by Nuel Emmons
Pacifying George was the least of our problems. Once in our face, the police never let up. The kids started getting rousted everytime they stepped off the property. Our vehicle operation slowed down until it seemed we were never going to get the needed items for the desert. With the heat around, some of the drifting kids left and so did some of the ex-cons. What was great only days before was now shit. And seeing nothing moving us toward the desert, maybe I got a little surly with the kids. I started using anything that might convince them the desert was the only place for us.
Some of the kids were as pumped up about getting out of the city as I was, but several still frowned on being out in the desert. Their argument was, “Geez, Charlie, except for a few places like Barker’s there’s hardly no water or shade. It’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. There ain’t no protection from nothin’.” “Are you kiddin’,” I almost screamed, “that desert’s got everything. Hell, the whole desert ain’t nothing but an upside down river. Water’s running under every inch of it. How do you think those springs stay full? You just have to know where it’s at. I’ve come across places out there where the sun don’t beat down on you all day and it never gets cold in the winter, and water’s everywhere. It’s underground. I haven’t explored it yet, but I sat on the edge of the hole and watched the water flowing underground. Man, the possibilities of that place are endless. And we’ll find that hole again and build our own city.
“Why do you think we been breaking our asses to put together all this equipment? The dune buggies, the generators, the supplies all the gas we been stashing out there are going to make that desert into a paradise. Barker’s and the Myers place ain’t nothing compared to what we’ll have going for us. When our records hit the market, we’ll build our own town. In the meantime, if we put our act together, we can make the desert just as comfortable as we want it to be. Think about it: no rent to pay, no laws to obey and no cops on our asses. Hey, we’ll be one step ahead of anything that goes on in this world.
“Look around you, the worm’s turning on the white man. Him and his pigs have put the dollar in front of everything. Even his own kids. Blackie’s tired of being the doormat for the rich man’s pad. So while the white man’s locked into his dollars, blackie’s balling the blond, blue-eyed daughters and making mixed babies. It’s all leading to bad shit. Real madness is going to explode soon—everything is going to be Helter Skelter. But that won’t affect us, ’cause we’ll be in a beautiful land that only we know how to survive in. To be ready, we need equipment and supplies by the tons. If we have to do a little stealing and hustling to get what we need, let’s do it.”
In days to come, and even now just about everything I said got so twisted and exaggerated that none of it sounded like what actually came out of my mouth. If saying I would find the hole in the desert where I saw water means building a city under ground (as the DA said), then I don’t know how to speak or hear. And if in expressing my opinions about the whites and blacks and wanting to be away from their hassles means I wanted to start the war and straighten out the world afterwards, then I’m not the only one with a huge imagination. The whole thing about the desert was that I loved being out there and so did some of the kids. The hassles we were getting from the police, my rap about possible trouble between the races and the picture of a better place to live put the kids into a game-for-anything frame of mind. Even those who showed some reluctance in the beginning were now game and daring. Actually, they were too daring at times, and drew more heat our way—not all of it from the police.
Susan, for example, was the kind of girl who would split from the ranch with the intention of doing something to benefit our cause. Once away from us, she’d get so wrapped up in what she was doing she wouldn’t get anything done—or else, she’d burn whoever she had been sleeping with and come running back to the ranch with her trick right behind her. One time after she had been gone for several days, she came back and handed me about two lids of grass, which might net us thirty dollars, and said, “Here, Charlie, this is all I could score, but I’ll do better next time.” Twenty minutes after she handed me the grass, three big suckers, two Mexicans and a white guy, come driving into the yard. One of and the Mexican guys started shouting, “I’m looking for Sadie, Susan Atkins, she here?” I met him about halfway between his car and the front of the saloon, asking him why he was looking for the girl. “She’s my woman and I know she’s here. Tell her to get out here!” I hollered at Susan to come out of the saloon. Reluctantly, she came over to where the four of us were standing. The guy that was doing all the talking grabbed her by the shoulder and said, “Come on bitch, get in the car and don’t be splittin’ anymore.” Susan pulled back and told the guy, “I’m not going anyplace with you, man. Now get out of here and leave me alone. Charlie’s my old man, and this is where I’m staying.” The guy then gave me all his attention, saying, “That’s my bitch and I’m taking her with me.” “Okay, pal,” I told him, “do you see any fences here? Take her if she wants to go with you. Nothin’s holding either one of you from doing what you want to do.” The guy again reached out for Susan, but she backed away, telling him she wasn’t going anyplace with him. “Then I’m going to kick your old man’s ass and get my two pounds of grass back,” the guy said as he made a move on me. I didn’t have anything in my hands but my guitar, so I evaded his first move and told him, “Now, man, don’t make me break my guitar over your head. If the girl wants to leave with you, you got her. If not, she stays and you go. But if you insist on sticking around, I’m going to pull my gun out of my pocket and blow your motherfucking head off.”
The guy shook me down with his eyes and, since I was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, he could see I couldn’t have been packing a gun. “You little asshole, you got no gun. I’m taking that broad out of here and my two pounds of grass.” He brought a switchblade out of his pocket and made a move at me. I jumped back and pulled a larger hunting knife from my boot. The guy hesitated and I told him, “Look, man, there’s two lids of grass in the house. It’s yours if you’ll just get all this shit out of your head and leave. Now it ain’t two pounds like you said, but if it will make you happy, take it and leave and both of us might get out of this situation without getting cut.” “I ain’t settling for no two lids and being made a fool of by that bitch,” he said, and lunged for me with his knife. I sidestepped him and put a small slice in his arm as he went by me. “Now see what you did to yourself. I didn’t want to cut you, but you forced me to. Now you got nothing coming. Not the girl or the two lids.” “Fuck you,” he said. He tried to stab me and I shifted out of his way, this time cutting his other arm. His two partners were on the verge of making a move on me, but seeing that help was coming out of the saloon and they were now out-numbered, they just watched. After I cut the guy for the third time, I told him, “Look, guy, you can’t win here. You can’t touch me with your blade and you keep getting yourself cut. The girl done told you she don’t want to leave with you. I’ve told you there ain’t no two pounds of grass and now that you’ve made an ass of yourself, I’m not into giving you the two lids I offered when you drove up. Now the best thing for you to do is let your friends drive you someplace where you can get them cuts sewed up.” Muttering that he’d be back to even things up, the guy and his partners got in their car and left.
Susan came running toward me, asking, “You all right, Charlie? The lying bastard didn’t cut you did he? He’s a liar! I didn’t take his two pounds.” “Susan,” I said, “you got no reason to explain things to me. I’ve told you a thousand times: what you do, you do for you, not me. But I’m getting pretty fucking tired of your shit always coming back on the rest of us. One of these days, you’re going to have to settle up on all you owe.”
Naturally, even with the urgency to get out of the city, I was still after Dennis, Jakobson and Melcher to come through with something good for us. At Jakobson’s insistence, Melcher and a guy finally came out to Spahn’s and did some video cassettes.
But evidently Melcher wasn’t impressed enough to try to move the material. All we got were promises that we’d do it again. Not being able to live on promises, we continued stealing, selling dope and hustling in any way we could to help the cause.
Susan Atkins and Tex Watson have both written books declaring their rebirth as born-again Christians. In their books, they cop to being into drugs, vice, and complete opposition to the law long before they met Charles Manson. If, in fact, they are as sincere about Christianity and as strong in religion as they were sold on drugs and deceit during the time our lives ran parallel, then God has got two very devoted disciples. But if, on the other hand, they are with their God as they were with me, they are still going to do just as they please. I’d like to emphasize that those two, who screamed the loudest and cried the hardest that I influenced their lives and actions, were themselves instrumental in what I feel was the biggest blow to the life we were living and led to murder and chaos.
Even before that blow, the whole atmosphere at the ranch had been drifting from love and games to tension and discontent for several months. I guess I have to pick up that load, for instead of following my own advice of “be your own person” and “live and let live,” I was pushing to get things done and pretty heavy into being the voice of authority. It was a thing that crept up on me. Even at the Spiral Staircase, when I first realized that someone had to hold things in check, I never meant to play boss or keeper. But as the numbers grew, so did the responsibilities—and the pressure. I may have tried to direct our goals as a group, but I never locked anyone to me. In spite of what has been said since, everyone was always free to come and go as they pleased or hit the road for good if that was what they wanted. So, even with the change, I wasn’t into hurting anyone except in self-defense. Never, at any time, did I feel our actions could push us into taking a human life. And I still don’t believe any of the violence would have erupted if we had controlled the drugs instead of letting them control us. But who can say where we would have ended up if it had not been for the ensuing incidents?
One day Indian Joe, a biker who often hung around the ranch, was hiking around the canyons a mile or two from the ranch houses when he stumbled on some telatche (belladonna) plants. He brought them down to the kitchen and explained to Brenda how to trim the plants, boil the roots and make talatche tea. The plants were potent and poisonous and it wasn’t advisable to cook them indoors because of the fumes, but Brenda trimmed the roots to about medium-sized onions and began boiling them in the kitchen anyway. Tex walked in and wanted to know what was in the pot. He was told, “This is what belladonna is made from.” With that, he picked up a large root and started scarfing it like he was eating an apple. Before the full effect hit him, Tex caught a ride into town.
I wasn’t in the kitchen, nor did I know what was going on. I had seen Tex come out of the building and waved goodbye to him as he left the ranch. He waved back saying, “See you later.” I think it was the last time until the trials I saw Tex in what might be called his right mind.
Several minutes after Tex left, Brenda came staggering out of the kitchen and collapsed on the porch. I ran over and picked her up. She didn’t know who or where she was. She would open her eyes, mutter incoherently and then pass out. I hollered at T.J. who I had seen coming in and out of the kitchen several times. T.J. was pretty stoned himself, but he was coherent enough to tell me what was going on inside the kitchen. One look at T.J. and Brenda told me Tex was in no condition to be away from the ranch and in town where he could get into trouble and get busted. I shouted at Squeaky to come and take care of Brenda and then took T.J. and threw him under a cold shower. After the shower and some coffee got his head straight, I sent him to find Tex and keep him out of trouble. As it turned out, T.J. got to Tex’s place in town too late. Tex had already been dropped off, gotten on a motorcycle and split. Later that evening Tex crashed the bike into a parked car. He then climbed into the car and passed out. The next morning the owner of the vehicle, unable to awaken Tex, called the police. They booked him for being under the influence of narcotics. Three days later Tex returned to the ranch, and as I said, never seemed the same again.
All this took place in the early part of June, 1969. Though Tex now spent almost all of his time at the ranch, he still came and went as he pleased. He was engaged to a girl who had an apartment in Hollywood; it was there that a dope burn involving a black guy, Bernard Crowe, took place. And the repercussions of that dope burn began the violence which would eventually surround the Family.
Tex had taken his girlfriend’s Volkswagen into a shop to have it converted into a dunebuggy. The tab was to be around five-hundred dollars. To get the money, he was going to turn over some grass. He went to the black guy’s pad with the girl and got twenty-four-hundred dollars front money, promising to return with the grass before the day was over, but after getting the money, Tex decided to screw the nigger. He never did score the grass and he never returned the money.
Late that same night, the phone rang at the ranch. T.J. answered the call on a phone that was by the corral and shouted, “Hey, Charlie, it’s for you.” I was in George’s house at the time and picked up the extension there. A girl’s voice, crying, said, “Charles, you’ve got to come back with the money or the grass. Crowe’s here at my place and says he’s going to kill me if he don’t get his money.” About that time another voice came on the line, “Okay, you smart motherfucker, I got your old lady here and if I don’t have my bread back inside two hours, I’m going to cut her up and dump the pieces in your front yard.” I didn’t know what either one of them was talking about, and I shouted into the phone, “Hey, wait a minute, what old lady, what money? Who is this and what the hell you talking about?” The voice answered, “Don’t give me that shit, you know who this is, it’s Crowe and I want my bread or the stuff—two hours, Watson, or the broad’s dead!” “Hey wait a minute, pal,” I said, “this ain’t Charles Watson, I’m Charles Manson. Hold on man, Watson’s not here right now but don’t be talking about cutting some girl up, we can straighten this thing out. Where you at?” The voice told me he was at the girl’s apartment. “Okay,” I answered, “Tex isn’t here and I haven’t got much bread but I’ll be right over.”
T.J. had listened to the whole conversation on the other line, so when I went down to the corral, he was already telling Danny DeCarlo and two other bikers about it. I filled them in and added, “I’m going over there and would appreciate some help, you guys game?” Danny and the other two suddenly found other things they should be doing, like shoveling some shit and checking on the horses. It was one o’clock in the morning, these bastards had never done a lick of work around the ranch, and all of a sudden their concern for the horses was more important than helping me out. “Okay, T.J., it’s up to you and me. Are you going with me?” I could see his heart wasn’t in it, but he said, “Sure, Charlie, I’m with you. But wait a minute, we might need some persuasion.” With that he disappeared and returned with an old Buntline .22 revolver. Seeing the gun and realizing I might have to use it should have opened my eyes about how drastically things had changed in our group. But since we had gone into all-out thievery, guns were as common with the bikers and ex-cons who hung out with us as the knife I always carried.
We took Johnny Swartz’s old Ford and headed toward Hollywood, the gun lying on the seat between us. When we got to the apartment, T.J. picked up the gun and stuck it in his belt. On the way up the stairs, I stopped, turned around and asked T.J. what he was going to do if he had to use the gun. He gave me a blank stare. “Hell, man,” I said, “if it takes you that long to decide, you aren’t going to be very useful, give me that gun.” I stuck it in my belt behind my back. While on the way over, I had been trying to imagine what we might be getting into and how I was going to handle it. I felt Crowe and I could come to some agreement without a fight if I’d promise to be responsible for the money. And I hoped he’d give us a few days to come up with it. So when I knocked on the door, I was sti
ll into bargaining and not fighting.
After the first knock, the door opened a few inches and a big white guy peeked out at me saying, “You Charlie?” I nodded and he opened the door. Besides the guy who opened the door, there was another white guy in the room, but no black. I was told Crowe had left for a few minutes but would be right back. The girl, bound and gagged, was lying on the bed. The guys didn’t seem too hostile and there wasn’t any tension. I made light of the situation and started clearing off a very cluttered table. The two guys remained as they were after letting me in. T.J. had found himself a spot against the wall by the front door and remained standing. Seeing the guys weren’t uptight, I went over and started untying the girl. One of the guys spoke up, “Crowe said to keep the girl tied.” “Come on, man,” I replied, “where’s your manhood? This girl can’t out-muscle both of you. Besides, we need some coffee and she can make it for us.” I finished untying her and told her tp go to the bathroom and wash her tearstained face and then make us some coffee while we waited until Crowe arrived, as he soon did.
Crowe, known as “Lotsapoppa,” weighed close to three hundred pounds. He sized me up, gave T.J. a look and shouted, “What’s that broad doing up walking around? I told you guys to keep her tied! What’s the matter with you fuckers? And you, you smart little bastard, where’s my money and that other bastard?” “Look, man,” I told him, “things aren’t any different than when I talked to you an hour ago. Tex ain’t nowhere around. If he’s still got your money, I can’t find him. And until tomorrow or the next day, I can’t come up with that much bread. But let the girl go. I’ll stand good for the money.” Crowe didn’t say anything until after he had walked over to a padded chair and sat down like some king on a throne. Then, in a louder than natural voice, “I gots’ta answer to some more people”—he was tied up with some more black dope dealers—”so I’m gonna give you four hours to raise the bread. The broad stays, and if I don’t fuck her to death in the meantime, you can have her when I gets my money.”