by Nuel Emmons
I had expected Mary either to kick my ass out of her apartment or give me an ultimatum like “me or Darlene.” When the two of us got back to the apartment, the girls were a bit distant with each other but very polite when a word was a must. As for myself, dirty bastard though I may seem, I enjoyed every minute of the arrangement. Both girls seemed to want to please me more than the other did. So for a few days, I balled Mary at night and Darlene by day. The three of us went places together; I was proud of myself and my two girls. Mary handled it very well and never asked me to stop my thing with Darlene. Darlene, on the other hand, was constantly asking if I loved her more than Mary, if sex with her was better, and so on. She never stopped wanting to be the only girl in my life. After a couple of weeks, when I still would not place her above Mary, Darlene told me she was going home. I gave her bus money and took her to the depot. I don’t think she really returned to her parents’ house, but she did leave. I never heard from her again until after my arrest and conviction. She wrote and asked me if there was anything she could do. This many years later, I still get an occasional letter from her. [She is married and has three children and is living in northern California.—N. E.]
Neither girl was ever conscious of it, but the sexual relationships we were going through made me feel more comfortable about myself than I had ever felt before. I had learned from experience that sex is more than a stiff dick in a hot box. From beginning to end, it is a mind trip. The power of sex isn’t all I learned from those girls. The two of them, from completely different backgrounds, gave me a fair glimpse of the generation that was so dominant in the 60s. While some were running from bad homes and traumatic experiences, others were leaving good homes because of their disenchantment with the restrictions of their parents’ code of morality. They were all searching for a way of life that would allow them self-expression and acceptance among those they chose to be with.
And me, well, I had left prison and hit the Haight like some hungry puppy—or like a lonesome dog. I was searching for someplace and someone to belong to. But thanks to Mary and Darlene, I made one of the most rewarding discoveries of my life. I learned that a hungry puppy can get some attention and a few scraps from a nice person, but if the puppy keeps begging, pretty soon he becomes the property of that person and has to perform for every piece of meat and pat on the head he receives. It’s “Sit up, stand up, roll over, speak” before getting something to eat and a comfortable place to stay. When the pup is trained, the relationship is one of master and obedient servant. Well, I’d been someone’s puppy for most of my life. I’d been following and begging and losing more ground than I ever gained. For thirty-two years, or at least as long as I had been conscious, I had been playing the game all wrong. Those few days, the sex trips and the turn-around those girls did when I stopped kissing ass and came on with a different attitude, took me right out of the puppy dog syndrome.
Before the relationships with Mary and Darlene I had been hanging around the Haight and making my way with my music, but I lacked the self-confidence to leap right out and consider myself an equal. I was still somebody’s bastard kid with too much of a bad background behind me to ever feel like I really belonged. After those encounters with the two girls, I became a very confident person. I was aggressive, adventurous, and felt I understood the minds of most of the kids that flooded the streets.
In 1967, Berkeley and the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco were havens for me and real places to learn. They provided an opportunity to mingle in and observe all kinds of culture. It was a fascinating trip, and for an ex-con it was almost unbelievable. To “red-blooded Americans” they represented dens for corrupted souls, but to me, it was like the Garden of Eden. My musical talents made me something more than a bum, and some even considered me an artist. A lot of invitations and opportunities came my way that might never have happened without my guitar. My prison background was never a factor and my prison education—the years of conniving, conning and devious ways—put me a step or two ahead of most people living in the districts.
I liked the city but I did not like a constant diet of city life. I enjoyed the trees, the open space and the adventure of traveling. I might be at Mary’s or in the Haight when an urge would prompt me to hit the road. I would leave for a day, a week, or longer. I might go north to Mendocino along the coast, or seek the mountains and the beauty of the trees, or I might head south toward the beaches or the desert. Sometimes I would just plain hit the road, headed nowhere, strictly for the excitement of travel and meeting people and the challenge of the unexpected.
I hadn’t been able to afford a car since my release from prison, so all my early traveling was done by hitchhiking. During that time it seemed as though most people who gave the hitchers rides were looking for adventure themselves, some deviation from their normal living habits. When the drivers asked me the stereotypical questions—”Where you headed? Where you coming from? How long you been on the road? What do you do for a living?”—what I told them depended on how I judged the person who had given me the ride. If the person was a quiet type and just doing a hiker a favor, I’d tell things pretty straight. If the person was a talker it didn’t matter too much what I said, I’d just let him or her ramble on. If they showed prying curiosity about my life, I might try to impress by reeling out a string of fascinating experiences—some lies, some truths. If the driver was too smug I’d try to shock him and tell him I just got out of prison and was on my way home.
On many occasions, my destination depended on where my ride was going. It wasn’t unusual for me to be heading back to Mary’s apartment in Berkeley and end up in Sacramento, Reno, or some other place if the ride suggested I go along with them. If a lady or a pretty girl was giving me a ride, I might say, I’d like to go wherever you’re going. Sometimes it would work and sometimes not, but what the hell—nothing ventured, nothing gained. For me, just out of the joint, everything was an adventure and I didn’t want to pass up any opportunities. I was fast discovering that a gift of gab and a touch of intrigue could go a long way in getting people to pay attention to you. A lot of people were into acting out a fantasy just for the thrill of a new experience, especially with a stranger who they would never see again, and who would never be able to tell tales. I discovered that being bold, what some people might call uncouth, put me next to a lot of things I enjoyed, things which might have gone right on by if I hadn’t had the gall to suggest them. That isn’t to say I hit on everyone who ever gave me a ride. It isn’t too difficult to tell whether the person is open to suggestions or not. For the record, I struck out a lot more than I scored. But scoring or striking out, hitching was the only means of transportation I had. And hitch I did, until a soft-hearted ride made my first set of wheels possible.
I was headed south and a heavy, bald-headed guy gave me a ride in his pickup truck. He was kind of a religious fanatic, so naturally he wanted to save my soul. By the time we got to where he had to turn off he had decided I should share dinner with him and his family. Being hungry and having no schedule to keep, I figured, what the hell, I could listen to his preaching for a while. He lived in San Jose, and I not only had dinner with him and his family, I spent the night. We discussed the Bible, said a few prayers and sang a few religious songs. I admired the piano that accompanied our singing. I left with an invitation to revisit his home any time I was in the area. More importantly, because I had admired their piano the night before, he told me the piano was mine if I wanted it. He may have thought I’d never be in the area again to claim the gift, but I very much wanted that piano. I had another reason for returning: he had a beautiful young daughter, and by the looks I was getting she was just as interested in me. The fellow’s name was Reverend Dean Moorehouse and his daughter was Ruth Ann. Dean’s house became a regular stopping place; his door was always open to me.
One time while in his neighborhood I saw a Volkswagen van. It was like seeing a girl and all of a sudden getting big eyes for her. I had to have that van. With maybe
twenty-five or thirty dollars to my name, I knocked on the owner’s door and began negotiating. When the discussion was over, all I had to do was deliver Dean’s piano and the van was mine. Dean, true to his word, gave me the piano, and we used his pickup truck to haul it over. I drove away with my first set of wheels since my release. The van was not only transportation, it was a home on wheels that afforded me a nomadic lifestyle.
Those first weeks in my new van were among the happiest of my entire life. Mary and I fixed it up so that it was a regular little whorehouse on wheels. I don’t mean broads were turning tricks in it, but it was a love pad. It was no problem to stop anywhere, with anyone, and make love for a few minutes, hours, or even days if I wanted to. I took pride in sharing it with other people who didn’t have a place to sleep—sometimes just for the night, other times for as long as we enjoyed each other’s company. That van gave me a way to travel, a place to sleep and a feeling of ownership.
People admired it: the fad of the times was not new and shiny things, but used and convenient items, and in the circles I traveled in, a van or a bus was the desired mode of transportation. That vehicle fit me in every way.
For the first time in my thirty-three years of life, I was current with fads and lifestyles. I wasn’t a misfit, somebody’s bastard child, or an ex-convict that people didn’t want around. And this situation existed not only in the Haight, but all over America and other countries as well. The flower children and the hippies were accepted as part of the times. My chest was probably puffed out bigger than it was supposed to be, but damn, there was joy and excitement to just being around a whole generation of people who saw me as an equal. That little bus and what it represented had a lot to do with the excitement I felt.
Now that I had the means and style fitting the standard of the times, I had some traveling to do. There were places to see and experiences to live—that is, if I stayed within the boundaries that govern an ex-convict still under the supervision of a parole officer. But what parole officer would deny a man the opportunity to visit his mother? So with a little lie on my tongue, I told my parole officer I’d like to make a trip to Washington and visit my mom for a few days. I did have thoughts of maybe locating her, but truth is, I was more interested in revisiting some of my old convict friends who were living in the Seattle area and just traveling around. The parole officer gave me permission, so when Mary and I headed for Washington, I was totally legal.
In the summer of 1967 the highways were loaded with hitchhikers, especially along the coast route. The beaches, the mountains and all the beauty of nature were a magnet for those people, mostly kids, who were searching for something, or simply escaping from homes where they were abused or neglected, or felt unwanted. Naturally, the coast route was the way we headed north. If you’re a nature lover and appreciate the beauty of wooded mountains as they meet the shore line of a huge ocean, there is nothing like the drive up Highway One along the north coast of California. Prison walls make for a bitter, ugly world, but they also make a person really able to appreciate nature: the clean fresh air, the free-flowing rivers, the unconquerable force of ocean waves. Driving up the coast that summer, I really got caught up in thinking no one should ever be confined or controlled by other people. No one should have the trees cut or the rivers dammed. I was into being free. Although not a believer in God the way a lot of people believe, I felt if there was indeed a creator of heaven and earth, that creator meant for all things to live and die in their natural state. Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind.
In Mendocino County there are three small towns, Albion, Casper, and the town of Mendocino. In decades past, Casper and Mendocino were seaport towns, supply harbors where sailing vessels and the old steam trading schooners stopped to take on supplies and wood for fuel. While the towns no longer had any sea trade, they did maintain a traditional nautical appearance, providing tourists and travelers with a glimpse of life from a previous century. Albion was a community where hunters, woodsmen and fishermen had lived in times past. In the 60s, those towns and similar communities became havens for the same kind of seekers who flooded Haight-Ashbury—except that these people were into the environment, nature, religious practices, and individualism even more than those who congregated in the Haight. Most were honest and their word was as binding as any legal contract. Some were artists who were content to use their talents for individual satisfaction, surrounded by nature and serenity. Others sought the areas for religious practices that were frowned on by conventional society. Communes and occult groups were not uncommon in the surrounding hills and beaches, but there were also those who camouflaged themselves as artists or religious searchers, using their secluded retreats to grow pot or manufacture hallucinogenic drugs.
The time I spent in those three towns and others like them while enroute to Seattle was an eye-opener, and more of a learning experience than those first few days after my release from prison and introduction to Haight-Ashbury. Mary and I picked up a lot of hitchhikers, shared a lot of meals, smoked plenty of locally grown grass, experienced the effects of mushrooms, dropped a few tabs and enjoyed a lot of sex. I got my first look at commune living, which in most cases isn’t all sex orgies or domination by an individual trying to pass his beliefs off to everyone, but more usually a group wanting to live in harmony by their own standards. I don’t deny the existence of communes that thrive on shared or group sex—that trip initiated me to the joy of balling more than one chick at a time.
By the time we reached Seattle, we had been on the road for almost two weeks on a drive that would normally require less than twenty hours of driving time. With each passing mile, every new face, each conversation and incident along the way, I saw a world that was made for me. All my years in prison had opened my mind up to everything those kids wanted out of life. That period I spent searching to develop my mind at McNeil put me in perfect harmony with all those seekers who had broken away from society’s traditional teachings. Actually, I had the sense of being a step or two ahead of some of those who were still experimenting and searching. For once in my life, I wasn’t resentful of all those years in jail: the association with my many fathers and brothers in prison had groomed me for exactly the kind of world I was now living in. I had the answers for all the hang-ups and frustrations of those kids fleeing their homes. And for the most part, everything was answered by, “Be your own person, love yourself, but let go of your ego. Don’t be influenced by material things. Nothing is wrong if it feels good and satisfies you. Live for now, forget yesterday and don’t think too much about tomorrow. Love is for everyone, to be shared.”
My philosophy was real to me and it was accepted by almost all who listened. Everything I said seemed to impress those around me. It didn’t matter that I was an ex-felon, or that I could barely write my name. What mattered was that I could make those I talked to feel comfortable with themselves. My music and my words affected lots of people. Right or wrong, the fact that those people were searching and listening was a reflection on the flaws of their parents and the establishment. And this many years later, I don’t see things getting any better.
One of the first guys I called when I got to Seattle wasn’t an old convict friend, but a counselor who had helped me out a great deal at Mac. For an authority figure in the joint he was unusual; he wasn’t caught up in playing God and had always treated me as an equal. So I thought I might tell him I appreciated his interest and help. I may have had a yen to show off some, for in addition to Mary, a couple of other girls had been riding around with us for the last few days. If he was the partying kind, he was welcome to try his luck with my two new friends. As it turned out, he wasn’t into inviting me to his home, but gave me that old coffee-shop routine. When he answered the phone, I said, “Mr. Adams, this is Charlie, Charlie Manson, remember?” A short silence and then, “Oh yeah, how you doing, Charlie?—and where are you?” I told him I was in town and would like to come by and
see him. He hesitated and then said, “Look, Charlie, I’m about ready to leave the house, so why don’t I meet you in town, say the Greyhound Bus station, in thirty minutes?” He walked into the bus station, Mr. Clean in his shirt and tie. The girls and I, looking like hippies, set him back a step or two. It was amusing to see him ill at ease when in our past association he had always been poised and confident. We had coffee and about twenty minutes of conversation, then he said he had to leave. I remember thinking, “You smug prick, you didn’t really give a shit about me. You were just playing the part to earn your paycheck.”
I also had the number of a Hawaiian friend who had worked in the barber shop at Mac. “Pineapple” we called him. Pineapple had opened up a barber shop after he had gotten out and was playing things pretty straight—the biggest charge of his life was when the warden of McNeil came into his shop for a haircut. Though he wasn’t free to spend a day or two with us, he was into smoking a joint and having a drink. He had eyes for balling one of the girls but time and his wife didn’t allow him the opportunity. I can’t knock the guy for squaring up, but between him and my former case-worker, I knew I was living the best of the different worlds. Pineapple knew what had happened with a lot of our old joint buddies and he had a permanent address, so through him I had a way to contact some guys I might want to be in touch with later.