To my greater shock, the program itself was successful. The cons, intrigued by the robed yogis, eagerly signed up for the classes. Once there, they gave the mystics their attention—a miracle in itself. Most of the inmates did, that is. There was one particular little fellow who would have none of it. “You should be following me!” Manson raged when a duo of serene spirits visited his cell. “Change your ways. See the light and follow me! I know the truth! You don’t! I’m your leader! Fools! You think of life and death. There’s no life. There’s no death. Those are words left over from another dimension. You don’t understand the spirit world, the world of darkness. I do. I’ve been there, man. That’s where I live. There’s only one karma in the world. There’s a billion snowflakes, and they all may be different, but they’re all just frozen raindrops, and that’s just water. I am the water. You’re just snowflakes!”
Manson continued to rant, rave, and give an A-level crazy performance, trying his damnedest to rattle the yogis. To his increasing anger, he couldn’t generate the slightest reaction. The more insults he fired, the more tranquil they became. At one point, he grew so incensed by their smiling faces and lack of fear that I thought he was going to squeeze through the bars and try to strangle the pair. I finally had to move them along before Charlie gave himself a coronary.
Despite Manson’s hysterics, the yoga program was so effective that Dr. Sutton invited the grand master himself, Ram Dass, to San Quentin. Dass promptly accepted. All we had to do was get him cleared with the brass. That wasn’t going to be easy. This wasn’t a group of low-key local yogis quietly wandering through the far reaches of the prison. This was the Ram man himself, the famous former Harvard professor who was a 1960s icon, not to mention a classmate of LSD guru Timothy Leary. And Dass wasn’t planning to light a few candles inside someone’s cell. He was going to conduct a grandiose lecture and meditation session for an entire cell-block!
“This is a good one, Joyce,” I said, relishing the possibilities. “Only I get the feeling you’re leading me into a minefield full of shit.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but the guy’s got a tremendous reputation,” she pressed. “He’s a good man. Our yogis tell me he’s a saint.”
“You don’t think I’ll get fired over this guy?”
“No chance, Ed.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll just tell Rinker he’s a good Harvard man. He’ll love it.”
I checked Dass’s background and he came up clean. That was important. A drug bust here and there wouldn’t look good on a guest speaker’s resume if the shit hit the fan. As luck would have it, when the paperwork was completed, both Rinker and Associate Warden Don Weber were away from the prison on business. I was able to rush the request to Associate Warden Clem Swaggerty, an easygoing sort. He courageously signed the clearance without question.
After some debate, Dr. Sutton and I both agreed that we’d let Dass do his thing on death row. (California had once again vacillated on the death penalty and it was temporarily back in effect.) This was partly because we felt the condemned men needed help the most, and partly because we didn’t want Manson trying to steal the show. If a pair of peaceful yoga disciples had turned Charlie into a rabid dog, the sight of Ram Dass soothing the masses on death row would have sent his rage into orbit.
Dass arrived at San Quentin decked out in the full regalia of yoga attire, heightened by a long, flowing beard. He and his three attendants showered everyone with good vibes and cheerfully serene smiles. A charming, lovable man, Dass seemed to touch all he encountered—cons and corrections officers alike.
The yoga master set up shop on a heavy wooden table in the center of the isolated tier. The corrections staff had somehow managed to procure about twenty full-length mirror panels and were busy angling them in front of the more distant cells. This bit of generosity enabled the condemned men at the far ends of the hall to visually experience the event.
I was amazed by how quiet and solemn the inmates were. These were heinous murderers with nothing to lose, men who had spit in the face of authority their whole life. Yet, from the moment Dass entered their sixth-floor vault, an unworldly calm swept over the place. Quizzical faces peered out from the rows of bars, the faces of forty certified madmen. Only at that moment, their tortured minds appeared at ease as they waited for something magical to happen.
Dass sat on the edge of the lone table, brought his legs into the lotus position, bowed his head, and paused to drink in the unusual atmosphere. The place was deathly silent, something I’d never dreamed possible. The robed guru slowly raised his eyes and then greeted the inmates as brothers of the eternal being. He spoke to them like a father who wanted to share his life experiences with his children. His theme was one of lifting up their spirits and reaching a union with the eternal being. He spoke solemnly in simple words which they seemed to understand. Interacting, he taught them how to breathe, instructing them to relax and breathe out all the evil inside them and breathe in goodness. He talked about jails, cages, and cells, and how the spirit cannot be bound by bars. He contrasted the inmates’ condition with that of people on the outside who create their own prisons of fear, anxiety, and hate. He invited them to let their spirits fly up and out into the stars, go wherever they desired, because the spirit had the power.
As Dass continued to cast his wonderful spell, I observed the room. Not only were the cons entranced, but even the most hateful and skeptical guards were overwhelmed by the moment. Many, like Dr. Sutton and I, had eased into the lotus position, going with the mesmerizing flow. It was unreal. I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful it was, and how enraged Rinker and Manson would have been. It was ironic that the pair were once again linked by their predictable reactions. The reasons were different, of course. Rinker would have been furious to learn that a risky, hippielike event was taking place in his slavish domain. To him, the death row denizens weren’t worth the trouble. They deserved nothing more than to have their sentences completed and their miserable lives terminated. Manson would simply be insane with jealousy that it was Dass, and not he, sitting on the table enthralling the crowd.
When Dass finished, we had all been drawn together by a shared experience. Considering the cat-and-dog mix of felons and correctional officers, that was another miracle.
Following the group session, Dass walked the tier, personally greeting each inmate before vanishing from their lives. I thanked him for coming and invited him back, even though I knew it would be impossible.
After he departed, my mind again turned to Rinker and Manson. Curiously, of the two, I regretted the most that Charlie had missed the memorable event. Dass was the embodiment of the kind of spiritual leader Charlie could have been. With Charlie’s undeniable gift for attracting and controlling young people, combined with his passion and intense spirit, he could have made a difference. If only there had been a measure of goodness inside him instead of twisted evil, he might have been able to accomplish something as important in the light as he had done in the dark. He might have found the same fame as a promoter of peace and love as he’d found selling hate and unspeakable violence. Instead, he couldn’t even calm his demons long enough to sit quietly and observe a true master at work. He couldn’t control himself long enough to experience a wondrous happening that he, probably more than anyone there, could have truly understood. Had he opened his gnarled soul just a fraction, Dass could have gotten through to him.
Then again, maybe, like Dr. Sutton, I was dreaming. I was so overcome by the moment that I was momentarily blinded. I knew better than anyone that Charles Manson wasn’t going to change. If we bottled Ram Dass and shoved it down his screeching throat, he’d still be nothing more than an evil little troll.
The next day, someone ratted to Associate Warden Weber. The AW stormed into my office and gave me the usual shit about clearances and end runs. A few hours later, the watch commander on duty the previous evening tossed in his two cents, chiding me for being “negligent of his crew’s safety” by “allowing thos
e weirdos inside a maximum-security unit like the row.” I just walked away.
Shortly afterward, I was summoned to a telephone. Warden Rees was on the line. “Ed, what’s going on with the yoga program?” he opened, making it obvious that the news had spread.
“Same old stuff, boss,” I said with a shrug, downplaying it.
“Really? I’ve heard rumors that the instructors are getting hassled.”
“Hassled?” I repeated, wondering where this was going.
“Yeah, hassled.”
“Well, I don’t know. The inmates aren’t so bad. Manson gave a pair a hard time, but that can be expected. They didn’t seem upset about it. They were more amused than anything.”
“Manson? What’s his problem?”
“Jealousy, I guess. Or maybe people tend to fight the medicine they need the most.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing serious. Some of the officers resent the yogis. They make snide remarks. Slow down searches. Force them to wait around forever.”
“Have you talked to the watch commander?”
“No, the lieutenant is an old-timer. He’d just make it worse. He thinks yogis are very sinister. He calls them ‘foreigners.’”
“Foreigners?”
“Yeah, aliens. If they’re not like him, they’re foreigners. He thinks it’s un-American because yoga is an Eastern thing. According to him, anything that didn’t originate in this country is subversive.”
“How are you handling it?”
“It’s no big deal. I’d rather let the yoga instructors endure the petty bullshit than make it an issue. Except for Manson, that is. I’m keeping them clear of him. At his request, interestingly enough.”
“Good, then I’ve got nothing to worry about, right?”
“That’s right, boss. So what’s the fuss about?”
“It’s this guy, Ram Ass, the yogi you had up on the row the other day.” Uh-oh, I thought. Here it was. I’d almost gotten off without a mention, and I had to open my mouth. “It happens that Ram Ass is a personal friend of Jerry Brown, the governor.”
That wasn’t exactly surprising. Brown was well known for his open—wide-open—thinking. “That’s Ram Dass, boss, with a D,” I corrected, not wanting him to make the mistake in higher company.
“Whatever, he’s a friend of the governor. After your little session, he went straight to Sacramento. Apparently, your program was a topic of discussion. Anyway, the governor called all happy about it. He wanted to know if the instructors were getting hassled.”
“I’ll be damned. That’s great!”
“Yeah, the governor likes the program. He wants you to keep it going. So, if there are no major problems, he’ll be delighted. Thanks for pushing it through.”
That was encouraging. Finally, some support from the top! All I had to do now was to keep Charlie from reaching out and choking a yogi through the bars.
A few days later, I was about to turn a corner when I heard a couple of officers grousing. “Man, that guy George is turning this place into a zoo. Killers kicking back watching TV, doing yoga, taking art classes. Shit, I saw an inmate standing on his fuckin’ head in his cell this morning, chanting some nonsense. Can you believe it?”
It was, indeed, quite unbelievable.
7.
IN APRIL 1976, the death row prisoners decided to go on one of their ridiculous hunger strikes. The media poured in and produced more sob stories about starving prisoners. The reality is that prisoners—being the lying, stealing, murdering felons they are—cheat like hell, stashing candy and commissary food items in their cells and stealing bites off their trays when no one’s looking. The leader of the effort, a 450-pound businessman who’d hired someone to kill his wife, had enough food stashed under his bed to feed an army.
Yet, when the reporters came around, the guys would moan and groan and writhe around on the floor like they were hours away from death. Totally duped, the media put the screws to us to show compassion and give in to the strikers’ idiotic demands (they wanted their own gourmet cook, among other things). AW Rinker was frantic to negotiate a quick settlement and end the waves of bad press. That impatience showed his cards and played into the inmates’ hands. I advised everyone to ignore it and wait them out.
Manson, who had escaped death row years before during one of California’s yo-yoing capital punishment decisions, was not part of the effort. Far from it. He pointed out that because of their limited numbers and special circumstances, death row inmates don’t have it so bad. “Those assholes eat better on strike than we do normally,” he cracked, exposing the truth. “My years up there were the easiest time I’ve ever served. I didn’t have to worry all the time about somebody taking me out. I could relax. Let those bastards starve.”
As luck would have it, there was a Hollywood film crew on the grounds at the time. That only increased Rinker’s tension and eagerness to end the strike. The movie, The Domino Principle, was directed by Stanley Kramer and starred Gene Hackman, Mickey Rooney, and—Candice Bergen! Manson had missed her once; now fate was tossing her into his sights again. I, of course, wasn’t going to let that happen. Despite his carping, I didn’t allow him to get anywhere near the set. Actually, Manson had nothing against Bergen personally. She merely would have been an unfortunate victim in the Tate death house had Melcher still been around. If given the opportunity on the yard, there was no reason to assume Charlie would have done anything more than try to recruit the beautiful, sassy blonde into his family. The whole thing turned out to be moot, as Bergen’s part didn’t require her to be at the prison.
Ironically, it was Boys Town graduate Mickey Rooney who had the problem. Kramer was doing takes in the west block exercise yard while tough guy Rooney milled around among some low-security convicts standing by the cameraman. The gooner squad was providing tight security, so everything seemed cool. Unbeknownst to anyone, an African American inmate stealthily worked his way behind a security officer standing near the tripod. The inmate removed a prison-made shank from his belt, whispered, “This is for the brothers,” and jumped the officer, stabbing him in the back. Rooney, standing right there when it happened, leaped like a prize jumping frog.
The stabbed officer swung around and knocked down his assailant, who was immediately subdued by the gooners. The injured officer was rushed to the hospital and survived. A subsequent investigation revealed that the attack was revenge for the beating given to a couple of Black Guerrilla Family members during their trip to death row. The Guerrillas had killed a guard at their previous prison, and the good guys were enacting a little vengeance.
I hated that kind of back-and-forth violence because no one ever won. The officer who was stabbed wasn’t one of the gooners who had beaten the inmates—the victims rarely are. Time and again, correctional officers are maimed and killed because of the actions of someone else.
That weekend, Beth and I had dinner with some friends. Afterward, we planned to go to the Geary Theater in San Francisco to see a musical. The dinner conversation touched upon the death row hunger strike, which was in its twelfth day. Our friends expressed the feeling common among outsiders: “Let them starve. It’s death row, isn’t it? Saves everybody the trouble.”
On the drive to the theater, I heard a radio bulletin that rocked me. Someone had hijacked an entire school bus full of children in Chowchilla, a small farm town south of Fresno. I was certain it was one of Manson’s clan. The perpetrators were probably phoning the prison at that moment threatening to kill a child every hour until Manson was released. I didn’t share my fears with Beth and our guests, but I was in a fog the rest of the night. I don’t remember a thing about the musical.
Beth noticed my sudden mood change, but didn’t say anything until we were on our way home. I tried to duck the question a few times, then finally relented. “It’s that damn school bus thing,” I sighed.
“That’s terrible, but why are you taking it so personally?”
“I don’t know. It might
be one of our crazies,” I downplayed, not specifying which crazy.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m damn serious. Some of my guys are capable of changing history, killing presidents, hijacking airliners.”
“That’s absurd.”
Sometimes, my wife’s sugarplum attitude got under my skin, but I was smart enough to realize it was also what I loved about her. Beth knew that being around prisons had hardened me and made me pessimistic, so she countered it by being cheery and optimistic. Plus, she could never really understand my angst because I’d hidden most of the horrors of my job from her. This evening, I found myself opening up a bit.
“A few weeks ago, there was a report that a group of revolutionaries were planning to kidnap a busload of kids from the Folsom area to force the release of an inmate named ‘Geronimo,’ a Black Panther serving time for murder,”1 I said, laying it off on another group. “The plan was to take the kids of the officers so the prison officials would be doubly motivated to negotiate. Because of the report, ‘Geronimo’ was transferred to the San Quentin AC. He’s now on my block. That’s why I’m a little concerned.”
“It’s hard to believe anyone would use little children.”
‘You know, I never talk much about these guys, but there’s a few ruthless bastards in this world who’ll stoop to anything. They’d take our kids if they knew where to find them.”
The minute I said that I knew I’d made a mistake. I wanted Beth to know why I was worried, not scare her to death. Mentioning our own kids knocked the optimism right out of her. She remained silent the rest of the way home.
That Monday, there was still no word from the people holding the children. I knew, however, it could come at any time, so I remained in knots. To complicate matters, I was set to have a sit-down—literally—with the leaders of the striking inmates to see if we could resolve the issue. The cons had selected me for the job because the word around the yard was that I wasn’t a hard-ass and could be trusted. That was true. I could be trusted, but they sure as hell couldn’t! Before going on the row to meet with them man-to-murderer, I left specific instructions with the guards. “If the inmates try to take me hostage, don’t be afraid to shoot. I’d rather be shot by somebody trying to save me than get hacked to death bit by bit by those thugs.”
Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars Page 12
