Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover (2 page)

Manson assumed that he was always welcome to come along whenever Wilson went out to a party or to a club. He shared what he had—his music, quirky conversation, and sexually compliant women—and expected Wilson to do the same. It was an unequal arrangement and lately Wilson was becoming fed up. It was aggravating enough that Manson constantly badgered the drummer to make the Beach Boys record his songs, but the leech and his followers were making a considerable dent in Wilson’s personal fortune at a time when the Beach Boys’ record sales and concert attendance were in alarming decline. They’d wrecked his uninsured Mercedes and run up bills with doctors and dentists. They raided Wilson’s closets and cut up his clothes to make themselves patchwork robes. Though they espoused scouring supermarket garbage bins for food, they gluttonously emptied Wilson’s refrigerator and pantry on a daily basis. They even felt his charge accounts were theirs to use—while he’d been away from home on a brief Beach Boys tour,
Wilson’s house guests ran up an $800 tab with a local dairy, gorging themselves on the
priciest cheese, yogurt, and fruit juice. As much as Wilson embraced the general concept of sharing, he was ready for these master freeloaders to move on.

In recent weeks Wilson had also begun to fear Manson. Concerned about their client’s involvement with such a questionable character, Beach Boys management ran a background check on Charlie and informed Dennis that his house guest had done time for armed robbery and was currently on probation. That didn’t bother Wilson in the least. He’d known all along that his new pal had a criminal background. Manson liked to brag that prison was his daddy and the street was his mother. Criminal credentials appealed to many young people in an era when it was fashionable for them to believe that the government was the enemy. But as Manson and his motley crew continued living with Wilson, Charlie’s entertaining philosophical rants occasionally turned dark. He seemed to believe that he held the power of life and death over his followers and friends, including his famous patron. He once held a knife to Wilson’s throat and asked how the drummer would feel if he killed him. Wilson muttered, “Do it,” and Manson backed off. It said a lot about Wilson’s self-destructive tendencies that he still allowed Charlie to hang around with him.

Though Wilson and his fellow Golden Penetrators hadn’t said as much, bringing Manson along to the Whisky on this summer night might remind him of his place. Despite what Charlie clearly believed, enjoying the largesse of a star didn’t make him a star himself. The Whisky was the apex of cool, home ground of the hip, but intimidating for everyone else.
The club wasn’t particularly big, with a capacity of just 350, but its decor was guaranteed to impress. Decorated in dramatic tones of red and black, the venue featured a stage in the middle of a raised dance floor. There were a few tables for the public and a small, separate seating area for show business dignitaries. Dangling above the floor were glass “cages” occupied by scantily clad female dancers who pranced provocatively to records whenever each evening’s bands took a break between their 9:30 and 11:30 sets. These entertainers were dubbed Go-Go dancers, and copycat namesakes entertained in clubs all over the world.

For the Whisky’s noncelebrity regulars, getting out on the floor to
dance was the real highlight of the evening. Unwritten club etiquette prohibited paying too much attention to other dancers; the conceit was that you were spectacular and everyone else was obliged to gawk at you. As a result, nobody ever watched anybody else, let alone gave the impression of being impressed. It was hard to find much room on the dance floor at any given time. Prospective dancers would wait until others cleared off for a bathroom break or to catch their breath, then tried to beat other hopefuls to the space. Sharp eyes and equally sharp elbows were helpful.

Since Melcher, Jakobson, and Wilson were regulars, one of the celebrity booths was always available to them. As they moved toward it Manson broke away, saying that he wanted to dance. Charlie couldn’t have chosen a more certain means of receiving his comeuppance. Few stylishly dressed, celebrity-obsessed girls at the Whisky would deign to dance with a short, scruffy nobody, and even if Manson did somehow make it onto the dance floor he’d just be one more body crammed in there. Had any of them been in a more generous frame of mind, Wilson, Melcher, or Jakobson could have escorted Manson down; dance space was always made for stars and their sidekicks. But they were content to let Charlie flounder on his own. Soon enough he’d slink over to their booth, chastened by an unmistakable reminder that, for all his philosophical prattling and grandiose dreams of rock stardom, at least for now he remained an insignificant speck in the L.A. galaxy.

Manson disappeared into the crowd, and the three friends sipped drinks and chatted until
they were startled by a commotion. Looking around, they saw something unique in the history of the Whisky a Go Go: Instead of vying to get on, everyone was struggling to clear off the hallowed dance floor, where they had been packed in so tightly that they now had trouble squirming apart. Melcher, Jakobson, and Wilson exchanged puzzled glances. They stood up to get a better look, and that was when they saw that smack in the middle of the floor a single figure remained—Charlie Manson, gyrating to the music. His dancing grew increasingly maniacal; he tipped back his head and threw out his arms and they agreed later that it seemed as though electrical sparks flew from Charlie’s fingers and hair.

The crowd had surged off the dance floor as if driven from it by some
irresistible force field. Now it circled the floor, mesmerized by the sight of the whirling dervish who seemed oblivious to everything but the pulsating beat. Over the past weeks, Wilson, Jakobson, and Melcher had seen Manson effortlessly enthrall small gatherings at meals or parties. Until this moment they had no idea that he could extend his magnetism and dominate a much larger audience, let alone a jaded one like the regulars at the Whisky. It was one thing for Charlie to convince a string of needy female hangers-on that he was an all-knowing guru who must be worshipped and obeyed. But these were hipsters whose self-images depended in large part on not acting impressed by anyone other than the biggest stars. Now they openly gawked at someone who only moments before would have seemed the unlikeliest candidate to command their rapt attention. It was a reaction far beyond deference, Jakobson thought. This approached awe.

“That was when we realized that he was really something different, that time at the Whisky,” Jakobson said almost forty-five years later. “Anytime, anywhere, that Charlie decided to be the center of attention, he could be. At the Whisky, everybody thought that they had seen it all.

“Until that night, when they saw Charlie.”

N
ancy Maddox loved the Bible and her teenage daughter, Kathleen, loved to dance. Since they were both strong-willed, that was how all the trouble started.

Nancy Ingraham was born and raised in the Kentucky backwoods, and her faith was unwaveringly fundamentalist. She took the Bible literally. Every word in it was true, and every baleful creature described, from Genesis’s serpent in the Garden of Eden to the beast with seven heads and ten horns in Revelation, had existed or would exist upon the earth doing Satan’s unholy bidding. Nancy loved God and also feared His wrath as the Bible commanded that she should.
People didn’t consider Nancy a fanatic; she was courteous to those with different beliefs and tried hard not to judge others because that was God’s prerogative and not hers. But she had no doubt that everyone was held accountable by Him. Horrible penalties lay in store for unrepentant sinners, but good things in life and eternal bliss after death were guaranteed for those who heard the Word of the Lord and obeyed it.

For the first forty-six years of her life, Nancy—“Nannie” to close friends and family—had ample evidence that God was rewarding her piety as the Good Book promised. She married
Charlie Milles Maddox, also from Kentucky, who came back from the First World War and found work as a conductor for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. He and his bride weren’t rich but
they became comfortably middle-class, at least by rural Kentucky standards. Beyond being a good provider Charlie was the kind of solid citizen that Nancy could respect as well as love. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and the Masonic
Lodge. They lived happily in Rowan County in northeast Kentucky, and beginning in 1911 their marriage was regularly blessed with children. God sent Glenna in 1911, Aileene (sometimes spelled “Aline”) in 1913, Luther in 1915, and finally Ada Kathleen in 1918. When their youngest child was ten, the Maddoxes moved their brood sixty miles northeast to the sparkling city of Ashland on the banks of the Ohio River. Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia all came together around there, with the river providing convenient state boundaries.
Ashland was a business port and home to several major entities, including Ashland Oil, the thirteenth-largest petroleum refining company in the United States, and steel mills that ultimately were purchased by and became part of the American Rolling Mill Company, commonly known as Armco. Barges floated the area’s timber and coal upriver and down to major metropolises like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. The C&O Railroad thrived as it whisked businessmen of every stripe in and out of town. Having sensibly lived within their means back in Rowan County,
Charlie and Nancy were able to buy a house on Hilton Avenue in Ashland for $5,000, a considerable sum in 1928. When the Depression crumbled the U.S. economy one year later, the Maddoxes were spared any real discomfort. Unlike many of their friends, Charlie didn’t have to worry about losing his job and ending up in a bread line. Glenna met a local boy named Cecil Racer and in January 1930 she married him in a ceremony at her parents’ house. The Ashland newspaper printed a lovely article about the wedding. Almost a year to the day later Glenna gave birth to a daughter named Jo Ann. Blessings piled upon blessings.
Nancy bowed her head and gave thanks daily.

Then suddenly everything began falling apart. In October 1931 Charlie complained of chest congestion. He died a week later of pneumonia. His loss staggered Nancy;
she moaned that she felt as though she had died, too. But she soon took solace in her faith. God’s will might be mysterious, but it was not to be questioned. At least there were no immediate financial concerns.
Charlie left his widow a railroad pension of about $60 a month. It was enough, if she was careful, to continue raising the three children that were still at home without Nancy having to take a job herself. Mothers in that time and place worked only if they had to. Fifteen-year-old Luther and thirteen-year-old Ada Kathleen, now called by her middle name, were still school kids, and eighteen-year-old Aileene
enrolled in Ashland’s Booth Business College with the goal of becoming a secretary or perhaps a bookkeeper.

Then came another blow. Glenna and her husband, Cecil, fought constantly, and
Nancy often kept her granddaughter Jo Ann for days or took her on short trips to keep the child from being exposed to such marital strife. Nancy prayed that God would touch the battling spouses’ hearts and bring them back together, but it didn’t happen. Glenna divorced Cecil, and for a little while she and Jo Ann moved back with her mother, brother, and sisters. Nancy didn’t believe in divorce. The Bible insisted that husband and wife should cleave to each other forever. But Glenna was in every other way a dutiful daughter, and little Jo Ann now required more than ever the example of a proper Christian household. So, as God expected of her, Nancy accepted this additional heartache and soldiered on.

Aileene graduated from business college in early 1933 and celebrated with a short trip across the river into Ohio. While she was away she developed the same sort of chest congestion that had struck down her father, was hospitalized, and, like Charlie Maddox seventeen months earlier, died within a week.

Once again, Nancy was devastated. In every way she had followed God’s commandments and now He seemed determined to take away all the happiness that had been bestowed upon her. A woman of lesser conviction might have abandoned religion altogether, but Nancy never considered that option. Instead, she pored over biblical passages and was reminded how God used awful ways to test the faithful. Job endured all sorts of suffering, refused to betray his reverence for the Lord, and was eventually exalted for it. In fact, the Bible stated that God rewarded Job with twice as many good things as he had had before. So Nancy would endure, too. Charlie and Aileene couldn’t be given back in earthly life, but they awaited her in heaven. Meanwhile, Nancy’s beliefs gained rather than lost strength. She would continue to live a righteous life, and she became even more determined that her surviving offspring would, too. Though Nancy was tolerant of other types and degrees of faith in anyone else, with her children it was different. The Bible was explicit about a parent’s responsibility to raise sons and daughters in the way that the Lord wanted them to go, and to Nancy that meant that they must believe every
word in the Bible and observe each of the Good Book’s rules and admonitions. Any deviation from this divinely mandated behavior would count against them in the eyes of God and Nancy couldn’t let that happen. If she did, she herself would have failed the Lord. So Nancy not only kept Bible reading and churchgoing mandatory, she acquired bulky books written as guides to the study of Scripture. Her copy of
The Self-Interpreting Bible, Volume III
, devoted to the teachings of Old Testament prophets and one of Nancy’s favorites, remains intact.
In case the rest of the family didn’t fully grasp the concept of absolute obedience to the Lord or else, she underlined the most critical passages in Isaiah—Chapter 1, Verses 18 and 19:
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.”
In keeping with biblical carrot-and-stick instruction, Verse 20, though not underlined, bluntly spelled out the alternative:
“But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”