Charles Manson Now (7 page)

Naturally, I had assumed that anything written by Charles Manson would be written out of anger. But as I read through the stack of letters, I was shocked to find no trace of the fury I had come to associate with the notorious face. I had perceived Manson to be misanthropic; I believed that he truly hated people. But, if this were true, it would make no sense for Manson to write letters at all. I realized how little I knew about him. I began researching and reading other things Manson had written, keeping in mind that the man had a grade three education and had spent most of his life in prison, most of his life sentence in solitary confinement. As I learned more, I started to realize how complex Manson was. I wanted to explore how ideas, which
sound so philosophical, could come forth from the mind of a guy who referred to himself as a “stupid hillbilly,” a man the rest of the world deemed criminally insane. His words seemed like carefully constructed answers to some of life’s most difficult and complicated questions, yet they were free-written, at the spur of a moment, according to whim. I got the sense that the heaviness, the density of his writing came naturally; it was simply the only way he could communicate with anyone.

The post card was signed “Gone, EASY.”

Marilyn Manson once said, “When you are alone, you write; when you have friends, you form a band.” This is exactly what I have experienced in my own life, exactly what I have witnessed others experience in theirs. It’s useful to add that writers and musicians are, for the most part, not exactly the most stable people. It takes a certain level of abandonment to create meaningful art. So, it’s easy to see why, when you work in psychiatry, you encounter an incredible amount of creative expression. I’ve seen a lot of extremely bizarre pieces of writing throughout my career. I was once asked by a psych patient to “hand deliver” an elaborate scroll he had constructed, complete with a red ribbon, to the Queen. The calligraphy on this piece was amazing. I’ve seen five-page mathematical equations intended to illustrate the nature of the universe. I worked with one man who wrote complete books of poetry and left them in the local library’s after-hours drop box. He was frustrated because he couldn’t understand why the work he submitted wasn’t being published and stocked on the shelves. When I inquired about him, the confused librarians showed me a large stack of his manuscripts, which they had compiled over the previous few years. They had no idea what to do with it.

One of my schizophrenic clients, Barry, completely rewrote the Bible in his own hand writing eight times; he was halfway through his ninth edition when I met him. He was well enough to receive treatment at home, but he was often non-compliant, so he was placed on a community treatment order, which legally obliged him to receive an injection of antipsychotic medication every two weeks. My job was to follow him into the community and give him his injections when they were required. As we got acquainted, he told me he found his work peaceful, that the process gave him better insight into the word of God. He was completely obsessed. The only thing that mattered to him was that he had enough paper and ink to work on his writings. He would often isolate himself, forget to eat, grow weak, and deteriorate. His manuscripts filled boxes upon boxes, stacked on top of each other on almost every surface in his apartment. When I accepted a new job, I took a trip to his home to say goodbye and wish him well. He opened the door, looked at me, and then quickly glanced at the baseball bat in the corner before returning his gaze to my face. I made a quick exit, and Barry landed himself back in the hospital.

I showed Manson’s letters to my friend and colleague Dr. Kumar, a psychiatrist. He described the letters as “disjointed and nonsensical,” and even though he was unable to utilize them in making a diagnosis, he felt that Manson must suffer from some sort of psychotic disorder. As I became increasingly acquainted with things Manson had written, I was reminded more and more of a particular patient with whom I’d had the privilege of working.

It’s been about five years since I’ve seen Dwayne; he eventually ended up in long-term care, a sort of group home setting. He was
a brilliant man, an engineer, but he suffered what is commonly known as a “nervous breakdown” when his wife left him. He couldn’t cope, and his life started to fall apart, most visibly at work. His colleagues tried to compensate for the deficit in his performance, but it eventually became too obvious that Dwayne wasn’t well, and they had to take him to the hospital. Dwayne didn’t respond well to psychiatric medications. On them, he would arch back like David Lee Roth, a fixed grimace on his face, and bellow so violently that sometimes he couldn’t catch his breath.

I can still remember watching him write from the table in his hospital room, papers everywhere. I would often have to wait a few extra minutes for him to finish. He wrote on any and every surface available, mostly messages about what it meant for people to be kind to one another. He often put words together in ways that made no apparent sense, yet sometimes the combinations just clicked, and, after reading a particularly lyrical phrase, I would sometimes find myself thinking, “This would be the perfect name for a band.”

It is very difficult to accept being diagnosed with a mental health disorder. Very rarely do people with mental illness seek help. When they do, it is normal for patients to start a prescription, begin feeling better, stop taking their medication, and relapse. A lot of this has to do with the terrible side effects associated with these medications. I can remember going to the psychiatric unit to take Dwayne out on a pass for a cup of coffee. Dwayne had just received his medication, and the nurse had to make sure he took some water with his pills because Dwayne was an expert at “cheeking” them. Immediately after, Dwayne excused himself
to go to the washroom. Outside the door, I could hear him hacking and coughing. I knew what he was up to. When he came out, I asked him if he’d taken his medication. He looked at me, confused. “Of course not,” he said. “What do you think I am -crazy?”

People with mental illness or emotional problems often have difficulty explaining their experiences; it is hard for them to find someone in which to confide, someone who understands them. So I often encourage patients to journal in order to express what they would ordinarily internalize about their illnesses. But Manson’s writings, like Dwayne’s, were completely devoid of any acknowledgment of mental illness. Both of their writings functioned, not as coping mechanisms, but as tangible discourse with a world they expected to receive and appreciate their ideas, even though their values differed starkly from those commonly held by most people. My fondest memory of Dwayne stems from his return to the psychiatric unit after being away on a pass. In his hand he held a fresh, crisp, brand new five-dollar bill. He asked the nurse at the desk if he could use the pencil sharpener, something he’d done at least a dozen times before. When granted permission, Dwayne rolled the bill up, tightly, pressed it into the pencil sharpener, and watched as the machine ground the money into fuzzy bits of green dust.

Even more incredible than Manson’s letters was the feeling that their content lent much weight to Donald’s story. I trusted that the two did indeed know each other on an intimate level. I couldn’t believe I had made such a connection by chance, and I wouldn’t believe the extreme places that connection would take me. Life was about to take off on the crazy train, because as my
friendship with Donald developed, everything else began to fall apart.

When I told my girlfriend Sheila about Manson’s letters, she wasn’t impressed. In complete disgust, she said, “I can’t believe you’d allow something like that in your house! What’s wrong with you?” I was taken aback by her reaction. “It’s not like I bought a Gacy painting,” I said. “Manson never actually killed anyone.” I reminded Sheila that I worked in psychiatry and so I naturally found Manson fascinating. She was silent. I knew Sheila would be dumping me soon, and the thought was devastating. Things had been falling apart for a while, and the closer I tried to get, the farther she pushed away.

Sheila was the most important person in my life; we had worked together for years and we were great friends. We had started spending a lot of time together while she was going through a really rough breakup with someone else. She was fun to be with, and so fucking cute; I could hardly handle it. It was an awkward transition, but after a year or so, we ended up in a relationship. She had two amazing daughters and she was a great mother. One of her girls was an aspiring writer, and the other one was a rocker who just loved music. I never had the opportunity to tell them how much they meant to me.

I was hardly myself those days. My friend Dave died from cancer and his brother Danny, my best friend and roommate of seven years, also died from cancer, six weeks later. Shortly after I lost these important people, Sheila gave me the “It’s not you; it’s me” speech, and said she needed some space. Basically, she had found someone else. It was too much.

Danny and I had been in several bands together over the years.
Almost daily, for as long as were roommates, we’d end up in our basement, making noise. He was a drummer, and I was sort of learning how to play guitar. We promoted and set up shows for hundreds of bands; our lives completely revolved around music. It was normal for us to catch bands four or five nights a week and Dave was usually right out there with us. Both Danny and Dave toured with bands, selling merchandise, and doing whatever promotional work they could. Dave was starting to turn his love of music into a career, touring with international bands like Into Eternity and Edguy. He never learned how to play an instrument, but his friends wanted to take him out on tour anyway. It was impossible to go to a show and not run into Danny or Dave; they were always there.

After both were diagnosed with cancer, I wanted to do a benefit in their honor. But they resisted. I reminded them how many benefits they’d done, how many bands they’d helped out, how everyone now wanted to do something for them. Every local band wanted to participate and our newspaper carried a frontpage story about the event. When the show finally took place, Dave had died and Danny was very sick. Danny was able to make it to the show, and watching him give his final goodbyes to those closest to him broke my heart. It was the last show my band ever played and the hardest set I have ever had to get through. Emotionally, I felt completely drained. I gave up on music midway through recording my band’s second album. I had made it through the vocals of eight of our fourteen songs when my voice just left me. We never did finish that record.

It’s difficult to get help when you’re in the helping profession, not that I was looking for it. I’d never felt so lonely, so compelled
to dive into that loneliness and make sense out of what I was feeling. I experienced myself as disconnected, displaced. I’d become a textbook case of depression. I never considered stepping outside of myself and asking for help; I believed that what I was experiencing was only grief, part of a natural process we all find ourselves in sooner or later. Danny and Dave were both younger than me, and their deaths functioned as a wakeup call in my life. I became acutely aware that we’re here for a very short time.

Eventually, a couple of my colleagues sat me down and told me I should seriously consider taking a leave from work. I tried to argue, but they were right, and I knew it. My work demands a certain level of focus, of which I didn’t possess much. It was hard for me to connect with anyone, or feel any empathy after losing so many of the most important people in my life. I had thought about taking some time off, but I never did. Sitting around the house was the last thing I wanted to do; I needed to keep busy.

Danny was a super guy. Lots of our friends toured, and the only time we’d see them is when they’d stay over, it was pretty routine to have band people crashed all over our house. Before Danny passed away, one of his friends, Buck, found himself sort of homeless after his girlfriend kicked him out. Danny asked me if it would be all right if Buck stayed at our place for a few weeks, until he “got his shit together.” Those few weeks turned into a few years, and even now I highly doubt that Buck has his shit together.

Buck is a brilliant graphic artist, who worked meticulously for hours in front of his computer, fine-tuning the details of a CD cover, or perfecting some other project. He is an extremely talented artist and he had a ton of great ideas. Buck is
pretty scattered, and it’s difficult for him to follow through with anything. I was grateful to have him around, though. He was the only guy I knew who would go along with some of the crazy things happening in my life.

When I told Buck about Donald Taylor, he thought it would be great if we all entered into a business partnership together. We decided to create a website and sell Donald’s manuscript as an eBook entitled One Gay Man. Almost immediately after the launch of the book and the website, we were contacted by Howard Stern’s people; they wanted Donald on his show.

Buck and I decided to accompany Donald to the Howard Stern taping in New York City, and we brought along a few friends to help film a documentary about the trip. We shot in NYC, Tennessee, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, but we never produced anything from that footage - for good reason.

Howard said that none of his other guests had “ever said so much.” At the end of Donald’s interview, which chronicled his alleged exploits with Hollywood’s crowded closet, Howard asked him if he would be willing to take a lie detector test to prove his story. Donald was startled. “No,” he said; he didn’t care if people believed him or not. By the time Donald made his way back to the green room, he was completely flushed, as if he were in shock. He wanted to leave, immediately. We had planned to stick around until the end of the show and then go for drinks. I was choked to leave so soon, because Perry Farrell, one of my favorite songwriters, was one of the show’s other guests. I’d always wanted to meet him.

I’d begun to doubt Donald’s story. His ability to recall details repeatedly in exactly the same way eroded his believability. His
stories began to feel like speeches, and his speeches began to sound like scripts. He was also starting to fall too deeply in love with the limelight, turning into a bit of a diva. Our documentary was not successful; Donald wasn’t able to act at all natural, so the crew gave up and wrote the project off as an adventure. Donald left us a few days earlier than expected.