, as Rick is trying to think of something to say to that, that Sam Wanamaker yells to his actors, “Action!”
And Caleb and Mirabella act out the scene.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lady of the House
Squeaky, of all the girls at Spahn Ranch, enjoys an enviable position. The women at the ranch hold a second-class citizenship inside “The Family”; they’re definitely considered inferior to the men. But Charlie makes it a point that they are also inferior to the dogs that live on the ranch. Whenever a Family woman wants to eat a bowl of food, she has to offer it to a dog first. Almost none of the females hold any position of authority (least of all Mary Brunner, the first member and the mother of Charlie’s child, Pooh Bear).
I say “almost” because two females do hold a special place inside of the Family’s hierarchy. One is “Gypsy,” who, at thirty-four, is by far the oldest of the Family women. Gypsy’s position amounts to an officer in charge of recruitment. Whenever a young lady or man is lured to the ranch, the first stop is to introduce them to Gypsy.
But it is the pixieish Squeaky who holds the closest thing to an authority position inside of the Family’s social structure. The reason the Family can stay at Spahn Ranch is due to a deal Charlie made with the property owner, George Spahn. And it is Squeaky’s responsibility to take care of George.
George Spahn is an eighty-year-old man, who for decades used to rent his movie ranch, with its back-lot western-town main drag, to Hollywood for movie and TV productions. Back in the day, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, and Jake Cahill rode their horses down the Spahn Ranch main drag. But in recent days, Hollywood has gone elsewhere, and the former movie set has fallen into disrepair. It is still used from time to time for photo shoots for magazines and album covers (the James Gang shot an album cover there). The ranch still has horses, and they still offer follow-the-leader type horseback rides to families through the Santa Susana Canyons.
But now the only movies shooting at the ranch are dirty movies with a western theme or grade-Z Al Adamson exploitation flicks. Also, George Spahn has gone nearly blind. The old man who was forgotten by the industry has found companionship in Charlie Manson’s “Family.” For the most part, he stays in his little house, which is perched on a hill, overlooking the western-town back lot. The house is cluttered to the gills with old western memorabilia, which George can no longer see, representing the ranch back in its heyday: Framed movie posters of old westerns that used George’s ranch as a location, and photos faded from direct sunlight of older actors who shot at the ranch. A western-saddle collection and even a couple of actual George Montgomery–sculpted cowboy and Indian statues.
And presiding over George and the whole household is Squeaky. And when it comes to taking care of George, Squeaky has proved both adept and invaluable.
This has allowed her an autonomy inside the Family dynamic that other ranch women can only dream about. For one, she stays in the house. And she has positioned herself as “the lady of the house.” A position even George doesn’t challenge. It might be George’s ranch, but at some point it became Squeaky’s household. The other girls have to do ranch work and dumpster-dive. Squeaky has to cook for George, dress George, take care of his house, and keep him company. The other girls eat rancid garbage, stale bread, ugly vegetables, bruised and rotten fruit, and sometimes have to blow or fuck supermarket employees for the privilege to pick through their trash. Squeaky cooks and eats real food that George buys. Sure, she has to throw a fuck George’s way every so often and jerk him off every once in a while. But she doesn’t really mind that much. Besides, she’d much rather monkey around with George than fuck those sleazy biker assholes that hang around the ranch. But also, since George plays the country-music radio station all day, Squeaky is really the only Family member with a connection to the outside world. But along with eating real food that comes out of a refrigerator as opposed to a garbage dumpster, the most enviable thing about Squeaky’s position, ensconced inside the house with George, is her television privileges.
Charlie doesn’t let his kids watch television. When they were children and their parents forbade or restricted their television viewing, they claimed it would rot their brain. Charlie says it will steal their soul.
The truth of the matter is, the only real way Charlie can keep control of these kids is if he controls their environment, and their reality. Charlie isn’t worried about them watching TV shows. The allure of The Beverly Hillbillies, Gomer Pyle, Get Smart, and Gilligan’s Island isn’t going to challenge his authority. It’s the commercials (the real opium of the masses) that Charlie worries about. The seductive reinforcement of forbidden fruit, which they once enjoyed but have now forsaken. He doesn’t need short films, made by the geniuses of Madison Avenue, produced with the sole aim to entice, to remind his kids of the life they’ve left behind. In head-to-head competition with the parents that they distrusted and resented, Charlie would win. In direct competition with the establishment they despised, Charlie would win. In direct competition with a philosophy contrary to Charlie’s, Charlie would win. But in direct competition with the remembered pleasures of Tootsie Rolls, Froot Loops, Clark Bars, Hires root beer, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Revlon lipstick, CoverGirl makeup, and Flintstones chewable vitamins, at some point Charlie would lose.
But Squeaky can watch all the television she wants.
While it may have been the offer of sex with Squeaky that initially sealed the deal with George Spahn, in practice, it’s Squeaky’s caregiving that makes their position at the ranch secure. Squeaky keeping the old man company. Dressing him, taking him out on walks, cooking for him, watching TV with him, describing to the blind old man what the Cartwrights are doing when they watch Bonanza.
But today Charlie and a large group of the kids are away in Santa Barbara. So as they say, when the cat’s away, the mice play.
Squeaky invited a group of kids up to the house to watch TV. Seeing as it’s Saturday afternoon, they’re watching the Dick Clark rock block on ABC. First American Bandstand, hosted by Dick himself, and then the Dick Clark–produced show It’s Happening, hosted by Paul Revere and the Raiders. Today’s guests are Canned Heat.
As befits her position in the house, the freckle-faced Squeaky is sitting in George’s comfy reclining chair, in full recline mode, bare ghost-white legs sticking out of Levi’s cutoffs stretched out in front of her, watching the television screen through dirty bare feet. The other five Family members, passing a joint amongst each other, lounge on the couch and the floor.
On the television, the theme song to It’s Happening, performed by Paul Revere and the Raiders, plays out of the little TV speaker, as the show’s opening bumper flashes by. It consists of black-and-white footage of Paul Revere and lead singer Mark Lindsay in dune buggies, hopping and bounding over sand dunes rather recklessly (so recklessly Mark Lindsay almost killed himself filming this opening).
While everybody taps their foot and nods their head to the groovy song, Squeaky hears, in the distance, a car pull up to the entrance of the ranch. Immediately, the little woman pushes herself out of recline mode, and her bare feet hit the floor.
“That’s a car,” she says out loud. She grabs the big chunky remote control, clicks the volume button two times, and listens with intent. She hears distant engine noise and the sound of tires on dirt. “That’s a strange car,” she deduces.
The young woman snaps out a military-like command: “Snake, go see who’s outside.”
“Snake,” who is the youngest of the Family girls, plops off the couch and walks from the living room through the kitchen to look out the screen door. The young girl peers through the dirty screen as her eyes search out the automobile. George’s house is located on top of a hill at one end of the ranch. From her high perch, Snake can see the whole property. She looks down what’s
left of the old western movie set and at the beginning of the main drag to where people park their cars. That’s where she sees the big vintage yellow-cream-colored Cadillac.
“Do you see anything?” Squeaky squawks from the living room.
“Yeah,” Snake calls back, “a really bitchin’ yellow Coupe de Ville. It’s some old-looking dude in a Hawaiian shirt who just gave Pussycat a ride home,” Snake reports to Squeaky.
From the other room: “Did he just give her a lift?”
“Nope,” Snake informs her. “She’s bringing him down to the ranch to meet everybody. Gypsy just came out to greet them.”
Squeaky reclines back in her chair and hits the volume button on the boxy plastic remote, turning the sound on the TV up again. “Stay by the door and tell me if he starts coming this way.”
Snake watches Pussycat and the Hawaiian guy talk to Gypsy, as, little by little, other female members of the group join the circle. From Snake’s perspective, they all seem sociable, and she can hear laughter and giggles from time to time. Even “Tex” Watson rides up on horseback along with Lulu, speaks a bit to the Hawaiian guy, then rides off.
“What’s goin’ on?” Squeaky demands.
“The Hawaiian guy seems to be okay,” Snake reports. “Everybody’s talkin’ all friendly. Tex even came over and checked him out, then rode away with Lulu.”
“Keep looking,” is Squeaky’s order. “If he comes this way, let me know.”
Then, about ten minutes after Tex and Lulu ride away, Snake spies a change in dynamic between the Family girls and the strange older male in the Hawaiian shirt. Now the laughing and giggling seem to have stopped. As does the loosey-goosey hippie-dippy body language of the Family girls. They start becoming still, stiff, and defensive. Then Snake sees the Hawaiian guy look up toward the house and even gesture toward it with his finger.
“Something’s up,” Snake relays. “The girls are acting weird, and the Hawaiian guy is pointing toward the house.”
“Motherfucker, I knew it,” Squeaky says.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Page 27
