“Feeding hungry children is not a poisonous idea, Sean. What is your concern?”
“To put it nicely, he wants to do it by using nuns as prostitutes.”
The archbishop said nothing. Gallagher took the silence as an invitation to continue.
“I believe we have a demon-possessed adolescent on our hands. It may be in the early stages, but his situation is close to being out of control,” said Gallagher.
“Demons, you say?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“We do not take such talk lightly, Sean. I suspect that you are judging him against a background of your personal challenges, the ones we discussed yesterday involving the Franciscan. You need to understand the new boy from his particular view of the world to turn him in a different direction.”
“Archbishop, I believe we need an exorcism here.”
The archbishop’s tone changed.
“You may find the idea comforting that Charles Manson is influenced by a biblical demon, but that is just too simple, too neat a package for a complicated situation. The fact is, most suspected cases of demonic possession cases can be explained by other factors—anything from environmental factors to the thinking of a brilliant mind. Frankly, Sean, I believe you are wrongly equating a complicated, but gifted, child with evil. Our church has erred so in the past, sometimes tragically.”
“With all respect, Excellency, Manson is beyond anything I’ve ever dealt with. I humbly request your assistance.”
Now, a degree of irritation revealed itself.
“Just so we’re clear, most exorcisms are successful solely through the power of suggestion and the expectation of the afflicted. The real demons? We have serious problems with them. You want me to reconsider? Very well, let’s review the principle indicators of possession.”
“Thank you, Excellency.”
“Does the boy speak strange tongues?”
“No, Excellency.”
“Does he possess unusual strength?”
“No, Excellency.”
“Does he speak with multiple personalities?”
“No, Excellency.”
“What about assuming the persona of a different being?”
“No.”
“Or strange voice qualities, for example speaking in a woman’s voice?”
“No.”
“Then, in what ways does he resist the will of God?”
“I don’t know, Excellency.”
“I’m hearing just what I expected, Sean. The most unusual thing about him is that he plays a guitar and sings like a prodigy. Is that the worst you have?”
A hot and greasy nausea overcame Gallagher from the archbishop’s blind attitude.
“That young man is not innocent! My gut tells me he is as lusty and sinful as any demon that ever roamed the earth. He’s merely too young to do much about it yet, but he will someday. I fear he will spread terror across this world, and I feel helpless to do anything about it. I need you to come see for yourself. I need your assistance for this boy.”
“Sean, I don’t have time for your dramatics. I have bigger issues than considering a needless, sensational exorcism for a fourteen year boy at Boys Town. In my mind, the greater concern is your stubbornness. We’ve not had time to discuss your feelings for the sister, and now I’ve got the ecumenical council to prepare for. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Gallagher found himself holding a phone with no one on the other end.
Chapter 28
The Slaughtered Hog - Boys Town, April 1949
Charlie, Jake, and Hiram were already behaving like brothers and growing closer. Already, they referred to items as “our candy” rather than “my candy.” The transition from “I” to “we” was so easy and natural that they were unaware of the change. They could not foresee that destiny would tie them forever to secrets at Boys Town.
On Saturday, Charlie, Hiram, and Jake walked along the newly paved road from the main campus to the west side barns. The weather was perfect. The boys ambled along joyfully in the spring air.
They shared an unspoken optimism. Each held an expectation that the future was bright. For Jake, the feeling was reminiscent of the exhilaration he felt when Babe Ruth came to visit, and when the Boys Town football team played one of the nation’s best high school teams in the Orange Bowl stadium.
And in the plowed fields near them, boys learning to farm labored to plant the corn crop. The farm bosses pushed them, for they had few weeks of optimal soil temperatures and field conditions for planting.
“Planting time,” Hiram said, “is almost as busy for me as harvest. Anytime a truck breaks down, they’ll come looking for me. I’m lucky they let me off for the day.”
A quarter mile ahead, a white barn dominated a complex of smaller buildings and cottages.
“Who lives out here?” Charlie asked. “The hired hands who run the farms live here. They have their own separate neighborhood.”
“Tell me about this lesson we’re going to,” Charlie said.
“Food preparation lab,” Jake replied. “We learn butchering today.”
Hiram laughed. “Tell it all, Jake. We’re going to the killing room.”
“Yeah, that’s right. We’ll be in the killing room,” Jake admitted. “We’re starting with pork on the hoof, right out of the farming pens.”
They walked through the main doors of the barn and joined a group of boys watching two older students clad in boots, chaps and cowboy hats as they saddled horses.
“Who’re the cowboys?” Charlie asked.
“We call them range men. They’re students like us, only older. They take care of the cattle down on the south end. They’ve got the glamour jobs. They’re the guys who would get the girls—if we had any girls.”
The cowboys mounted up and rode toward the barn door to the admiration of the younger boys.
As the wranglers passed outside and turned toward the cattle pastures, a silhouetted figure, slightly bowlegged and cowboy-hatted, appeared in the doorway and swaggered toward the students.
“Don’t tell me. Father John Wayne?” Charlie whispered to Jake.
“No. That’s Colt Hopkins. He’s the herdsman: the guy in charge of the barn and livestock operations,” Jake answered. “He’s an okay guy.”
As he approached, the figure came into full view.
He was a tough-looking man with keen eyes framed by a tanned, leathery face. Dressed in full cowboy regalia, the grizzled cowboy was an imposing figure. He walked toward them counting heads.
“Okay, boys, gather in here.”
His gravelly voice was unexpectedly forceful and demanded immediate action. Everyone moved at once to assemble around the veteran ranch hand. Charlie expected another useless lecture.
“Today you boys graduate from livestock cleaning and feeding to processing. It’s time you learned the facts of life. Bacon and ham don’t grow on trees or get delivered by the meat fairy neither.”
They laughed.
“Today you boys are going to see blood, plenty of it. Any ‘a you ever killed anything bigger’n a grasshopper?”
They laughed again, but no one held up a hand.
Colt Hopkins now spotted Charlie and zeroed in.
“Before we start, I see the wind just blew in a tenderfoot.”
They laughed a third time, except for Charlie who felt the gaze of everyone in the barn.
For a moment Charlie prepared for a comment about his small size, and it came, but not in the joshing tone he expected.
“Best cowboy I ever saw was just about your size. Tough as nails and a heart of gold. What’s your name, boy?” Hopkins asked with a smile and a nod.
Charlie liked the herdsman. He was a man’s man who seemed fair and sincere.
“My name’s Charles Manson,” he answered and stood forward to offer the herdsman his hand.
“That’s a good enough name, I guess, but I may have to give you a dandy nickname—a Boys Town name. So let’s see, we’ve already got a Lefty, Sh
orty, Fats, Red, and Limpy.”
“How ‘bout calling me Sinatra?” Charlie asked.
Hopkins looked Charlie up and down. “Nah.” He closed one eye for a different look. “Maybe... Pretty Boy.” He turned his head and spat into the dirt.
“Pretty Boy ain’t such a bad name, but me? I’d take something like Rising Star or Songbird.”
“Songbird?” The old wrangler’s eyebrows raised.
“Sure. I sing like a bird. You’ll see.”
“Hmm… Tell you what, I’ll give it a week before the right name comes to me. Right now we need to take care of business.” He spoke to the group. “Okay boys, let’s get to the slaughter room.”
There was a nervous shuffle toward a side door accompanied by rib jabs, snickers, overly loud laughter, and narrow chests thrust out to demonstrate bravery.
Charlie moved on with the group, glad his introduction to the tough herdsman didn’t include the kind of threats, intimidation, and demeaning talk he had endured at reform schools and jails.
The group re-assembled in the next building. This was the infamous killing room. The chamber was entirely white tile, washed sparkling and brilliantly lit. The air was chilled, like an operating room, with a strong smell of industrial soap.
Jake’s attention fell on the centerpiece, a large metal frame in the middle of the room. He knew its purpose was to hold an animal steady for killing. Jake shivered as much from the sight of it as the chill in the room.
Charlie stood next to Jake absorbed with the strange surroundings. Overhead, he saw winches and meat hooks. On a sidewall he saw tools: knives, saws, hooks, a sledge hammer, and white buckets. Another wall held reels with hoses ready for cleaning up – what? Blood?
Charlie studied the killing rack, and like several other boys in the room, the anticipation excited him. He felt a stirring in his groin. He worried he was getting an erection. He refocused on Hopkins, who was enjoying the shocked faces of the innocent.
Hiram viewed the room through a mechanic’s practical eyes. As with vehicles, he cared little about their practical use. What excited him was the mystery of how they worked.
He elbowed Charlie. “That rack is stainless steel pipe, man. Musta cost a bundle, huh? But it will sure last.”
No one was completely adjusted when Hopkins raised a hand to signal two upperclassmen. They disappeared from the room and returned moments later leading a large hog on a rope. The hog was cooperating fully, hoping it must be time to eat.
Jake recognized the animal as one he had regularly fed while working livestock duty. Later he swore the animal showed recognition for him and gave him a sort of hog smile.
“Okay, boys, welcome to the slaughter room. What you see in front of you is ham on the hoof. Our job is to find the hams hidden inside him.” Hopkins paused to let the group appreciate his cleverness. “Now, to start with, you gotta cinch this hog in the rack real tight. If he realizes what’s happening, he ain’t gonna want to give up them hams without a fight, so Hiram, I want you and Jake to lead the animal into the killing rack.”
Jake went almost as white as the tile wall. He froze, and would have remained so, except Charlie pushed him out of line to follow Hiram who was already halfway to the hog.
Hopkins instructed: “When you get the animal inside the rack, secure the latches. As soon as that’s done, we’ll start turnin’ this big ‘ole boy into bacon.”
Jake felt queasy leading the trusting animal into the rack’s metal chute. He thought of the many times he had encountered this friendly hog.
The herdsman held up a sledge hammer.
“The animal is dispatched, that’s the fancy word for killed, using this sledge. We take the animal down painlessly with a hard blow, and one blow only, right between the eyes.”
Six of the ten students felt revulsion. Four, including Charlie, felt an adolescent tightening in their pants.
“Who wants to give it a go?” the herdsman asked.
No one moved. The class kept their heads down, eyes darting sideways while averting eye contact with Hopkins. Charlie alone kept his head up.
“Well, how about you, Sinatra?” Hopkins asked, looking directly at Charlie. “Are you man enough to take on a five hundred pound hog?”
“Sure,” was all Charlie said, but in his eyes were alight.
Charlie held out his hand for the sledge.
“One strike only,” Hopkins reminded.
Many expected Charlie to chicken out, or at least look for group support. What happened next shocked the room. Taking the sledge, Charlie’s face fell slack. He stared first at the unconcerned hog and then at the sledge. Slowly, his face contorted into a red-faced, vein-popping mask of rage. With his first step toward the killing box, Charlie’s eyes bulged.
Then he spoke. The words came from his mouth, but the voice, distorted with fury, was not Charlie’s normal voice at all, but that of something evil.
“I am Man’s Son, you pig, you filth,” Charlie growled. “Die vermin hog! I commend you to hell!”
The powerful sledge blow was focused and sure. The hammer’s contact brought Charlie’s feet off the ground. The hog dropped instantly to its knees, a ghastly bloody depression in the forehead just above its lifeless eyes. Only the restraints and rack kept the animal from toppling over.
Everyone but the herdsman was stunned silent by the violent execution. Even the old herdsman had never witnessed such intense aggression from a child.
When it was over, Charlie casually swung the sledge onto his shoulder and brushed the hair away from his eyes. He smiled at Hopkins.
“Well, he won’t be shittin’ in your barnyard no more. I guess that’s about how it’s done.”
The herdsman’s face was blank. He held out his hands for the hammer.
Charlie surrendered the killing tool and gave the herdsman a wink.
In the time it took Colt Hopkins to reorganize his thoughts, Charlie was back in line standing quietly with the rest of the boys, indistinguishable from the others except for one thing. Charlie was the one being showered with admiring, appreciative looks from the majority of his awe-struck, now blood-lusting classmates.
The natural process that moves boys from instinctive animal behaviors into civilized, moral beings had just suffered a setback at Boys Town.
Hiram nudged Jake. “Man, I’m thinking Charlie’s a good person to keep on our side.”
“Way to take the sonofabitch down,” Hiram wanted to holler, but he bit back the words.
Jake just shrugged. His eyes flicked from Charlie to the friendly hog and back again. He forced his conflicting thoughts aside.
Charlie is my way out of here.
The herdsman regarded the boys and their varied reactions. He withheld comment and resumed his teacher role, now sans cleverness.
“Alright boys, get the straps on this animal’s legs. We’ll hoist him up, bleed him out, and skin him before we take him to the butcher shop.” The authority in his voice was gone.
The group worked two hours on the pork and cleanup before the herdsman released them.
“That’s it for today, boys. The kitchen wants three hogs next week, so come back next Saturday ready for serious work.”
As the students rushed out of the barn for a late lunch, the upperclassman cornered the old herdsman.
“What did you think about that new kid?” one asked.
The herdsman’s face twisted. “I ain’t got a clue ‘bout what we saw in the killin’ room.”
“Is that how we are supposed to do it?” the other asked.
Hopkins rubbed his jaw and spat.
“I ain’t too sure ‘bout that.”
On the road to the lunch room, the three brothers talked idly.
“What did you think about Colt Hopkins?” Jake asked.
“I like him well enough,” Charlie answered. “I have a better question for you guys. What did you think about my crazy man act?”
“With the hog? That was an act?”
C
harlie grinned.
“Yeah. I still feel bad for the hog. I don’t like to kill animals, and I don’t eat a lot of meat, but Mr. Hog was going to die no matter what, so I did it. I had to let people know I’m not a guy to mess with.”
Hiram smiled. “No one missed that message, brother.”
Chapter 29
Maggie Visits - Douglas County Health Center, August, 2012
Maggie sat stiffly in a bedside chair, still overwrought from her first glimpse of Jake. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.
He looks so different, so much frailer than the last time we saw him. That must have been a year ago.
“When you told me you were sick, I had to come right away.”
“I decided I needed to see you. I’m happy you came so quickly.”
The nurse left. They broke the ice with small talk. Maggie told Jake about the grandkids and her long days at work. Jake told about the onset of cancer, his treatments, and downhill path. Nothing unpredictable passed between the two—no confessions, no apologies, no accusations or affirmations. When the niceties passed, Jake broached the real agenda.
“Maggie, there are things I’ve wanted to tell you for years. Things you wanted to know. Things you’re old enough to know now.” He smiled.
“I’m sixty-two, Dad. Are you sure I’m old enough?”
“I’m going to take a chance on it.”
Their tones had matched in lightheartedness, but inside, she was unsure what secrets he had held so long.
He spoke more seriously now.
“I always wanted to tell you sooner, but I never had the right chance. We haven’t spent much time together since you grew up.”
She downplayed their estrangement, dancing around the edges of it.
“We’ve had our own busy lives. I guess you’re finally going to tell me about whatever you did to make my mother leave. Is that it?”
“I want to tell you everything, even about your mother. Let me tell it my way. If I jump to the end, you’ll hate me. I want you to at least know my side of what happened.”
“Your rules, as always, I see. I can do that, but please start with something about my mother, anything. I know almost nothing about her.”
Before He Became a Monster: A Story Charles Manson's Time at Father Flannigan's Boystown Page 16