Restless Souls

by Alisa Statman

  “You could have chosen not to publish the song,” I said.

  “That’s not true. Under our legal agreement with the band, they have complete creative rights to include that song on their album.”

  “Are you saying that if Axl Rose wanted to put a repulsively offending song on his album that you couldn’t stop him?”

  “Quite frankly, Miss Tate, there’s nothing even remotely repulsive about Mr. Manson’s song—”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” I interjected.

  “Yes, well, given our belief in freedom of speech, that’s a subjective consideration. If people are offended, they don’t have to buy the album.” He sifted through his briefcase. “Clearly, we are at an impasse. But to show our good faith, sensitivity, and support to victims of crime everywhere, we would like to present you with this check as our contribution to the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau.” He put his offer on the table and slid it toward me.

  I put Sharon’s death photo on the table and slid it toward him. “This is what Manson is about, and by publishing his song, this is what you’re promoting.”

  “Miss Tate, I find your business tactics distasteful.”

  “Then I guess we’re even. Keep your blood money.”

  Rosenblatt stood and the others followed his lead. “This meeting is over. Under the circumstances, Geffen will decline any future meetings with you or your organization.”

  The entourage left in unison. The check remained. I picked it up, shredded it into thirty-five pieces and left them atop a note: “Mr. Rosenblatt, Charles Manson may be responsible for as many as thirty-five deaths. No amount of money will hush their cry for justice.”

  20

  THE SHOW MUST GO ON

  Thirty years later, there’s hardly a day that I don’t think about Sharon. She’s still in my heart and will be until the day I die. I miss her. It’s like learning to live with a gaping wound that never heals. . . .

  —PATTI TATE

  Patti

  “You know Sharon Tate, the victim,” the television announcer declared. “Now meet Sharon Tate, the person. This is her story, the E! True Hollywood Story. Sharon Tate’s fantastic life and tragic death will be told through photos and incredible, never-before-seen archival footage. You’ll hear from friends, costars, investigators, prosecutors, and for the first time ever on television, you’ll hear the terrifying account of William Garretson, the lone survivor in a night of mayhem.”

  One person E! viewers would not hear from was me; a day before my scheduled interview for the show, I was forced to cancel the appointment.

  ALMOST A YEAR ago, I felt a lump on the side of my right breast. After days of agonized waiting for the test results, I sat in the doctor’s office, imagining that moment of relief when he said, “The tumor is benign.” Instead, I heard the word cancer, and after that, everything else hazed over my mind. My head throbbed to the beat of terror and a single thought—I’m going to die just like Mom. Spooked by her cancerous outcome, I saw myself as a patient. I saw myself lying in a coma. I saw myself dead.

  I never thought to ask how or why I got cancer. According to the expert’s statistics, I had turned my body into a malignancy welcome wagon. I was a twenty-year smoker. Everything I ate was unhealthy. I had color-treated my hair so many times that I should have gotten a brain tumor. I drank a couple of beers or glasses of wine each night. And the front-runner: my bouts of stress, anxiety, and depression.

  Beyond a doubt, the doctor said, the tumor had started growing at least five years ago, placing the onset at the end of my mother’s life. And Lord knows those were impossible times that left a gaping wound that never healed. I still missed my mother as strongly as the moment she passed and needed her now more than ever.

  Within a month of my diagnosis, I had a lumpectomy, a Port-A-Cath inserted in my chest, and the first of nine chemotherapy treatments.

  Loved ones pulled me in twenty directions to counter the deadly cells: eat organic, take vitamins, see an acupuncturist, take the holistic route, learn how to meditate, do yoga twice a day, write in a journal, exercise, get counseling.

  I appreciated all their well-meaning advice. The thing was, I didn’t want to change my ways; I just wanted my life back.

  My stubbornness prevailed for a while because I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was, however, petrified to leave my kids motherless. So, like it or not, I changed my lifestyle and followed everyone’s strategy on how to rid the cancer.

  I cleared my mind of comfort foods like Mom’s pancakes smothered in butter and syrup, grilled cheese, pizza, milkshakes, coffee, and chocolate, then filled the refrigerator with tofu and organic produce. Soy energy shakes replaced the milk shakes, and I pitched the coffee for a cancer tea that no amount of honey and lemon could disguise. I swallowed vitamins until there wasn’t room in my belly for food. I learned who loved me unconditionally, because they were the only ones kissing me after all the cancer-hating garlic and shark cartilage I consumed. I learned breathing exercises (cancer hates oxygen), and visualization exercises (healthy cells bombing cancer cells). I drank so much water to flush the toxins that I went through a roll of toilet paper a day. And I took walks on the beach when I barely had the energy to get to the bathroom. But it was all worth it, even if the end result was just one more minute with my kids.

  I read a book by Dr. Bernie Siegel filled with love, filled with medicine, and filled with miracles. I wanted to be one of the miracles. Halfway through the book, I found my biography on one of his pages: “One of the most common precursors of cancer is a traumatic loss. . . . Typical depressed patients, by abdicating normal activity, are at least offering some response to what they perceive as an unbearable situation. . . . They continue with their routines and an outward show of happiness, when on the inside their lives have come to lack all meaning. Their state is quiet desperation, meek and obliging on the outside, but filled with unacknowledged rage and frustration.”

  If I could find the diagnosis, surely, I could find the cure; and so began my journey into the world of psychology.

  Go see seven different psychologists and you’ll get ten different opinions about the unaligned gears grinding inside.

  The first doctor seemed more interested in finding out if, as a child, I’d ever had sex with Roman—suggesting that there was a chance that I had repressed sexual hang-ups because of the experience—hence the attack on my breast. No.

  Another doctor grilled me about the parties I went to as a kid. “Which movie stars did you meet?” Next.

  “Maybe your father didn’t love you enough as a little girl, and this is your way of getting his attention.” That didn’t ring true in the slightest. Next.

  “As a child, you were jealous of Sharon’s stardom. Your cancer is a subconscious scream for the attention she stole from you.” Never.

  I left the last doctor’s office wondering which of us needed therapy more.

  Disenchanted as I was, each of the psychologists added to a common thread that merited my attention. I had survivor’s guilt and because of that guilt, I didn’t feel worthy of living. I couldn’t deny the truth of that idea. It first came to me on the day of Sharon’s funeral. Why had God forsaken Sharon, yet deemed me fit to continue? The question haunted me into adulthood; Mom’s passing reinforced it because I was sure that they both had so much more to offer the world than I did.

  The other commonality the psychologists chased was the notion that I had to release my hostility toward Sharon’s killers because cancer cells thrive on anger.

  For months, I struggled to forgive the killers. I prayed for them. I visualized hugging them—oy. I spoke the words: “Susan Atkins, I forgive you and have love for you.” I wrote it in my journal, and mapped out a triangle of anger and forgiveness.

  Each night before bed and every morning before I got up, I prayed for God’s support of mercy and love for those I’d hated for so long.

  I tried and tried and tried to whitewash my disdain for Sharon’s killers, b
ut I couldn’t. Ultimately, I felt I was making a deal with the devil—give me another year and I’ll forgive them, give me two, and I’ll love them. The entire concept felt shameful. If that’s what it took to save myself, to hell with it. I gave up on the quest and booked a first-class ticket on the next flight to Satanville.

  Often, I looked in the mirror to try to find the beautiful girl in the Saks Fifth Avenue store, standing next to Sharon, making a promise. Instead, the mirror reflected an unwelcome stranger. My hair fell out five chemo treatments ago, my eyebrows and lashes disappeared two treatments ago. The steroids they injected me with bloated my face until my eyes seemed to retreat into their sockets. I tripped into another sinkhole; I couldn’t even keep my promise to Sharon.

  By the time I found the Wellness Community, I was sitting on the edge of my grave, legs dangling, ready to take the plunge. I’d heard about the cancer support group months ago, but I didn’t believe that meeting with other sick people, talking about sickness, would be helpful or healing.

  During my second-to-last chemo treatment, in walked Betsy. She was tall and beautiful despite her baldness, and filled with refreshing optimism.

  Set comfortably in baby-blue Barcaloungers, we struck up the usual chemo room banter: How did you find it? Surgery? Radiation? What kind of chemo? How many? Blood count? Tumor markers? She stumped me with the last one: “What are you going to do when this is over?”

  I didn’t have a clue. For six months, I had been riding a merry-go-round of treatments. The future seemed illusory.

  With dreadful anticipation I watched the nurse flush my Port-A-Cath; next came the antinausea medication, steroids, then the chemo. Where would my life go after this routine?

  The office counselor came in while the chemo slowly drip-dripped into my vein. She handed Betsy and me a flyer promoting Joke Fest Night at the Wellness Community. They have a joke fest? I like to laugh—I love to laugh, maybe I should give it a try. Then she handed us another bulletin for an upcoming group session for newly diagnosed cancer patients. Betsy nudged me. “If you go, I’ll go.”

  Four weeks later, I sat in a room surrounded by other cancer patients, each as frightened and uncertain as I was feeling. It instantly reminded me of Mom’s first Parents of Murdered Children meeting; cancer is no less biased than murder is to its victims.

  We went around the room sharing our cancer experiences, each entirely different, yet completely the same.

  When it was my turn, I drenched a handkerchief while telling my story. My tears were long overdue and therapeutically cleansing. “I wake up from night terrors, hearing my kids calling for me. I don’t want to leave them,” I said.

  “Then make plans not to leave them,” the counselor advised. “Instead of expelling all that negative energy about what they’ll do without you, surround yourself with positive plans for the future. See yourself at their graduations. See yourself at their weddings. Imagine rocking your grandchildren.”

  Norma was the first to analyze my other hurdle on the healing path. “Seems to me that in the process of trying to absolve these killers, you’ve crucified yourself.”

  “Yeah,” Janice said, “you’ve turned them into the good guys, and made yourself the villain.”

  “Personally, I think this forgiveness stuff is overrated,” Mindy said. “When my husband left me for another woman, I fantasized about taking a bat to his balls—and it felt damned good! My point is, God says it’s okay to have those feelings; you just can’t act on them. In fact, you might try doing some visualization exercises of the killers. Imagine running over them with your car a couple of times—now that’s healing!” she laughed.

  We all laughed, and God, did it feel good.

  Our group leader stood. “We’re here to help you learn the tools for the pursuit of just this type of happiness so you can be an active participant instead of a hopeless, helpless, passive victim.”

  The last word caught my attention and triggered a new fight. I did not want to be another type of victim—one was bad enough. It was time to focus and come out fighting.

  As the weeks passed at the Wellness Community, I found a group of six soul mates within our group. Those six believed in love, medicine, and miracles. They believed in healing. They celebrated life. They made me brave. They nourished my soul. They were my Bosom Buddies.

  Our group was diverse. Deb could make me laugh till I wet my pants. Barbara, the den mother. Bonnie, with big, beautiful eyes and a heart to match. Betsy—young, vibrant, and hope-filled. In Shirley I saw my mother’s strength. With Cindy, I saw myself: shy and quiet.

  The Bosom Buddies shared potluck dinners. We shared our lives, our fears, our joys, and together, we laughed more than seven cancer patients seem to have a right to. Equally important, the BB’s were unfazed by my notoriety and kept my cancer a secret. My illness was not for public consumption. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want Sharon’s killers to see me weak. When the media called, I declined with lame excuses to hide the truth.

  I FLUFFED THE pillows on my bed as E’s The Last Days of Sharon Tate began. Perhaps if I’d been honest with the show’s producers, they would have been more sympathetic to my family. As it was, they interviewed biographer Greg King, who unfairly portrayed my father as a frostbitten tyrant and Mom as a starstruck, meddling, conniving stage mother, pushing Sharon into the limelight.

  On the opposite side of the coin, I adored the program’s archival film clips of Sharon, many of which I’d never seen.

  The first hour was filled with interviews from Sharon’s high school buddies as well as friends I remembered from the later 1960s. Sharon’s first agent, Hal Gefsky, appeared as sweet as ever while he told his story of discovering Sharon. And Sharon’s friend Sheilah Wells, talked about their careers, parties, Jay, and Roman.

  They geared the second hour toward Manson and the murders. Ordinarily at that point, I would have turned off the television. This time I waited to see the hyped interview with William Garretson. Mom always believed that he’d lied in 1969 when he claimed he didn’t see or hear anything the night of the murders. His thirty-year-old, revised memory would be a curious revelation. There was another more intriguing reason—Garretson was engaged to “Sharon’s daughter.”

  “Conspiracy buffs have a way to go to top this one on Sharon Tate,” columnist Steve Stephens wrote in the Columbus Dispatch. “For thirty years, William Garretson refused to speak about the Manson Family murders. Now, he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy theory that gives ‘Elvis lives’ a run for its money.

  “Imagine that the unborn child of director Roman Polanski and actress Sharon Tate didn’t die with Tate in the Manson Family attack. Instead, the baby was delivered by celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring—using his barber tools—just before he and Tate died. Then, Frank Sinatra, with help from the Genovese crime family, spirited the child to New Jersey on a private jet. Next, Patty Duke’s cousin raised the baby to protect it from Manson retribution. And finally, the child grew up to fall in love with Garretson.

  “That is the story of Rosie Blanchard, aka Rosie Tate-Polanski.”

  Ridiculous as it was, the article wasn’t startling. Rosie’s name first came to light when she initiated contact with my parents a couple of years ago. At that time, she had a different story—she was Sharon reincarnated. Instead of coming right out and saying she was Sharon, she’d send them mysterious cards on special occasions such as Mother’s Day. Eventually, she showed up at my parents’ house on the anniversary of Sharon’s death. I wasn’t there at the time, but Dad said she got as far as “Hi, I’m your daughter, Sharon” before he slammed the door in her face.

  After Mom passed away, Rosie turned her attention toward me. I certainly didn’t have proof one way or the other about whether she could really be Sharon reincarnated, nor could I predict what her reaction would be if I resisted her mind trip. So I played along and adhered to my rule of always keeping potential enemies close at hand where you can keep an eye on them.


  Over the phone and miles between us Rosie’s delusion seemed harmless, though she unnerved me when she showed up in person at my first parole hearing for Susan Atkins. Call it sixth sense, call it before-the-hearing jitters—my instincts told me there was something inherently wrong with Rosie, particularly because I’d asked her to stay away from the proceedings that morning.

  After the hearing, I kept her at a distance, busying myself with reporters. Still, I kept a watchful eye, wondering if a dormant bomb was about to explode.

  I let the charade play out until my cancer diagnosis. At that point, I wanted to tie up some loose ends—just in case it was my time to go see the good Lord. Rosie was not only a loose end, but a fraying one that could rip at any moment. After I was gone, I didn’t want my kids to pick up the phone and hear, “Hi, it’s Aunt Sharon.”

  Rosie’s apartment was set in the heart of Burbank. It had to be over a hundred degrees the day I knocked on her door. Inside, a noisy box fan, as useless as a Popsicle stored in an empty ice chest, stirred the overperfumed air. She gave me the grand tour, which, considering the two-room total, was quick.

  The bedroom decor consisted of a mattress on the floor and moving boxes. In the living room stood a breakfast table, two folding lawn chairs, and more boxes. “Sorry for the mess,” she said from the kitchen area. “I’m going back East for a few months to regroup. There was a lot more furniture in here, but the movers took it yesterday.”

  I didn’t believe her. She continued packing, avoiding eye contact. “Rosie, I’m going to get right to the point of my visit. I don’t believe that you are Sharon reincarnated.”

  Her back was toward me. She froze midmotion. Seconds passed before she slammed a saucer into a packing box. Quiet again. Then she twirled around with a grin that was much too big. “I’m glad you said it, because there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I haven’t had the nerve—I’m Sharon’s baby.”

  “Wha—”