by Nuel Emmons
I begged and promised I’d deliver the money but needed more time, and asked him to let the girl loose. The more I begged, the more vicious and threatening he became. We weren’t getting closer to any terms and the girl started crying and pleading with me to do something and get her out of there. Crowe seemed to delight in our dilemma and became even more arrogant, finally saying, “Get out of here, punk! Now you got two hours. Go get my money!” I dropped to my knees in front of his chair. “Look, man, I’m on my knees to you, please don’t hurt the girl. I promise to get your money. Just let the girl go.” He laughed at me and said maybe he’d just rather kill the girl and watch her die instead of waiting for the money. Still kneeling, I took the gun from behind my back and held it butt first out to Crowe and told him, “Here, man, if you have to take a life, take mine.” He looked at the gun for an instant before reaching for it. When he reached, I twirled it around so the handle rested in the palm of my hands and sprang to my feet. I stepped back and said, “All right, you motherfucker, I’ve begged, kissed your ass and promised—now I’m taking the girl out of here, and you can say goodbye to her, me and your dollars.”
Crowe stood up and showed a lot of heart, saying, “You little white trash bastard, you ain’t got the balls to shoot anyone. I’m going to take that gun from you and shove it up your ass. Then I’m going out to that commune of yours with all my partners and screw all those white trash bitches. And if I have to, I’m going to pin your eyes open with toothpicks and make you watch while your white whores suck my black dick.” He was taking steps forward as I backtracked. After a couple of steps, I pulled the trigger. CLICK, nothing happened. Crowe smiled and I thought, “Oh fuck, what now?” Crowe laughed and put his meaty hands around my throat. By now my back was up against the wall. He started squeezing and lifting me from the floor. I pulled the trigger again and got just another click—”Oh shit”—then once more I yanked on the trigger. Buried as it was in his stomach, the gun didn’t make a loud report, but it was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the room.
Crowe raised up on his toes, his fingers tightened on my neck for the slightest instant, then relaxed as he slid down my body to the floor. The guy closest to me lunged toward me, but T.J. finally came to life and grabbed the guy around his neck and threw him back against the wall. He made no more efforts at being a hero and neither did the other guy. The girl let out a weak scream and started crying again. I hadn’t moved. Crowe’s body, lying at my feet, had me pinned to the wall.
I looked down at the body and though there wasn’t any blood showing, I knew he was dead. I pointed the gun around the room and told the other guys I hadn’t come there to hurt anyone but had been forced into it. “Now, if either of you have an argument with me, let’s hear it.” Their faces were drained of color and their lips seemed too dry to speak. They just stood there staring at the body on the floor. As I stepped over Crowe, I was aware that I had just killed a man, but had no feeling of remorse. I wasn’t sick or, at that moment, concerned about what the consequences of the shooting might be. Actually, all the pressure and tension left me; a feeling of strength surged through me. I felt good! Looking at Crowe’s friends, I could see fear in their faces, as if each expected to be the next victim. I delighted in their fear.
One of them had on an expensive doe-skin pullover shirt. The guy was tall, about six-foot-four and had to weigh at least two-twenty. I complimented him on his taste in clothing and asked if he would give me the shirt. Without hesitation, he slipped out of the shirt and handed it to me. To put it on, I had to lay the gun on the table. Surprisingly, neither of them made a move. The shirt came well past my knees and the sleeves were so long they covered my hands. I had T.J. roll the sleeves up, and then reached over and picked up the gun. I waved it around a few times and told the guys to clean up the apartment and get rid of their friend. They seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and some color returned to their faces. T.J. and I left, sure that the girl would be safe now that Crowe was out of the way.
Back in the car and heading toward the ranch, T.J. was staring at me. He was quiet and there was a slight trembling in his body. Finally he said, “Geez, Charlie, did you have to kill him?” I told T.J. I hadn’t planned on killing anyone. I just did what, under the circumstances, had to be done. “Besides, T.J., it was you who brought the gun. And I don’t remember you making a move when the black bastard had his hands around my neck.”
It was a thirty-minute drive back to the ranch, and after the one exchange of words, we didn’t talk anymore. T.J. had his thoughts and I had mine. Things were racing through my mind and the seriousness of having killed someone was starting to come home to me. Like, “Well, you little bastard, you have done it all now—stolen, cheated, raped, and now you’ve done the big one. You’re going to end up dying in the joint.” Still, I felt no remorse for taking that life. I had been forced into it. Pulling that trigger didn’t mean any more to me than watching a cops-and-robbers movie, and if the police came after me, it was self-defense. I was sure the police would be coming to the ranch for me within hours, and for that, I had a score to settle with Tex. It was his burn, he got the money and it was a cross he belonged in, not me.
When I got back to the ranch, I didn’t look for Tex, but went straight to bed. The next morning T.J. woke me up to tell me he and Brenda had just heard the news. The feature story was that a high-ranking member of the Black Panthers had been shot. The body had been dumped on the lawn of a hospital in Beverly Hills. “Wow,” I exclaimed, “do you think it was our guy?” “It had to be!” said T.J. Paranoia immediately set in. The police I had answers for, but the Black Panthers weren’t about to let some score go unsettled. It meant war. Guns and learning how to use them instantly became a part of getting things together for the desert. Finding a hole in the desert also became more important.
Even while T.J. was telling me the news, I was walking out to find Tex. The news was a little on the startling side, and I had some anger to vent on the responsible party. I found him curled up in a sleeping bag with Little Patty. I woke him up, took him out of Patty’s hearing and laid it on him about the previous night. He went back to where he had been sleeping, brought back a wad of money and handed me what was left of the twenty-four hundred. I pushed the money back at him and said, “I don’t want the money, you dumb fucker. What you have done is to bring the Black Panthers down on us.” From where I was standing, I could see the highway, and though I was talking to Tex, my mind was visualizing cars filled with blacks driving by on that road and taking shots at us. I hurriedly ended our conversation with the words, “What I did for you last night put our whole circle in a cross with the blacks. I saved your life by putting mine on the line. Now it looks like all of us are in for it because of your shit. You owe us, brother!” I started to walk away, and as an afterthought, I turned to him and said, “On second thought, give me some of that money.” He put fifteen hundred in my hand.
I went directly to the saloon and told everyone present, “We are going to have to change the way we have been living around here. We have to be more observant. More than just the police, the blacks are raising up. With the police, we don’t have to fear sniper shots, but the blacks will be coming with guns. There might be some shots from the main road, so from now on, keep the buildings between yourselves and that road.”
Severe changes had to be made. On my instructions, we started setting up look-outs and became more of a military encampment than a bunch of kids playing at fun and games. Life was no longer sex, drugs and doing whatever each of us had a desire to do. Our joys were already on the decline, and now there was a need for constant vigilance and deep concern.
I was worried and suspicious of any new face that appeared. I became a person with ever-changing moods, and what I felt was reflected in the kids. To compound things, three carloads of blacks pulled into Spahn the very next day. The cars were a mixture of men, women and children who just toured the ranch with normal tourist curiosity, but in our paranoia we
suspected them of being a scouting party for the Panthers. Those of our group who may have doubted my words the previous day now believed the blacks would be back in force with guns and violence.
I think it goes without saying a lot of the stuff I was putting down to those at the ranch amounted to my personal fear of repercussions from the shooting of Crowe. And if I had known that he wasn’t dead, or even the Black Panther we thought him to be, the scene at the ranch might not have been so uptight. It was almost a year before I learned that Crowe wasn’t dead. In the meantime, the coincidence of a Black Panther being killed with a single shot and left on the lawn of a hospital was unimaginable. So during that time, I was convinced I had initiated a war with the blacks. The kids at the ranch caught the worst of my paranoia.
With the Panthers weighing heavily on my mind and with all the hassles from the police, I had visions of bad shit coming down and me waking up one morning with my ass back in prison. I often had the urge to get my things together and head for unknown places, but I was so caught up with those kids and the role I played in their lives, to leave would have been like ripping my heart out. Something inside me needed them, more than they thought they needed me. To overcome the bad vibes, I thought, “Once out of the area, nothing will come down.” The need to get out of the city and back to the desert became more urgent than ever before.
For months we’d been screwing around putting together equipment and vehicles for the move when we could have completed things in just weeks. For that, I have only myself to blame. I always had too many irons in the fire and never wanted to miss out on anything. It was my nature to start something with a ton of enthusiasm and drop it just as soon as something else attracted my attention. But now, thanks to Tex and his drug burn, my back was up against the wall. We had to stay on top of everything that would get us where we wanted to be.
First things first; I went looking for some money I was owed for lyrics I had helped Dennis and his group with. Before this, it was like money in the bank. Now that there was a need, I went to collect. Dennis’ agent didn’t want to see me and I had to force my way past his secretary to get into his office. He felt I was responsible for some of Dennis’ hang-ups, so our meeting was anything but cordial. When I first asked for the money, the guy gave me a polite, “You’ll have to come back later.” I was tired of everything being “tomorrow.” I got chesty and tried to intimidate him by saying, “You know what, man, you owe me the money, it’s a long overdue bill. Just pay up or I’m going to have to do something to make you regret it. Like one of these nights you might go home and see nothing but charred embers where your house was.” My mouth blew everything, for the guy turned the tables on me by saying, “You know what, Manson, you’re a flakey little nothing. You haven’t a contract or any kind of an agreement, we owe you nothing. And because of your attitude, nothing is what you get. Now get out of my office, and if you want to keep playing tough guy, I’m going to make a phone call, and it’s adios Manson. Get my message?”
The son-of-a-bitch caught me by surprise, and I left his office with some shit on my face, and a very disgusted feeling in my stomach. The police were in our faces, the blacks were on my ass and now I was getting “hit-man” threats.
Next, I went to see Melcher. I hadn’t been hassling him for the last few weeks, but the recording date was still unfinished business and I had to have an answer on it. Melcher was friendly enough, but beat around the bush about another recording date. “Goddamn, Terry,” I told him, “we been going through this kind of crap for the last year. Is it ever going to happen or not?” He answered, “Charlie, there’s mixed emotions about promoting you. You’re unpredictable. You amaze me at times, and at other times, disappoint the hell out of me. Jakobson told me just this morning, you were involved with shooting some Negro, so frankly, for the time being, we are skeptical about investing any time or money in you.” (Apparently one of the white guys at the apartment the night I shot Crowe was a friend of Dennis’ or Jakobson’s and had told them.)
Man, what a day I’d had! Leaving Melcher’s, my stomach felt like it did twenty-three years earlier when I was first left at Gibault. My dream of the last ten years had gone the way of any dream when you wake up. Back to reality. I was the same grubby nothing whose mother dumped him on the State. Only this time there were no tears.
If I had left Melcher’s feeling down and sorry for myself, by the time I got back to Spahn’s, the self-pity was pretty well shadowed by hate and contempt. Hate for a world that denied. Contempt for people who can’t see or understand.
Because Bobby was into the music and being recorded as much as I was, I found him and laid out the bad news. Some of the disappointment faded. Rolling with the punches was a way of life for both of us. So we lit a joint, played some music together, and before long we were laughing at the whole situation. Inside an hour, we both agreed, ’Fuck them—who needs them? We’ll do our own thing, turn our own bread and get the hell out of the phony-faced asphalt jungle.”
With a disappointing damper on the prospects of becoming a recording success, practicing music no longer occupied as much time as it once did. That isn’t to say we stopped playing, for the joy of music and the atmosphere surrounding it was too much a part of our lives ever to be without it. Regardless of the setback with Melcher, we still believed our talent would someday be recognized and appreciated. But for the time being, except for an hour or two in the evening, music took a back burner to more pressing issues.
Anticipating a move on us by the blacks, we collected all the guns we could get our hands on. Danny DeCarlo and some of the other guys around the ranch who were familiar with guns taught the kids to use them. In our paranoia, we relocated and separated into groups staying at different locations throughout the property. Some of the moves were for the safety of the girls and children, others for vantage points in case of an attack. We were gearing strategically, physically and mentally for anything that might come at us.
In the meantime, there was progress on all the vehicles and equipment. Several vehicles had already been sent to Barker Ranch. We had a large truck and trailer being outfitted and loaded so that when we did make our final move, we could do it with everything we needed. The equipment and the money were finally coming together.
A healthy and much appreciated gift came when a new face appeared. Linda Kasabian was a pretty little girl, who at twenty years of age was no stranger to communes and drugs. Gypsy had met Linda at a guy’s pad down by the beach and brought her back to Spahn’s. Intending to visit for a couple of hours, she spent two days and was balled by Bobby, Tex, Bruce, Clem and Danny. After her two days with us, she returned to her pad to pick up her belongings and to say goodbye to her husband. While gathering her personals, which included a bag of acid tabs, she also ripped off her husband’s friend for $5,000.1 loved her and her little gift to the “desert fund.”
Tex had told me she was a hell of a lay, so that night I checked her out myself. Because Linda’s husband might come looking for her and the money, I had sent her, Brenda and Gypsy up to a cave to sleep. The cave was one of the “safe” spots we had been using since we began expecting trouble from the blacks. When I walked in the girls were listening to the experiences of Linda and comparing them with some of their own. I told them to keep talking and sat down to listen. Linda had been on the road since she was sixteen and had lived in several communes in various places across the US. She wasn’t shy in her conversation and I knew through Tex, Bobby, Bruce, Clem and Danny she wasn’t stingy with her body. Just for the joy of doing it, I wanted to see how she would react to a solo performance in front of a live audience.
It was a hot July night. I had come in shirtless, and none of the girls were wearing much. Linda had on a thin tee shirt and a pair of panties. I told her what a beautiful girl she was, and asked, “Why hide it? Take your clothes off.” With a look at the girls she got up and did so. “Do you like girls?” I asked. She shrugged her shoulders, not a yes, but not a denial. I went
on, “Will you make love with Gypsy and Brenda?” “In front of you?” she asked. “Including me,” I said. Again the shrug of the shoulders. I told her to come over to where I was standing and she waited in front of me, expecting to be kissed. Instead I put my hands on her shoulders and pressed her to the floor on her knees, telling her I couldn’t make love with my pants on. She unbuttoned my pants and slid them to the floor. When she started to get up, I put my hands on her head and pulled her into me. I did not need to guide her anymore. Still standing, I motioned for Brenda and Gypsy to join us. They were already nude and crawled over on their hands and knees. They both started fondling Linda and we worked our way over to the sleeping bags, Linda accepting all their movements and caresses but not responding with any of her own. I began kissing her, and with my free hand I pulled Gypsy’s head over so that she could exchange kisses with Linda. Linda’s body stiffened when she realized she was exchanging tongues with Gypsy, but she was returning the kisses just as fervently an instant later. She wrapped one arm around Gypsy and I removed myself and watched the three girls do their number with each other. They had a perfect circle going, exchanging places so that each gave and received the same. I rejoined the circle, moving from Linda to Brenda and from Brenda to Gypsy. Because it was Linda’s first trip with us, I ended the night buried deep inside her. It was a good trip. Linda was my kind of girl. Six months later, she became the prosecutor’s kind of girl.