by Mark Hewitt
“Yes, I saw them.” I had also seen that they were black.
By this time, all the strings were in place and Charlie was attempting to tune them. They each made a distinct sound that promised to harmonize in a soothing melody once they were all accurately tightened. This was the most creative item I had ever seen fashioned in a cell. Charlie told me that it was made solely of toilet paper, dental floss, and some elastic from boxer shorts. Other, mostly food, items were used to color it. For this creation alone, Charles Manson could be considered a genius. However, I saw more, far, far more emanating from this man’s brain.
I asked him how he made the harp, one day. I actually had to ask him a second time because he was not facing the right direction when I spoke or his hearing was causing him problems again.
“Well, Boxcar,” Charlie began. “How I make a harp is to get piles of toilet paper arranged on my sink. I get so many piles that I can wet them and arrange them around the rim of my sink. I’ve also used the toilet rim to make a harp with a different shape.
“You gotta squeeze the water out of the wet paper,” He continued. “This part takes hours. I just sit and squeeze, like I do with the beads, only it takes much longer. I also make sure that the paper is evenly distributed around the rim. I put pen inserts in place to make the necessary holes; it’s best to have the paper dry with the holes already in it. It takes a couple of days to dry and paint. Then you’ve got your harp.”
I couldn’t imagine the value of one of these instruments. I had heard that a piece of his hair could fetch $100, a crude drawing, $500 if it was autographed. Geraldo Rivera did an interview with Charlie and later sold the one hour videos for $19.99. Charlie was certain that the reporter made millions of dollars from this venture.
“If you have money, you have power,” Manson had ranted. “Power is strength and money will get you a lot of respect, too!” His ability to manipulate the simplest of pieces of paper and food into world-class works of art earned him my total respect, regardless of how much money he had.
From Charlie, I learned how to multi-task and get several things done at the same time. He helped motivate me to accomplish many tasks, and to aspire to great things. His ability with beads and dolls and harps encouraged me to think big and do the best that I could at everything. I may never write the songs he has or master an instrument like him, but I can still be the best that I can be.
I certainly don’t want to be “brain dead” like many people in the world. Charlie often warned me about this. “Most people are not using their brains,” he told me.” They are just walking around like damn robots with no fucking direction whatsoever.” Charlie was always moving, always creating, always thinking. I learned to do the same.
Nothing made Charlie happier while doing his time than talking about his guitar. “I sure wish I had my guitar right now,” Charlie would exclaim. “I could play all day and all night. With my guitar, I go into my music and go places, man. I can make sounds that will make you wonder how I could do the sounds on a musical instrument!”
“Charlie,” I replied. “I could just imagine you playing a guitar, especially an electric guitar with all of the years of experience that you have. I bet you could make some really great sounds.”
“Man, I can play better than anyone you’ve ever heard play,” boasted Charlie.
I believed him, too.
CHAPTER 13
Stories out of San Quentin
“The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.”
C.G. Jung
Charlie reminisced often about his time in San Quentin State Prison. He spent several years there, first on death row for the 7 murders in the Tate and La Bianca attacks, and then in a unit segregated from the general population when the death penalty was rescinded in California in 1972. To me, he never criticized the institution any more than any other prison in which he had served. He recounted numerous stories about events in that facility that stands in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. Each story was as fascinating as the story teller.
Located in Marin County, just outside San Rafael in Northern California, San Quentin State Prison opened in 1852, making it the oldest penal institution in the state. The first prison at that location comprised a wooden ship moored in the San Francisco Bay in 1851. It was prepared to house thirty inmates. The boat prison was later replaced with a structure constructed just yards from where the boat was moored. Until 1932, the facility held women as well as men. It boasts of being the site of the first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 1941.
Today, it’s the sole location of California’s death row, housing all of the state’s prisoners who have been sentenced to die. Since 1996, executions have been carried out by lethal injection. Still, San Quentin retains its gas chamber. The property is so large (432 acres), and houses so many inmates (over 5,000, nearly twice its capacity) that it possesses its own postal code. Few other penal institutions in the United States have so many inmates.
Famous residents at San Quentin include Richard Ramirez, the night stalker; Scott Peterson who killed his wife and unborn son, placing them in the San Francisco Bay; and David Carpenter, the trailside killer. Nevertheless, the biggest celebrity to ever be housed in San Quentin would have to be my friend, Charles Manson.
One afternoon, while I was in my cell minding my own business, reading some books sent to me by a publishing house in San Francisco, I heard a rap on the wall. It was Charlie. “Boxcar!”
“Yeah, what’s up, Charlie?” I queried.
“Back when I was in San Quentin,” he said launching into a story, “some guys tried to punk me.”
“Is that right, Charlie?” I was interested in what he was about to say.
“Yeah,” he continued. “They said I snitched on some of my people, and told me not to come out of my cell or they’d kill me.”
“Is that right, Charlie?” I repeated.
“Yeah, so I came out of my cell the first chance I could, and two big white guys are standing over me.” His voice betrayed no fear. “They began yelling at me, ‘we told you to not come out of your cell, you rat.’”
As Charlie spoke, he seemed to be reliving the experience. He told me how he responded to the threat: “I’m a man. Who are you to tell me not to come out of my cell? Are you a guard?”
Apparently, two other San Quentin inmates, also large men, who were friendly to Charlie, had heard the commotion. Charlie told me that they interrupted the two men who had confronted him. Charlie’s friends demanded proof that Charlie had snitched.
“I never snitched on them. I ain’t never finked on nobody about nothing,” Charlie recounted what he had said to his attackers. Because the men could not get their stories straight to the satisfaction of Charlie’s friends, the men who accused Charlie ended up wandering away like dogs with their tales between their legs. Manson impressed upon me how close he had come to being killed in that altercation.
It was evident to me that Charlie had every right to retaliate for what had been done to him by those false accusers. He could have initiated an attack on the two men, and done it with all the justification inmates gave to one another for revenge. He could’ve killed them or had them killed. Instead, he chose not to pursue it. He told me that he just let it go. That was Charlie: live and let live! The two accusers never bothered him again, he told me, and he never bothered them.
Later that day, Charlie continued to tell me about San Quentin. After the third watch shift changed, Charlie banged on my wall again. “Boxcar!”
“Yeah, what’s up Charlie?” I inquired.
“Are you busy?” Charlie returned a question for my question.
“No, what’s up, Charlie?” I asked again.
“When I was in San Quentin, there was this little bird that used to fly around the building.” Why Charlie was telling me this, I didn’t know. “I started to feed it, and it became so friendly to me that after a while it no longer looked anywhere else for food. It just came
to me when it was hungry.”
“Is that right?” I replied as I pondered why he was sharing this with me. Was he trying to tell me that I was the little bird because he looked out for me at Canteen every month? We both knew that I had no money and that he always made sure I was able to purchase something. Perhaps this was just a story that he felt the need to share. He liked to tell stories. There was no doubt about that. Sometimes, however, he liked to slip in double meanings, or talk about something through the use of stories. I enjoyed his stories, even though I was often suspicious of his intent.
On another occasion, about the same time, he told me another story about his time at San Quentin. Apparently, there was an old man in his cell block who had been wakened repeatedly by his neighbor. The neighbor spoke loudly, late into the night, night after night. Finally, Charlie told me, the old man broke down and confronted the younger man:
“‘Hey, Jerry,’ called out the older man.
“‘What’s up, Billy?’ replied the younger man.
“‘I’m trying to sleep at night and you are making noise when you should be quite and respectful. You might as well kill me, because if you don’t then I will kill you.’ The old man was not joking. ‘So I’m asking you to stop that noise.’”
That was the end of Charlie’s story. I knew he just wanted to talk, but I suspect he also wanted to instruct me to always stand up for myself and never show fear. After a short period of quiet, my neighbor launched into another story from his days at San Quentin. His former home seemed heavy on his mind.
“I was up on north block, Six Tier in San Quentin,” he started. “There was a yard for death row inmates up on the roof. There was a big white inmate who turned toward me and asked me, ‘do you have a problem with me, or do you have any plans to kill me?’”
Charlie told me that he looked at him and replied, “No, I don’t have no problems with you. Do you got problems with me?”
Charlie recounted that the big inmate ambled over to him and continued, “‘No, I don’t have no problems with you. It’s just that every time someone has come up here on this yard with me, they’ve come up here to start problems with me. I figured you was one of them too!’
“No, it’s cool man. I don’t want no problems.” Charlie repeated himself to put the man at ease. He later found out that this inmate was known to attack every inmate who spent time with him in the yard. He had nearly killed a couple of men in that area who had had problems with him.
Charlie on another occasion explained to me that he alone was responsible for inmates having guitars behind bars. When he was on death’s row in San Quentin, it was announced that the death penalty had been eliminated. The year was 1972. He and other death row inmates were told to prepare to be moved to cells reserved for long-term prisoners, since death row would be closed for remodeling. In addition, the inmates were asked what they wanted to possess in their new cells. Charlie had only one request: a guitar.
At the time, Charlie told me, guitars were outlawed for all inmates. The icon with a new lease on life put up such a fuss over not being allowed to stow and use a guitar that the warden ultimately caved to his request. Charlie boasted to me that all inmates were allowed to keep musical instruments in their cells because of his lobbying efforts.
Even though the death penalty has since been reinstated in California, all inmates, even those on death row, are entitled to a guitar if they want one, thanks to Charlie. A lot of inmates just think that they got it coming because they asked for it. However, if it weren’t for Charlie speaking up about it, there would be no guitars or other musical instruments allowed. As it is, convicts may possess keyboards, harmonicas, congas, bongos, drum sets, and various types of stringed instruments. Later, prisons added music rooms for inmates to practice, and stages, built so that inmates could perform in talent shows and holiday festivities. All of this was made possible by the hard work and determination of Charles Manson.
Charlie and I conversed regularly after dark. It seemed like a peaceful time to chat, both of us being night owls. Charlie and I maintained very unusual sleeping patterns at times. If we chose to, we could stay up to all hours of the night and sleep for much of the day. We chose to do this often when we got into an interesting conversation in the evening. We were usually careful to be respectful of the other inmates when we talked until four or five o’clock in the morning. Inevitably, though, one of us would say that while we were enjoying our talk, we were too sleepy to keep our eyes open any longer.
Sometimes, Charlie would make a disturbance in the middle of the night. I never did. I even tried to quiet him down to respect the others a few times. No one ever told Charlie what to do, I found out. When he wants to, Charlie will make noise. Even singing or playing the bongos on his sink was not out of the question for him. The hour of the day or night seemed irrelevant to him.
Sometimes, I would initiate our conversations; other times, he got my attention first. When I was the initiator, I would call to Charlie by banging on his door or wall to call him. He would pound on the wall with his fist or tap the window with his gold ring to return my greeting. Charlie often said, “Same old; same old,” when I asked him how he was doing.
A few times, our conversations transformed into a session of toasting all the important people and events in our lives. One of us would invite the other to get a shot, a small cup of coffee, pruno, or some other drink. We would bang on the walls once again, this time to signify that we had completed the task and were ready to toast.
One of us would say, “A toast to the animals.” We would then take a sip of our respective beverages.
The other would add, “A toast to the brother.” We would continue our toasts, back and forth, sometimes for hours, raising the name of anyone we could think to honor. We’d go through our lists of family members and friends. We’d toast fellow inmates who had done us a favor. We’d even toast famous celebrities. Everyone who deserved it received a toast from Boxcar and Charlie.
One night Charlie told me about “Squeaky,” born Lynette Alice Fromme, the Manson family member who was convicted of an assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford. Squeaky had obtained a handgun and approached the thirty-eighth President of the United States while he was making a campaign stop in California. She never injured him, never even pulled the trigger, but was quickly arrested and convicted of attempted murder, a federal offense since the intended victim was the President. Charlie recounted these events for me around the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Tate murders. He added that “Red,” the name he used to refer to Fromme because of her red hair and her adoration of the California Redwoods, had been eligible for parole hearings repeatedly since 1985. She’d always inquire as to whether Charlie had been paroled, according to Charlie. Since he had not, she declined to even go to her parole hearings and remained in jail. Charlie called her his “main girl,” for her faithfulness.
Manson and Fromme had served a combined total of more than seventy years in prison at the time that he shared this with me. Fromme remained in a Texas federal prison, though she was eventually paroled in August of 2009. I’m sure we toasted “Red,” at one of our toasting events.
Charlie educated me about so-called “professionals” during one of our many conversations. He told me that he was never impressed by anybody’s status, no matter what the level of education or the job title. I observed this for myself when professional people came through the tier. He explained to me how it all worked, and why he acted the way he did. His distain for experts was most obvious when he interacted with a psych tech or a psychiatrist.
Every morning, a psych tech (short for psychiatric technician) came through our building after breakfast. Acting as some sort of an assistant psychiatrist, he announced, “Psych Tech!” loudly as he did his rounds. If anyone had a problem with sleeping, eating, feeling suicidal, or feeling depressed, the psych tech would talk to him and decide whether he needed to be referred to the psychiatric ward or whether he needed to be evaluated for
medication. He would ask inmates how they were feeling, how they were sleeping, shitting, or eating. He would ask whether they felt like killing themselves or hurting other people. Charlie usually ignored these pseudo-professionals.
Once a month, the psychiatrist himself made the rounds to check on everyone who was taking medication or who was at risk. One day, our psychiatrist appeared at Charlie’s cell. “Hello, Mr. Manson. I’m Doctor Lowry,” the man said politely.
“Hello, Mr. Lowry. I’m Doctor Manson!” Charlie replied very loudly in an attempt to turn the tables. I couldn’t help but laugh. All these workers, medical technical assistants (MTAs), psych techs, doctors, and psychiatrists, have the duty to care for the individuals in the prison, but Charlie didn’t see it that way. It was apparent to him that their motives and abilities were suspect. Some professionals were uncaring, not really qualified to be care-givers on an emotional level; others lacked the skills to provide any help at all. Charlie heralded that incompetence and the apathy with that single smart remark.
He explained to me that most educated people are just play acting. Doctors, he pointed out, had to go to school and get a diploma. Once they have received this framed piece of paper, they have the right to “play” at being a doctor. If you played the role well, you made lots of money. He assured me that if someone was a good enough actor, he or she never had to get the diploma or do the schooling. A talented thespian could simply play the role, fool others, and be successful at whatever he or she wanted to do. Charlie held distain for other professionals as well, such as lawyers, judges, teachers, and the group he despised the most, namely the religious leader, whether priest, minister, or anyone who went by a title indicating a leadership role in a church. It was all a game, he explained to me. In his opinion, everybody was just being phony.
I put Charlie’s words to the test one day as I attempted to outsmart the system. I told Charlie that I was going to act crazy and see how many people I could convince. He encouraged me in my plan. I wasn’t exactly going to do the work of a white-collar professional, but if I could convince the administration that I was having a psychotic episode, who knows what other role I could play in this world, I reasoned.
