No Journey's End: My Tragic Romance with Ex-Manson Girl, Leslie Van Houten
Page 8
I went searching the library stacks for texts tangentially related to these saturnine interests of mine. (Some of that was a nasty surprise I will tell you about later.) I signed out books by Alan Watts, Eric Hoffer and Stanislav Grof. And, for articles from the LA Times and the Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, I took dimes and nickels to photocopy them. The first thing I did when I got back to the flat was to tape the Times’ photo of Leslie to the wall in my room. No, I wasn’t building an altar. But I did love the way she’d started to wear her bangs all the way down over her eyebrows. I caught myself looking at this image every now and then to study her eyes under that hood. Meanwhile, I read more about the year she spent under the spell of Charles Manson. A year can be a long time.
The Manson cult’s bivouac at Spahn Ranch was really a semi-deserted assortment of ramshackle buildings, dusty dirt roads and a broken-down production set where old TV westerns used to be shot. It was a bit of a surprise finding out what a relatively small following of zealots he actually had at the time. There were only ten or so girls and less than half that many young men in Manson’s diehard cadre of true believers. Then there were maybe another dozen or so who came and went on the margins. Not exactly the army I had previously imagined or was led to believe.
The really hard part for me wasn’t just reading about the gangs or the weapons so much as the orgies. Manson would send the girls on reconnaissance missions to conscript new guys for the Family by bringing them back to the ranch. That’s how, in fact, they hooked up with Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson. Leslie’s friend, Patricia Krenwinkel, captured that jewel in the crown when she and another girl had their thumbs out by the side of the road, and Wilson stopped his Ferrari.
I found it cruel to imagine how an intelligent girl like Leslie could put up with that way of life, given her noble standalone qualities. And, in terms of the desire to share intimacy in the form of eros, I had a hard time imagining how so many pretty girls would ever submit to sex with the likes of Charles Manson. But what did I know? It’s easy to judge at a distance. My prejudices had to be cast aside to make room for the fact that these guys held special charms for Leslie—another puzzle without all the pieces.
Could all I was reading really be true? Sexually, there appears not to have been any limit to what the women would do for Charlie, the rest of the men or each other. When Charlie was done with a girl—sometimes in front of the troupe—he might turn her over to one or more others for dirty seconds. For Charlie, prostituting biddable girls through the ranks may have amused him. In any case, the girls’ sole purpose was to be submissive to each of the men and particularly him. A lot depended on what drug-dealing bikers were willing to trade for the girls or for car parts.
Manson’s chief procurement agent, Paul Watkins, described the orgies that took place, usually once or twice a week, saying they would always start out with peyote or acid. Charlie would dispense doses of drugs according to how much he wanted each person to take.
“Everything was done at Charlie’s direction,” Watkins told Bugliosi.
Several witnesses to these goings-on at Spahn Ranch testified in court as to Manson’s canny ability to capitalize on an individual’s hang-ups or desires. Some were there searching for sexual freedom and romantic adventure. This kind of ball game became Charlie’s pastime. Like Jean said, everybody wants something wicked sometime. Just ask Roman Polanski.
When asked how Manson would usually go about “programming” someone, former Family member Brooks Poston said, “With a girl, it would usually start out with sex.” Charlie might persuade a plain-featured girl that she was beautiful. Or, if she had a father fixation, have her imagine that he was her father. If a guy or girl was looking for a leader, he might imply that he was the second coming of Christ. When a man first joined the group, Poston added, Manson would take him on an LSD trip, ostensibly “to open his mind up.” Then, while he was in such a highly credulous state, Charlie would talk about how he had to “surrender to love.” How only by ceasing to exist as an individual “ego” could he become one with all things everlasting.
That wasn’t all. If you stayed for the extravaganza, you might get to see Charlie Manson, aka Jesus Christ, having himself strapped to a crucifix. All the while, a young girl playing Mary Magdalene knelt and cried at his feet, as he routinely acted out the passion play of Christ on the cross.
A seventeen-year-old Brooks Poston testified at the first trial that Manson’s claim to divine status wasn’t so much stated as implied. Charlie claimed to have lived two thousand years before and often referred to himself as both “God and the Devil.”
Tex Watson described Manson as a chameleon. “And with each change he could be born anew...Hollywood slicker, jail tough, rock star, guru, child, tramp, angel, devil, son of God,” Watson wrote in his book, Will You Die For Me?
This was a powerful question under any circumstances but especially if the right Beatles song happened to play just as you were peaking on acid.
* * *
The Park Plaza Hotel was a grand hotel located at the northwest corner of Bloor and Avenue Road across from the Royal Ontario Museum. Jean called up to the room and Martin Bijaux’s brother, Guy, came down to the lobby to greet us. Guy was more fair-haired than his older brother and more boyish looking, with a thin frame and straight hair halfway down to his shoulders. I guessed he was in his early twenties, but he may have been slightly older.
Guy invited us up to his suite where he said he’d left a friend of his waiting. When we entered the room, he introduced us to Mike Palmer. The room had a spectacular view of the city lights facing south. All four of us stood at the window staring out at the city. When I was a kid growing up, the citadels of banks and office towers reminded me of giant crystals. The tallest buildings in the city are its church steeples, but, today, the banks are the true cathedrals of worship in our so-called free enterprise culture.
We all got to talking and drinking 50 ml bottles of liquors mixed with cans of soda from the mini bar. Before anyone said what the plan was on offer, Guy opened a duffle bag and pulled out a small box.
“Here it is,” he said, when he found what he was looking for.
Guy unscrewed an engine-turned container with a polished plate of pink and blue elephant ivory adorning the top.
“Very elegant,” I couldn’t help saying. It really was precious.
“What’s inside...even more so,” Guy added.
“What is it?” Jean asked.
“Blotter acid,” Mike said, as he leaned forward from the edge of the bed. “Pure LSD-25.”
“Who wants a hit or two on the house?” Guy smiled, looking around at each of our faces. Then, he pulled out a strip less than an inch long with measured doses lined in rows on one side of the paper.
Jean said, “This comes with the room service, does it?”
Guy laughed. Mike and I smiled.
I said, “I really shouldn’t be dropping anything this late in the evening. Not tonight. I need to sleep. I’m supposed to be somewhere by mid-day tomorrow.”
“It’s up to you,” Guy responded, as he carefully cut eight 4 mm squares with a pair of barber’s shears and lined them up in a row on the table. Each one had the image of a ripe strawberry on it, the notice of which made each of us smile after Mike pointed this out.
“Thanks, no. Really I shouldn’t,” I said, holding my hand up to tap my heart. “Not that it matters,” I threw in as an afterthought.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Jean said. I waved him off, so he put the rest of the blotters back in the jar.
“Mike works at the El Mocambo,” Guy said, changing the subject. “Word is Keith Richards may be there tonight, maybe playing with a band calling themselves the Cockroaches.”
“I can get us all in for the show,” Mike proudly added. “That’s where we’re planning to go.”
Jean looked enthusiastic.
Then, turning back to me, he said, “You’ll get enough sleep before dawn, Peter. Where’s your nerve for adventure? Afterwards, you can always take a couple of those pills you gave me the other night. That should chill you out and bring you down in plenty of time before dawn. This is an event, my friend. Let’s make a night of it.”
The three of them swallowed a whole blotter each, and Jean borrowed the scissors to cut his second piece in half. Then, suddenly, I changed my mind and let my good conscience go. On a reckless whim, I licked my finger, pressed it onto one of the halves, then washed it down with the last swigs of Mike Palmer’s Smirnoff and tonic. Whatever regrets I might have later, I’d crossed the Rubicon.
Walking out on to Bloor Street from the hotel an hour later, I asked Mike, “Isn’t Keith Richards supposed to be under ‘house arrest’ at his hotel?”
“Not exactly,” he said. He explained that police had detained The Rolling Stones guitarist in February, when he was charged with possession of twenty-odd grams of smack. That’s a lot. He and his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, and their three children had been detained in their suites at the Harbour Castle Hotel ever since without their passports.
“Heard tonight he’s plannin’ to be at the El Mo. It’s a kinda coming out party. Who knows who else might show up?”
“Something I’d like to see,” Jean announced.
We then talked about music, school and sundry before we headed out on foot down “Philosopher’s Walk” behind the museum.
Turning to me, Jean asked, “Are you feeling anything yet?”
I shook my head. Then, only seconds later, I started to notice objects on each tumbling horizon seemed a bit closer and louder. I could also feel waves of vibration whenever a passerby came close to our party, especially as we made our way down the path between the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.
The El Mocambo, or “El Mo” as it is known, was housed in a building first used as a safe house for American slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad. It’s been a bar and music venue for more than a century since. The place stands on property south of College Street on the west side of Spadina Road. The El Mo is considered a stronghold of rock ’n rhythm and blues by savvy fans of the genre.
The club was packed tight to overflowing by the time that we got there. Music was pouring down the steps in a torrent. Mike’s friends let us in, and one of them took us straight upstairs in no time at all. The place was bustling with excitement, and so was my mind as I really began to take off. There was no place left to sit. So, at first, we leaned on the wall beside the piano. The stage was set just a foot off the floor and the band was playing a yard from the edge of the crowd. In back of the stage, there was a sunset mural with palm trees that began bristling and spinning as I swept around.
I wasn’t that big of a Stones fan myself, but I could see why their groupies adored them. I’d always liked the quiet detachment in the way Charlie Watts beat out his signature rhythms. There was a pianist right where we stood who none of us recognized. The same goes for the bassist, who was playing alongside the drummer. Up front, guitarists Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards were having a blast. Whiskey bottles adorned the tops of their amplifiers. Mick Jagger was singing and prancing between them. It wasn’t just the firestorm of a crowd that appeared to be crackling and swelling. Jagger’s jumpsuit was unzipped pretty far down with the pulse. The proud package below was done up so tight it looked like it might be about to bust out of its socket when he belted out the old blues travel advisory…telling me to “go take that California trip,” on Route 66.
Familiar lyrics acquired new meaning. I, for one, started seeing things that seemed like they’d been there all along only darkly hidden. Even things at a distance came abruptly into focus instead of the other way around. I’m not just figuratively speaking. After “Route 66,” I began to feel a tinge claustrophobic and my skin started to crawl. Just a tingle at first, then I noticed myself either involuntarily clenching my teeth or starting to yawn. Everyone in our gang kept smiling and looked happy enough. I couldn’t tell. My mind changed pilots so often. Nothing was certain. Whose mind was it after all? When I looked in the mirror after taking a break in the washroom, all I could see were the whites of my eyes inside the head of a wolf. He or she was as curious about me as I was about him or her. I couldn’t tell its sex from its fangs or its snarls.
When I got back to my pack by the piano, I signaled that I had to be leaving. Jean tried to say something I couldn’t quite comprehend—even if he had gotten all of his words out. I gestured and mouthed something to signal I’d be sure and give him a call.
Then, I waved goodbye to Guy and Mike and said, “Thanks again for taking us out.”
I turned and bumped into the Hindu goddess, Annapurna, and she gave me an instant hard on I swear it. As I writhed my way down the stairs, a dark-haired woman’s face came close to mine, and I noticed something odd but strangely familiar about her. When I looked back, I could see diamond-crusted dragonflies chasing each other around her eyes where there should have been lashes.
7
“Please tell me
you’ve missed me”
The radiators moaned all night and the house shivered like a dog asleep dreaming. I toughed it out and just kept rolling along into dawn. At first the daylight made every object—including myself—appear out-of-rest and in continuous motion. Then, I’d close my eyes for an instant. When I opened them again, everything ground to a halt. My jaw ached from hours of clenching. So I prescribed myself a joint, a fist full of aspirin, and brewed mugs of scorching hot coffee to wash them down. I kept trying in vain to remember all of the last night’s ineffable, dazzling bright moments and wrote down what I could recall in a letter to Leslie, sans the acid.
I managed to fake my way through the indoor track meet that day at the Canadian National Exhibition. The University of Toronto Blues won the overall Ontario universities’ Guthrie Trophy, which Buck and some of the guys brought with them to celebrations that evening at the Bay Street Groaning Board. We were so far ahead early on that I hadn’t stayed to the end. I was happy my friends did so well though, but I slipped away early when it no longer mattered if each of our relay teams dropped their batons. We still would have won. Despite the elation of feeling a small part of it all, I realized there was nothing left for me now in terms of competitive athletics but to watch just like any other spectator. That thought made me feel just a bit sad and dejected. I felt the same way about leaving athletics as I felt leaving the farm. We truly do not know what we’ve got ’til it’s gone. And that’s a shame.
I heard the telephone ringing, when I staggered back to my flat. I needed to sleep, so I ignored it.
First thing Sunday morning, the phone was ringing again. It was Jean.
I asked him, “How’d you boys make it out of the El Mo after I left?”
“You should have stayed for the masquerade that unfolded,” he said. “Mike introduced us to some beautiful people he knows. Some of the ladies were quite fascinating creatures. It was a lot of fun. Guy and Mike were still there when I left. I grabbed a cab and went home about four in the morning.
“How about you, Peter? How did things go? What did you do after you left the club?”
“Drifted around. Sat in Queen’s Park for a while in front of John Simcoe’s statue. Had a lot on my mind. But I’m not sure where it all went. Tried writing. No luck. I’m making no sense, am I?”
Then, I thought I heard someone else in the background, so I asked him, “When does Gabe get back to town?”
“Yes, we should make a date to go out soon. See another film or something. I’ll call you and arrange it. Oh! Wait, Peter! I almost forgot. Did you hear who else was there at the El Mo last night? Did you see her? The prime minister’s wife, Maggie Trudeau!”
“Did you say you saw Margaret Trudeau?” I had my doubts, but it turned out Jean was right. She had been there that night, as a guest of Ron Wood and the Stones. Everyone wants something wicked sometime.
“I guess I should have asked Maggie, ‘What’s with the dragonflies?’”
“Huh? Ah…yeah, but poor Pierre though, eh?” Jean said. “Imagine. Our PM...a cuckold!”
I said, “It won’t surprise me if this spells the end to their marriage. Sounds as though there’s trouble in paradise. It makes you think though, doesn’t it? About marriage I mean. There’s always tears at the end of it.”
When what I was saying sounded back and sank in, I couldn’t just leave it alone. So I added, “And with each new beginning there’s always the risk of betrayal, eh Jean?”
Soon after that he hung up. I couldn’t think why so abruptly, until later.
“Kisses for Gabrielle,” I said aloud into a hollow receiver.
The whole time we were on the telephone talking, I was cutting out horoscopes, photos and quotes from Newsweek and February’s Playboy interview with Alex Haley. As was my habit, I kept a shoebox of clippings and pictures I’d glue or Scotch tape to the pages and envelopes I was sending to Leslie. Some of my letters looked like the pages in Marshall McLuhan’s The Mechanical Bride—photos and drawings, plus lines I stole from drunken poets like Charles Bukowski. Everybody is always angry about the truth, though they claim to believe in it. Wisdom that I applied to thinking about Leslie’s prosecution.