No Journey's End: My Tragic Romance with Ex-Manson Girl, Leslie Van Houten

by Peter Chiaramonte

  She didn’t look up, which I happily took as my cue to leave.

  I walked through the halls like a recreational skater cutting clockwise against the flow of students and teachers moving half as fast in the opposite direction. I had nearly two hours to spare over lunch, so I grabbed a bowl of chili and crackers in the teachers’ lounge, put my feet up, and tried to forget all about how Leonard Cohen’s “Portrait of a Girl” was received by the class overall.

  Fooling myself into believing I wanted to be alone, I picked a table in the farthest corner of the teachers’ lounge away from the smokers and those I assumed to be cheating at cards. I continued reading Bugliosi’s book and taking notes about Leslie Van Houten to get my mind off the energy of slaves run amok. ‘Wrong poems for this crowd,’ I wrote in my diary.

  It wasn’t too long before another student-teacher doing time at Leacock Collegiate—a cool-looking guy I’d seen around the Faculty of Education building downtown at the U of T campus—asked to sit down and join me. His name was Jean Cousineau, and he offered me one of the honey crullers he had in a box. He said they were fresh, but I said no thanks to the donuts.

  Jean had dark wavy hair pulled back tight in a ponytail and a classic Frenchman’s nose that reminded me of a young Yves Montand. He was wearing an open white shirt with denim Levis and had on one of those awful Harris Tweed blazers you often saw teachers wear in the movies. He said he was practice teaching French language and literature all term. I asked him how it was going.

  “This place is more-or-less the same as the others,” he said with a shrug. Then he asked, “How do you like it here?” I frowned at first and kept my book open.

  “Not exactly having the time of my life,” I said. “I more-or-less hate it.”

  Right away Jean recognized what I was reading and asked me, “What’s your interest in Manson?”

  “Not Manson so much. Rather Leslie Van Houten. She’s more interesting than Manson or Bugliosi and much better looking.” I felt myself smiling for the first time since class ended.

  “Van Houten. The cheerleader…the pretty one, right? No. Not the cheerleader…the homecoming princess. That’s right. What’s your interest in her?”

  I pursed my lips and frowned. I suddenly felt a tinge wary and jealous thinking he might know as much or more about Leslie than I did.

  He asked instead, “What’s your take on Charlie Manson? A creep, eh?” An easy presumption.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “They should’ve executed that goof with a maul and punch hammer,” he said very matter-of-factly.

  I put the book down and invited Jean to keep talking. We seemed to hit it off well enough. It was good to make contact. We discussed everything at a rate of a hundred miles per hour—Helter Skelter, The Beatles, Sharon Tate, LSD, Rosemary’s Baby, Polanski, sodium pentothal, deep hypnosis, Albert Camus, Aleister Crowley, Siddhartha, astral projection, Terry Melcher, and Dennis Wilson. It turned out Jean knew more about Manson than I did. But I had him beat on The Beatles and Roman Polanski.

  “You know,” Jean said, “all the Manson girls gave themselves over to Charlie completely. They were primarily a sex and drugs cult. My take on the case is he perverted their minds with acid and orgies to the point that they no longer had any will of their own. He knew what he was doing. You bet. He’s one ugly monster.”

  I agreed with all that, but let Jean carry on.

  “I have a buddy...a writer,” he said, “who knows a lot about the whole gory fiasco. He told me something over a month ago…what was it? I didn’t realize at the time. He might have been talking about the retrial of Leslie Van Houten. I’ll remember to ask him.

  “By the way, do you know? The judge upheld his ruling against all the others, including Manson of course. They still stand convicted of first-degree murder. That’s what I heard. All except her.”

  “Yes, I’ve read that in the papers,” I said. “From what Bugliosi acknowledged the first time, Leslie had been no more than a ‘mindless robot.’ So how could she plot first-degree murder? It never made sense to try her alongside the others. She didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Did you know she’s going to be getting married? Yeah. Some ex-con who publishes books by other convicts in prison. ‘Prose From Prison’ or something like that.”

  I cringed when I heard this news of a rival but tried not to show it. After another long pause, Jean continued.

  “She wasn’t there the first night at the Tate house, was she? Just the LaBiancas’. If she’d testified against Manson, she’d have gotten the same deal they gave to Kasabian. She’d have gotten off. Why’d she turn that one down, I wonder?”

  “I’ll ask her,” I said, showing off. Feeling careless in general, I went on to blurt out, “I’ve written her a letter care of her lawyer, in fact. I’ll write another and ask her.”

  “Really? Has she written back?”

  “Only just sent it.”

  “What did you write her about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Told her I’d read about her retrial in the paper. Wished her luck and expressed my support. You know, that sort of stuff. Plus, I think she’s a fall-down, beautiful-looking girl. And there’s something about what happened to her I identify with...”

  “You said all that in a letter?”

  After a pause, I admitted, “What I said was that I thought what happened to her could have happened to me...or just about anyone else under similar circumstances.”

  Jean said he had to leave right away to meet with his “associate.” Either way, that last bit sure shut him up. Both he and I had afternoon classes to teach. So, after he finished the last of his coffee, he got up to leave.

  We promised to meet up again soon. I’d see him around. And, since I still had a little more time left to myself before my next class, I drifted back to Vincent Bugliosi’s opening statement from the Manson trial. Something about it wasn’t right by a long shot.

  * * *

  On behalf of the people of the state of California, Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi stated that Charles Manson was the dictatorial leader of the Manson Family; everyone was slavishly obedient to him; he always had other members do his bidding for him; and he ordered followers to commit the Tate-LaBianca murders on command.

  In his opening statement in 1970, the Deputy DA is quoted as saying, “Manson’s total domination over the Family will be offered as circumstantial evidence that on the two nights in question it was he and he alone who ordered these seven murders.” He and he alone.

  Then why so insistent on executing all the others, including Leslie?

  Vincent Bugliosi portrayed Leslie Van Houten as an indoctrinated robot driven savagely out of her mind by the Devil incarnate. And, at the same time, he depicted her as a free-willed individual, acting with logic, cunning and the cruelest prevision imaginable. Double bind or double blind? I for one was cross-eyed by the Deputy DA’s circular logic. The jury may have been duped, but not others. (Bugliosi ran for Los Angeles District Attorney in 1972 and 1976 and lost both times.)

  Even the courts were temperate enough to wade through his bullshit without getting their feet wet. On February 18th 1972, the California Supreme Court voted six to one to abolish the death penalty. The Manson murderers’ sentences were reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. That’s what the law said. Something about cruel and unusual punishment. I wondered what the law had to say about psychosis and premeditation.

  With so much evidence to support Manson’s domination over the others, I didn’t understand how the prosecution could find Leslie responsible to the degree she was charged. One of the prosecutor’s expert witnesses testified that the easiest way to program someone to murder is to use fear. Convince them that “others” are threats that must be stopped, or else they’ll eat your babies. Furthe
rmore, Mr. Bugliosi discussed the ways Manson used fear to make his followers’ sense of themselves disappear, so he could replace their will with his own. In fact, Bugliosi admitted, “Whether he perfected this technique in prison or later is not known, but it was one of his most effective tools for controlling others.”

  Had Leslie been at the LaBiancas? Yes. Did she struggle with Rosemary LaBianca? Yes as well. But to what extent had she willfully and meaningfully taken part in her murder still wasn’t clear from physical evidence or previous testimony. That was all madness. Therefore, there had to be mitigating factors. And Mr. Bugliosi’s interpretation also seemed to be warped, hollow, and fairly unfinished. In other words, sketchy.

  * * *

  The time came for me to start packing my gear and head off to teach another round of Canadian poetry. Time to put Leslie Van Houten aside for the moment. If one wanted to become a tenured academic one day, you had to start aiming to teach something to somebody somewhere. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, I felt compelled to give it a try. I figured I’d come this far already and was close to getting my ticket stamped, whether I wanted to use it or not.

  When time was up and class let out, I noticed a scrum of three or four of the girls gathering in the hall outside the classroom. Ms. Kressler had already vanished with two other students in tow. This gaggle stood away from the door where everyone else was passing. Finally, one student stepped forward, clearing her throat. Her first name was Donna. The only word I understood at first was that I was “wrong.”

  “I’m often ‘wrong’ about many things, Ms. Reed,” I said. Then gave a smile over her shoulder to the group that had gathered around. “What is it this time?”

  “Just wrong!” she resounded. After a pause, she added, “And I’m not coming to class if you’re going to keep reading poems like you...like the things you said. Poems like that.”

  This last bit came out all at once but still sounded fractured.

  “Poems like what?” I taunted. “Which ones offend your fine sensibilities?”

  My tone wasn’t polite or very professional, however that sounds. I kept hoping she’d get quiet and back down, only she didn’t.

  Donna suddenly wasn’t so shaken as she was only moments before. She glanced around at the others who stood staring from nearby their lockers. Then she spoke very clearly, looking me straight in the eye.

  “Leonard Cohen, Mordecai Richler, and Irving Layton. They all used women and then bragged about it,” she protested. “Their poems are sick, filthy and vulgar. Bragging about...about having sex with fifteen-year-old girls. It’s disgusting! We’ve complained to Ms. Kressler. Just want to warn you. I’m telling my parents when I get home.”

  It seems Donna was becoming accustomed to the adrenalin in her bloodstream. Feeling outmatched and exposed, I waited as long as I could before firing back. Nothing but bitterness burned at the edge of my tongue. It’s fair to say I was naïve and in deep, over my head.

  Tangled up with a frustrated temper I said, “I’m sorry you didn’t like the poems. But these are well-respected poets and you can’t blame me for Mordecai Richler. Pin that dud on Kressler. The poems are legit and that’s how I presented them.

  “Tell you what, though Donna. Why not take a spare next time I’m teaching and save both of us from wasting our time?”

  Right as I said this, I wished that I hadn’t. But I kept on talking anyway. It must have come out worse than I thought. Ms. Donna Reed broke into tears and then she and her mob shuffled away among echoes of crying.

  Acting calm, though I wasn’t, I walked out the nearest door like Michael Corleone leaving the restaurant from where he’d just shot Sollozzo, and I headed straight for my car. The MGB started right up, and I drove away without warming the engine. That’s not like me at all. I needed to think more clearly but didn’t know where I might gainfully start. Now wasn’t the time for strategic thinking. I lit up a joint to think things through and drove along Sheppard Avenue toward the Don Valley Parkway, still feeling anxious.

  Traffic was stacked up as usual, until I turned off at Bayview. The road was bumpy and wet. I got the car a bit bent out of shape braking late at the entry to Rosedale Valley Road. A twitch left and then right around slow pokes let me expend some aggression. I still hadn’t quite settled down, narrowly missing some oncoming traffic racing through two miles of blind winding corners. It only seemed right to take a few chances.

  I parked in the lot across from Varsity Stadium beside St. Hilda’s College. From there, I jogged the rest of the way to Hart House looking for Andy Higgins. He wasn’t at the track office, in the weight room, or by the lockers. I searched each face in the Arbor Room. All without luck.

  “Absence haunts the café,” said Jean-Paul Sartre.

  I was just about to give up and go find a couch in the library to crash on, when I spotted Andy coming out the archway of University College. He stopped and waited as I sauntered up.

  3

  The Diablos Café

  Andy suggested we go inside to stay warm. The Diablos Café lies hidden beneath a labyrinth of corridors and stone spiral stairwells, deep inside the main quadrangle of University College. When I was a kid living less than a mile away on Yonge Street, I used to sneak off to go there alone. Under floodlights at night, with its pointed arches and flying buttresses, UC looked just like a Disneyland castle. Legend has it that, during its construction in the 1850s, a Russian stonemason named Ivan Reznikoff was courting a beddable debutante with family ties to the city. The young lady was also seeing another of the masons, a Greek immigrant named Paul Diablos. According to Toronto folklore, Mr. Diablos carved one of two of the gargoyles adorning the college in the image of Reznikoff. The other was of himself, laughing behind poor Ivan’s back.

  When Reznikoff uncovered proof of his girlfriend’s infidelity, he confronted his rival near the construction site with an axe. Reznikoff chased Diablos through the unfinished tower, leaving a scar on the door that remains visible to this day. Afterwards, both of the men and the young lady mysteriously vanished from Toronto. Decades later, after a fire in 1890 severely damaged the college library, the corpse of a man was unearthed in the debris. Although these sorry remains were never identified, the gargoyle hasn’t stopped laughing.

  So it was into the dark but illustrious confines of the Diablos Café that Andy and I descended. We each ordered coffee, and he sat down while I waited. He’d chosen a point away far from the madding crowd in the corner of the large open room.

  Cradling a pint of hot coffee, Andy asked, “So what’s this about?”

  I held up my hand, shook my head and remained silent a moment while I swallowed.

  “Tell me what hap-pened,” he said, in the curious way he had of emphasizing certain words by elongating their syllables.

  “I had a complaint from a student today who got defensive and lost it,” I said.

  Pinching my shoulder with his palm, Andy spoke softly, “Lost it how? Was this about teaching or something else?”

  “After class. I was trying to do something different with an intro to Canadian poets. I’d planned a lesson on Irving Layton’s notion of ‘poetry as the fine art of pugilism.’ I wanted students to connect with something current in place of good ol’ E.J. Pratt and Bliss Carman. But some of the girls said they were offended by the sexual satire expressed by these younger poets.”

  “What did your supervisor have to say about sexual satire?”

  “I don’t know. I split in a hurry. Never hung around long enough to find out. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. More than ever, I’m convinced teaching high school isn’t for me. Do I stop wasting my time or fake it for a few weeks longer ’til I get the certificate stamped?”

  Andy leaned back and said, “You know what they say? First you have to be part of the system before you can s
tart trying to change things.”

  I moaned when he said it. I’d heard that so often it was all I could do not to yawn. No wonder nothing ever gets done.

  “Everyone says that, don’t they? I’m not trying to change things, Andy. There’s no room for anything even remotely current in this whole wearied curriculum. No wonder they have Bliss Carmen putting everyone’s feet to sleep.”

  “It’s not meant to be cutting edge,” Andy explained. “They expect you to teach what’s well-established. That’s all. You have to prove you can do that before you go off on a tangent.”

  “From what I’ve seen in the system so far, they only teach what they’ve been taught. There’s nothing new or self-taught about it. Why keep folks like Holt and Summerhill on the shelves if we’re going to ignore them? If teachers were force-fed To Kill a Mockingbird in grade nine, then that’s what and how they teach when it’s their turn.”

  Andy asked, “What were the students complaining about?”

  “Some of the poems I chose. Probing and poking some fun at uptight sexual mores and prudish behavior...”

  “Which poems are we talking about?”

  “Leonard Cohen and Irving Layton…some early Mark Strand. Mostly poems about poetry. You know. ‘Where are the poems that led me away from everything I loved…’ That sort of thing. Poems about love, sex, and art…some of the kids were impressed and turned on.”

  “Then, that can’t be what they complained about,” he said, shaking his head. “What else did you say?”

  “I read them some tongue-in-cheek stuff like: ‘the 15-year-old girls I wanted when I was 15.’ Honestly, Andy, I thought that was the perfect poem to read to fifteen-year-olds. Only it seems that has gotten some girls’ skirts in a twist.”