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

by Peter Chiaramonte

  What do you think that mark is on your head for?

  Les was right. It wasn’t just a narcissistic put-down. It was just as much a comic put-on. Who did he think he was fooling now? Was he threatening to have Squeaky Fromm assassinate her in her cell? He’s going to turn the Earth’s water to blood and acid—I thought that was just a metaphor. I wrote to Leslie to say it amazed me to see how seriously he took himself and how little he had to go on. He didn’t think much of Leslie or anyone but himself. And his thinking—such as it was—garbled his veiled threats into a laughable lameness. A lot like his lyrics and unimaginative, jailhouse moaning.

  As McLuhan said, “In retrospect, all things are obvious.”

  * * *

  All that winter of my discontent, every time Les would call or pick up, I felt there were always a thousand more things to say that we never got to. I couldn’t rest, so I stayed awake late almost every night when I knew she would call. If I felt the least bit drowsy, I’d swallow the drug-soaked cotton from inside a Benzedrine inhaler and stay up for an entire weekend. Prior to class each day, I read cut-ups that I had pasted from Shakespeare and various authors of confluent education. “One Day in a High School: A View Through the Chalk Dust” roused some reflection on my part.

  Stanislavski was also having an effect. Instead of going back to the first act of Othello, I began again with a five-minute synopsis of all five acts of the play. Then, I proceeded to skip ahead to Act 2, Scene 1, instead of continuing from where we left off. The second act begins with Othello’s Lieutenant Cassio welcoming Emilia, the wife of the villain, Iago, to the city with a kiss—a common form of sixteenth century Venetian courtesy. I thought this would be a fun place to begin for the students. With a kiss! This is how I set up the scene:

  “Roderigo has an obvious passion for Desdemona. Cassio toys with him the way some boys play with others they know have a huge crush on a girl. Got it?”

  I thought this was something these kids could identify with emotionally.

  My lesson plans for several weeks were to hopscotch our way forwards and backwards throughout the play but never at random. We skipped most parts of the play entirely on purpose. We moved in and out of various scenes, as if we were shooting a film out of sequence, and openly discussed which scenes to include and which to leave out. I thought we were all beginning to have fun. I was too much of a dunce to check. So it caught me off guard when I heard gossip coming from some of the students. The word going around was that my approach meant nothing but chaos. Some were complaining about how this would affect their exam marks.

  Martin Bijaux was in town for one night on his way back to Montreal for a visit—family business. His brother, Guy, was in trouble with the law. Martin picked Yorkville Village to meet, and I picked a spot near the corner of Hazelton Avenue. The name of the place, which I forget, has changed a dozen times since then. I arrived first and chose a quiet table with a view of the Cumberland walkway. That’s where all the fashion models and showy shoppers strut their stuff. I was indulging my second Seagram’s Five Star with water when Martin came in from the snow, hauling his suitcase.

  “I’ll have the same, Miss. Thanks,” he said. “Just rye and ice. Well, Peter. This part of town has sure changed since the sixties.”

  “I don’t miss the bikers,” I said. “So tell me, how was your trip to Acapulco? Did Jean enjoy his vacation?”

  “Most of the time, yes, he did.”

  “When is your piece on the resorts coming out?

  “I still have to write it,” he said. “Great weather though. Jean got sick near the end so I think he was glad to go home. How about you? How goes it with teaching?”

  “Oh, so you heard? You hear everything, don’t you? It’s only for a few more months, until June. Then I’m headed back to LA and Leslie.”

  “Her trial starts very soon. When are you going to see her?”

  “March break. We’re planning a quick trip up the coast to Santa Barbara. I have an interview at UCSB to take care of. I’ve applied for the doctorate program in education.”

  Martin’s eyebrows pointed north.

  “Good luck with that. Listen, Peter. I’m not sure how to say this or whether I even should...”

  “Say what?”

  I could sense some dread already.

  “Ah well...a guy I know who works at the Times says he knows your friend, Peters. Anyway, I’ve told him about you and your relationship with Leslie. Thing is, this guy said he heard something else about her being seen with some guy at the paper. Could be a reporter...”

  “When was this?” I asked, taking a sip from my glass and feeling the certain onslaught of anguish.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a week ago.”

  The look on my face led Martin to add, “Then, I take it, it wasn’t you he was talking about?”

  The week right before her trial was to start, Leslie called me while on a road trip with our friends, Michael and Jane Malone. They took the motorhome. That was about a week after I’d sent her a caustic letter recounting Martin’s report. Most of it I conjured up out of self-doubt and envy—my own poorest of rivals. She hadn’t received the letter yet when I called.

  “I’m still sold on our living close by the campus in Isla Vista, aren’t you?” Leslie said, phoning from her room at the Big Sur Lodge, right beside Pfeiffer Park. “What week in March are you coming back, handsome?”

  “I’ll call Air Canada tomorrow to reconfirm the flight,” I said. “I’ve asked my brother for Thursday the sixteenth. There’s a direct flight arriving after nine at night. Will you be there, or will you be busy?”

  Those words were bad enough, but it was the tone of my voice that I most regretted. In mid-sentence, things changed completely without warning. It wasn’t planned—not at all. I was just ready for any excuse to explode.

  “Don’t start picking a fight,” Leslie said.

  But it was too late. Haunting images of some other guy taking my place possessed me. Where does shit like that come from, I wonder? My brain seemed to have tripped the auto-destruct button, and it felt as if I was taken hostage on a runaway train.

  “If you’re seeing somebody else,” I rushed to say—imagining the worst possible set-up—“then what the fuck! Maybe I should cancel completely.”

  Coolly, Leslie said, “Peter, I understand you getting jealous, but I think it’s a waste of time and energy. It’s childish, honey. You’re a better man than that. Yes, I do attract attention, and I don’t think you should be alarmed about it, because I’m not. If I fed off it...or phony-assed to get it...that would be one thing. You know you can trust me.”

  “Is that what I know? That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying it makes me look like a fool…which I am, let’s face it…” I ranted on. “Friends hear rumors that I can’t defend…” and so on.

  “Rumors are just that,” Leslie said. “Rumors. There’s nothing to defend. Don’t blame me for that too. It’s you that always listens to rumors. Why not trust me instead?”

  Trying to shift the blame to someone else, I said, “I’m sure Judy has been just aching to set you up with some friends of hers. That way, she can be rid of me and start catching your overflow.”

  “What does Judy have to do with anything? I thought you wanted a truce on that. So what if that sort of thing happens? Means nothing to me. You think I’m so easily impressed with… whomever....”

  “Fucking forget it,” I said.

  “Peter, I’m feeling like...rather than freaking out...you should be more complimented than uptight. If I encouraged it, that would be different. I am not a cheap tramp, and you know that. We have so many things to talk about and to share. Please don’t make this into something it isn’t.”

  “What’s there for me
to feel complimented about?” I shouted.

  “That I love you. Don’t be a bonehead.”

  Her voice tested honest—another strange threat to my ego.

  I ended the call.

  “I’ll let you know about the sixteenth when I’ve decided for sure if I’m coming. Bye for now, Leslie.” I said, and hung up abruptly.

  I dressed for a six-mile run as far north as Steeles Road and took off at a clip there and back. I had a long and cold shower afterwards, then I got high and tried calling Leslie to apologize. No reply at any of the places I knew to call. I put my feet up and watched The Grapes of Wrath on Mom’s Betamax.

  The next week, Leslie telephoned to warn me of a change of plans in terms of where we would be staying when I got there in March. After all the cruel bullshit I gave her over the phone and in a letter, Leslie was gracious, as always, and sure to forgive me. I assumed this reprieve would last until the next time I made a similar gaffe and cracked under pressure.

  She said, “I had it together that you and I were going to stay at Linda’s in March. She was going to be gone on vacation, right? Now, she told me she’s staying. She said she’d go to her girlfriend’s and leave us alone, but that’s dumb. She knows I’m not the kind of person who throws somebody out of their own house.”

  “So, where else should we go?” I asked.

  Then, out of the dark, I barked, “Or is this just your way of letting me down? Something more you aren’t telling me?”

  “Stop it. Don’t even start, Mr. Snide Remark. I thought we were past all of that nonsense?”

  “I’m sorry, Les. I’m making excuses for being such a mess, not really sleeping and hating my job. I swear I’m defenseless. Jealous, jealous guy.”

  Leslie paused to take a deep breath.

  “One option we have is that we’ve been invited to stay at the Malones’ in Laguna.” She spoke serenely. “I love it there, don’t you? Their place makes me yearn for us having a space of our own to call ‘home.’ I like the collections of things they have gathered. Simple things. Baskets, small vases, seashells, photos, and prisms. Slowly we will accumulate our own history the same way. I’d love for us to stay there the whole time; only it’s a bit far to go during the week if court is in session. Let’s plan to spend the weekend with them, once we get back from Santa Barbara. But, for the rest of the time, let me check around.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say, boss,” I said, letting her tone calm my anxiety.

  “We could spend some time either at Judy’s or Mom’s. That’s the easiest. There’s more space at Judy’s. More privacy too. I’m beginning to see there isn’t enough room for me to go on living at Linda’s. I need more space of my own until we get a place. Even if it’s just for the short term.”

  I said, “I ache just thinking about how far away you and I are. I’m sorry. That makes me jealous over all the time lost.”

  “Peter… I’ve haven’t dared to think about it much. Who am I kidding! I think about it all the time. I just don’t say it.”

  “Don’t say it now, then.” I’d guessed what it was. “That’s not the plan, remember? Things are tough enough, and we don’t want to jinx it.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s hard to consider, but, win or lose, they can’t keep me locked up forever. You’re worried that I might not get out right away and think of this as time lost. But we shouldn’t see things that way. I see this as time spent building our future.”

  Warping the subject slightly, I asked, “What is Max saying?”

  “The poor man is completely exhausted already,” Leslie sighed.

  Another long pause.

  “Wish you were here,” she said. “But we’ve discussed all of this over and over. This trial scene sucks. But we have no choice right now but to see this stage through.”

  “You know, Leslie, I know I’ve been an awfully bad boyfriend. I’ll try to be a better man from now on.”

  “You mean that...I know you do, honey,” she said—whatever that meant.

  “I’ll wait for as long as you want me to,” I said out loud.

  To myself, another voice whispered...but I will not pine any longer…

  17

  O Desdemon!

  Air Canada Flight #793 arrived in Los Angeles on time, just after nine at night. Leslie was waiting for me in the arrivals’ lounge when I stepped off the gangplank. She was lovely and beaming, just like, yet unlike, any other pretty girl at the airport waiting to meet her boyfriend. I spotted her right away through the crowd chaos and clutter. She was wearing a pretty white blouse under a new faded-blue denim jacket and a pair of my boots and jeans. And she never stopped talking or smiling the two hours it took us to make our destination, one hundred miles up the road towards midnight.

  We drove the whole way to Santa Barbara without stopping. Having the top down tousled her chestnut brown hair and even pulled strands of it out from under her scarf. It was just before twelve o’clock when we checked in at the Holiday Inn in Goleta. We had the pool to ourselves, so we took a quick, quiet swim under the starlight. The water wasn’t terribly warm, so we didn’t stay in. Leslie kept both arms wrapped around me under a blanket as we hurried back to our room. She had on a bright-colored caftan over her swimsuit, but neither outfit lasted long. I thought it was exciting the way she let them fall tangled inside out on the floor with the towels.

  Still on TO time, I woke up early and went for a run along Cathedral Oaks Road for two miles in both directions. When I got back to the room, Leslie was just getting dressed. Before I changed for a quick jump in the pool, I spotted a gift box propped on my pillow. I waited for Leslie to say it was all right before I dared to open it up.

  “Is this for me?”

  How pale that must have sounded. I slipped off the ribbon.

  “Have a look-see,” Leslie said. “It’s months late, I know, but it’s taken this long to have made. It was supposed to be for your birthday. Happy late birthday,” she frowned.

  Then, still sweating from my first warm weather run in a while, I followed up with a big smacking kiss on her mouth. Inside the box was a shiny medallion hung on a box-linked silver chain.

  “How perfect,” I said, taking it out of its cradle. “Here, help me to clasp it on.”

  I turned around and felt the tips of Leslie’s fingers on the nape of my neck.

  “Leslie, I promise I’ll never take this off. Not so long as I’m breathing.”

  I crossed my heart with her hand in mine. She draped both arms around me and kissed me ever-so gently that, for a moment, I couldn’t tell where my body ended and hers began. I’d never been kissed like that before, nor ever since that I can remember.

  She told me, “Liberty dimes are ninety percent pure silver. Did you know that?”

  “Same as you and me,” I joked. “Ninety percent pure, but imperfect.”

  Leslie had found out the reason these coins are commonly referred to as “Mercury dimes” is based on a mistaken assumption. The face on the coin represents Lady Liberty, not the swift-footed messenger of the gods. I liked them both, and I said so.

  Leslie said, “I had a silversmith cut out the face of one coin and weld it on top of the other. See the relief? So there are two faces and not just one. Do you like it?”

  “It’s hidden. I love it,” I said, propping the coin on my thumb for a closer look in the mirror. “This will always remind me of you...forever and always.”

  I kissed her again on the lips and then pushed her back on the bed with her knees bent up to my shoulders.

  She pushed me off saying, “You need a swim or a shower.”

  There was a delicate hardness to her voice.

  “Do you know what these wings are supposed to represent?” I asked, looking down at my medallion.

  “The guy in the shop said it
has to do with ‘freedom of mind’...or ‘faith in the future.’ Something like that.”

  “Either one works for me. You know what Saint Augustine said about faith in the future?” I teased.

  “Not that I can recall,” she said, pinching the lobe of my ear with her fingers.

  “He said, ‘Faith is to believe what you do not yet see, and the reward for that faith is to finally see what you believe in.”

  Then, with a broad smile, I pulled down my sweats to prove a point I believed in. Crude, I grant you, but I was healthy and happy—however imprudent. So I jumped in the shower.

  Leslie and I held hands all throughout breakfast in a restaurant in Isla Vista, sitting outside on a patio close by the corner of Pardall and Embarcadero del Mar. This time, we skipped the hunt for more rental places with overgrown gardens needing attending. Instead, we shopped in a few funky shops where there was great music playing. Goo-goo ga-joob.

  After that, I took Les for a tour of the campus. Everything seemed scented with hashish and sandalwood wherever we went, except the Bank of America.

  The University of California at Santa Barbara is bordered on three sides by the Pacific Ocean. Much of its early architecture was based on sixties-style tinted concrete blocks with Spanish tile rooftops in among odd leftover barracks. All of the buildings at UC were surrounded by lush, tended gardens with plenty of tall palms and aromatic eucalyptus trees planted around. We strolled past Storke Tower, wandered the malls, and toured inside the Davidson Library. Les was inclined toward the azure lagoon, so we walked down the sandy path that led past sea cliffs to the beachfront.