He stands up and looks around. “I thought we’d have some popcorn,” he says, making his way to a cabinet where inmates sometimes stash food. He bends down, looks inside, moves things and heaves up a great sigh of disappointment.
“Well,” he says. “The popcorn’s all gone.”
“I think we ate it all last time,” Star says.
Charlie sighs and takes a seat, seeming lost and befuddled. But then, before I know it, he’s reached out and bounced one of his fingers off the tip of my nose, fast as a frog’s tongue, dart and recoil.
He leans forward. I can feel his breath in my ear.
“I’ve touched everybody on the nose, man,” he says, quietly. “There ain’t nobody I can’t touch on the nose.” He tilts to one side and says, “I know what you’re thinking. Just relax.” A while later, he says, “If I can touch you, I can kill you.”
He puts his hand on my arm and starts rubbing it. An hour after that, we’re talking about sex at the ranch in the old days, what it was like, all those girls hanging around, a few guys, too, the group-sex scene. “It was all this,” he says, putting his hand on my arm again, sliding it up into the crook of my elbow and down. “That’s what it was like. We all went with that. There’s no saying no. If I slide up, you’ve got to go with the flow. You were with anyone anyone wants.” I nod, because for a moment, with his hand on my skin, sliding up, I can see how it was. It feels OK. It feels unexpectedly good to go with the flow, even if it is Charlie Manson’s flow and even if, since he’s touching me, he can kill me, which is probably how it was way back when, too.
Meanwhile, Star is arranging a little spread: candy bars, pumpkin pie, potato chips, corn chips, strawberry shortcake, peanut butter cups. Charlie goes for a candy bar, washing it down with a soda. This is how he spends his time today.
This is how he is waiting for his time to end.
What most people know and believe about Manson is almost wholly derived from prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi’s 600-page account of the crimes, investigation and trial, Helter Skelter, more than 7 million copies sold since 1974, more than any other true-crime book in history. It was a scary, Establishment-brain-frying read when it was first published, and it still is.