Before He Became a Monster: A Story Charles Manson's Time at Father Flannigan's Boystown

by Lawson McDowell

  Maggie returned to the hospice center and found the old man waiting for her. He was groomed and rested despite the late afternoon hour.

  He smiled broadly, watching her place her purse on the floor He waited patiently for his kiss on the forehead. He could not miss the fire in her eyes.

  She stood beside him and saw love shining through the pain in his emaciated face. Her harsh attitude softened, but she got right to business.

  “Before you tell me your story, you need to understand where I am on Charles Manson. I spent last night and most of this morning reading about him. I have questions for you.”

  He smiled as if he expected this focus on Charlie the mass murderer rather than Charlie the boyhood friend.

  “I’m game,” he said calmly. “Maybe we can reach a few common understandings about him. I would prefer to talk about other things, but I certainly understand the need to get past the preconceptions.”

  “Fine. Can we agree that Manson is a racist? His racism is clear to me.” She set her jaw and met his eyes in a way that said she was ready to debate.

  Jake spoke in a soft, understanding voice.

  “Most people think Charlie is a racist, and by some definitions, he is. Just realize that you call Charlie a racist because you’ve been taught that. But the fact is that, even if the convictions are accurate, Charlie has been convicted of killing only white people. When white people kill white people, that doesn’t sound racist.”

  Maggie plopped into the bedside chair to consider Jake’s comment.

  “Okay, I’ll give you that point. Maybe Manson’s killed only white people, but that doesn’t exclude him from being a racist.”

  “No, other things exclude him.”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “My experience is that Charlie had a problem with slavery. He had an aversion with anyone being forced to do things against their will.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “I’ll go deeper. I think there’s a self-serving side to Charlie. I think that as an adult, Charlie would assume any position necessary to advance his cause. If it would help him to be an Eskimo protesting hunting laws, he would do that. Hell, Charlie could take on almost any popular cause to advance his personal position. But at the core he wasn’t a racist, and he didn’t have demons. He seized on social fears in a time when race relations were a hot topic.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Manson as an adult,” Maggie said.

  “I’m not a big defender of Charles Manson, but I’ve got my facts straight. I know what I experienced firsthand as a boy and what I read later. I looked for articles and stories about Charlie every day in my newsstand. Read everything I could about him.”

  “You talk a good story, Dad, but I don’t buy it. If he’s not a racist, why does he have that swastika carved into his forehead? Explain that one.”

  “It wasn’t always a swastika. In 1970, on the first day of the Tate-LaBianca murder trial, Charlie walked into the court room with a bloody ‘X’ on his forehead.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” she said. “Why an ‘X’? It’s a swastika now.”

  “At the time, the judge and attorneys wouldn’t allow Charlie to present his defense witnesses. Charlie was prepared to bring in a parade of alibi witnesses to clear him. Their testimony was kept out of the trial. Charlie said it was like he had been ‘X-ed’ out of the legal system, ‘X-ed’ out of society, crossed off any list of fairness.”

  Maggie looked Jake in the eye, but said nothing. Jake continued.

  “He wasn’t allowed to speak his mind in court, so out of desperation, he shaved his head and carved the X in an effort to communicate his situation. The media sensationalized the bloody ‘X’ into their own headline story.”

  Maggie was unconvinced. She countered.

  “Let’s go back to the X. I remember Manson made all of his followers outside the courthouse shave their heads and carve the same X.”

  “No, he didn’t require it. They did it on their own, and it made the whole occurrence more bizarre. Everything I just told you is a matter of record. Those kids, his followers, were all very faithful to him. They thought he was getting railroaded.”

  “His followers were wrong,” Maggie argued. “There was no reason to frame a homeless person in full view of the world.”

  Jake was waiting for such a response.

  “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I recognize that the country needed Charlie. America needed an antihero—someone it could hold up and point to and say, rightly or wrongly, ‘We told you so. Here’s the villain, the living example. We told you the hippie lifestyle was bad. We told you that free love leads only to horrible things.”

  “I don’t buy it, Dad.”

  Jake said: “I once watched a television documentary about Charlie, and in it, a professional criminologist acknowledged that it may be very possible that Charlie is telling the truth. Imagine that. What if the media and prosecutors are responsible for making Charlie a cash-cow villain?”

  “Get back to the swastika, Dad. You’ve changed the subject on me.”

  “The ‘X’ didn’t become a swastika until later, while Charlie was in prison. Some say he did it to get back into the news, which is what happened. Charlie offered two different compatible explanations.”

  Maggie waited.

  “For starters, you probably know the swastika dates back thousands of years as a Hindu sign of good fortune. It’s been around the world ever since. Charlie said he adopted the American Indian swastika as four connected ‘L’s. To him, they represent the four lodges of the earth: air, trees, water, and animals. Charlie has his own environmental movement to save life on earth. It’s called ATWA for the four lodges.”

  “This made-up story isn’t going down easy, Dad.”

  “That’s your preconceived notions talking to you. I’m telling you things you never thought about.”

  “Go on with your swastika story, Dad.”

  “Charlie’s second reason for the swastika is more understandable. I’ll explain it like this: picture yourself as a slender, five foot two inch person who ends up in a notorious prison, housed with the nastiest, cruelest criminals in the country. And picture yourself as the most infamous criminal in the country, someone whose murder would bring praise to his killer. In that situation, what would you rather do, baby: project yourself as a frail victim, inviting trouble, or look like the most unpredictable, heartless bastard that ever crawled from under a rock? Which image would be more successful in prison?”

  “That’s not a fair question.”

  “Of course it is. Try to understand his position. You’d want the prison population to be very wary of messing with you. Between the swastika and Charlie’s crazy man act, he keeps a lot of trouble at bay. I’ve never been in prison, but I know it’s tough there. Charlie has become quite adept at surviving through his masks and shows. Few people see the real Charlie.”

  “I’ve had all the swastika and prison survival talk I can take. Can we talk about something a little lighter?”

  “I have things to tell you from my Boys Town days. It all plays into the overall story.”

  “Stories about Manson?”

  “Yes, Manson the boy and me.”

  “Bring it on.”

  “You remember our neighbor? My good friend Gaston?”

  Maggie smiled.

  “Gaston Boudreaux? Of course I remember him. No one could forget Mr. Boudreaux.”

  “You probably realize that he’s a legendary womanizer?” Jake said.

  “Since I was a little girl, Mr. Boudreaux had a stream of women coming and going from that trailer.”

  “The ladies seem to like him, right? And he’ll admit that fidelity has never been his long suit.”

  “He’s the worst kind of philanderer, Dad. I admit that women seem to adore him.”

  “Good, you don’t need any Boudreaux stories, so I’ll get right to the point. Compared to Charles Manson, Gaston Boudreaux has no skills with
the fairer sex at all. Charlie had more seductive ability at age fourteen than Boudreaux ever had. I’ve seen them both, and I’ve read about Manson as an adult. There’s no comparison. Charlie really knows how to make female hormones bubble. No one stayed on his radar for very long.”

  “I’d say it’s a good thing there weren’t any girls at Boys Town in your day.”

  “The lack of girls didn’t matter. Charlie attracted girls like a flower garden attracts bees.”

  “Or, maybe like dog shit attracts flies,” Maggie said.

  “And Charlie attracted girls who would surprise you. Homecoming queens, cheerleaders, brainy girls, kids from good homes. They say Charlie never met a girl who didn’t fall in love with him. From what I saw, it was true. I saw a beautiful girl fall flat on her face for him. Charlie could make a girl feel like she was the most beautiful, important person on earth. He was a real lady-killer.”

  “He was certainly that alright,” Maggie said just loud enough to be heard.

  “Maggie, you’re hearing but not listening.”

  “I’m trying, Dad. It’s hard to overlook what he did later.”

  “But before that, he was a boy. One Saturday night Boys Town gathered six busloads of boys and went to the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum for an ice show. While we were there Charlie picked up the most beautiful girl I had ever seen and brought her back to Boys Town on our bus.

  “That’s gutsy, but not amazing,” Maggie said.

  “… except he had sex with her on the bus surrounded by forty boys and a nun.”

  “No kidding,” Maggie said.

  “She was at the dorm for a good part of the night before we commandeered a Boys Town truck and took her home. What happened in the bus that night was not a stretch for Charlie. He lived life bigger than any of us could imagine, and it came natural.”

  Maggie choked back a comment.

  “I am telling you this to give you background for the bigger things that happened. Let me tell you about the village bully and the food processing class, and drinking the communion wine. You need to grasp the extraordinary things leading up to… well, we’ll get to that.”

  Maggie sat back in her chair and nodded, prepared to hear what he had to say, ready to withhold comment until he was finished.

  CHAPTER 36

  Charlie’s Confession - Boys Town, April 1949

  Charlie sat in the dining hall across from Jake and Hiram. He studied Father Flanagan’s portrait above the table. Hiram and Jake focused on the ham sandwiches and potato chips on their plates.

  “Ole Flanagan seems in a better mood today,” Charlie said, still looking at the portrait. “I think he has a hint of a smile.”

  Hiram and Jake continued eating, never slowing to look up.

  “Unlike you guys,” Charlie continued, “Father Flanagan respects me enough not to laugh out loud.”

  Hiram answered between bites.

  “Father Flanagan is grateful you’re skipping lunch. He’s happy you’re not reloading the gas bombs. And he’s overjoyed you promised to step outside to fumigate the trees instead of the dining hall.”

  The three laughed.

  Charlie stood from the table. “I’ll meet you guys later. I’m off for Confession.”

  At first glance the church seemed vacant. Charlie made his way past the rows of empty pews and reached the confessional booths just as a boy pushed back one of the curtains and left.

  Charlie had seen the boy at the gym on Friday night and saw a spark of recognition in his eyes. Both raised their hands in silent greeting as they passed. Charlie entered the empty booth, pulled the curtain shut, and waited until the panel slid open behind the screen.

  “Do you seek forgiveness for your sins?”

  It was Father Gallagher following his script while secretly anguishing over the disrupted Mass.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Charlie gave the required passwords.

  “How long has it been since your last confessions, my son?”

  “The last confession I made was about four years ago. I’m new to the area. Will God really forgive me for my sins?”

  “Yes, my son, if you truly repent.”

  Gallagher sat up, his senses suddenly on full alert.

  That sounds like Charles Manson. I hear that voice in my dreams.

  “And what about Boys Town?” Charlie continued. “Will Boys Town forgive me for the same sins?”

  There was a pause.

  Gallagher’s voice came from behind the screen. “Certainly, my son.”

  “I sure hoped so. I was hoping if a guy has a sin good enough for God to forgive, it ought to be good enough for Boy’s Town too, right?”

  “How have you sinned?”

  “I’ve probably sinned in a million ways, but I’ll start with something recent. You know that Ice Capades show everyone went to last night?”

  “Yes, my son.” Gallagher prepared to consider the first sin on Charlie’s list.

  Maybe Charles doesn’t realize I know it’s him.

  “Well I met a girl at Ak-Sar-Ben,” Charlie began. “Did you know that ‘Ak-Sar-Ben’ is Nebraska spelled backwards?”

  “Go on,” said Gallagher.

  “She was really nice looking. Something about her loaded my cannon, you know? Maybe it was her scent.”

  Gallagher was quick to rise to Charlie’s lure.

  “Go on.”

  “Anyway, it started when they brought out grown men dressed up like flowers. When they started singing, I lost interest in the show and had to get out for a while. And would you believe it? I met this girl at the cotton candy stand. We really hit it off, and after we walked around for a while we went out to the bus to neck and fool around.”

  “This is one of the Boys Town buses you’re referring to?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Go on.” The priest said, his voice expressing doubt.

  “So I get this broad to the back of the bus…”

  “Please don’t refer to her as a ‘broad.’ She is one of God’s children.”

  “Yeah, sure. Okay, picture this. To my surprise, she pulls out a pint of her old man’s gin. So while everyone else was at the ice show, we were out drinking and fooling around.”

  Charlie couldn’t see the fire in Gallagher’s eyes, but he knew it was there. Gallagher cleared his throat but said nothing.

  Does he think I can’t tell a made-up story? This is fantasy.

  “We were about half-way through the gin when I came to my senses.”

  “That is a positive sign, my son. How did this occur?”

  “Well I was there taking her bra off….”

  “In the bus?”

  “Yeah, in the back of the bus.”

  “And?” said Gallagher, unable to resist the bait.

  “And when I got the bra almost off, she suddenly starts crying. Boo hoo hoo, you know? So I asked her, ‘What are you bawlin’ crying about?”

  “How did she respond, my son?”

  “She says, ‘I’m crying about the promises I made to my mother when my big sister got pregnant. I can’t believe I’m in the back of a Boys Town bus with an orphan getting drunk and about to… who knows what.’ She was really ashamed of herself.”

  There was a pause.

  “And I’ve got to tell you, Father, the more I thought about her situation, it was like my own situation. I think I’ve got a sister somewhere I haven’t seen in years. I wouldn’t want her taken advantage of. And I promised myself I’d try to be a good person after I got to Boys Town. So, the more I thought about it, the sadder I got.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you know it? Before long I was puffed up and crying myself. Not blubbering like her, a’course, but more, you know, manly-like crying.”

  “How did you conclude the situation, my child?”

  “Oh. That part was the easy part, Father. We cried and fucked all the way to Boy’s Town. Some of the guys watched us, but we couldn’t help ourselves.”


  No answer from beyond the screen. Charlie heard the priest stand and take several deep breaths.

  “So am I forgiven, Father?”

  There was still silence.

  “Do you have other sins to confess?”

  The appeasing voice was gone. Charlie could tell the priest was still standing.

  “Well about two o’clock this morning I decided I’d better get her out of the room in case the dorm Nazis came by, so I hotwired the red pickup at the garage and took her home. So far as I know, no one knew it happened. I feel bad about it. It’s been eating at me all day.”

  Charlie felt a pending explosion and wisely kept quiet. He conjured a vision of the holy man simmering on the other side of the screen. It was remarkable how much the image resembled a rabid dog, teeth bared and drooling uncontrollably. A full minute passed before he heard Gallagher sit.

  His confessions seemed preposterous, yet I heard the truck return to campus. Could he have brought a girl to the dorms at his young age? Maybe so. None of the archbishop’s signs of possession are present in the boy. Is it possible Charlie is not afflicted by demonic possession after all?

  “I cannot grant you absolution, Charles, because of your attitudes,” Gallagher said.

  “So, you used my name. You know it’s me over here, Father? Well, that’s okay. I don’t really need your absolution. I can grant my own. It’s like my Grammy used to say, ‘It’s not the priest that grants forgiveness, it’s the confession itself.’ She also taught me, ‘judge not that ye be not judged.’ You ever think about that one while you’re judging sins, Padre?”

  And now Charlie fell silent as he came to the true purpose for coming to confession. He wondered if a new direction was possible. If so, this was his chance to secure real help – help beyond the Boys Town’s do-it-yourself, cookie-cutter approach. Maybe he could made good on his mistakes. Make a fresh start. Ask for help, real guidance this time, and a friend.

  In his flustered state, Gallagher missed completely Charlie’s unrefined appeal. Theirs were different worlds meeting in a fruitless communications effort.

  Gallagher was silent for another reason, heart racing with panic.

  Charlie said: “I know that my story sounded darn bad, but you’re a handsome, single guy. I thought you might understand how things are. You’re a man who understands how weak the flesh can be. Am I right, Father? I’m hoping you can help me figure out the things I don’t know yet.”