Charles Manson Now Read Free Page A

that story was incredibly sad. I still do. Years later I saw P.T. Barnum’s Fijimermaid in a museum, and it looked exactly as I’d imagined the creature from my grandmother’s story.
    I loved to be in Bateman, walking along quiet dirt roads on which you could hear a car moving three miles away. Everything about that time and place was beautiful. My cousin Kent, who was nearly the same age, accompanied me on all my adventures. Kent knew all the kids in town, and together we always found a gang with which to make slingshots, climb roofs, or hunt for buried treasure. We loved the band Kiss, listening to rock ‘n’ roll, pretending to drive anywhere and everywhere from the ripped up seats of some broken down car.
    One lazy summer afternoon, my Uncle Roy unexpectedly sped up the road in his rusted out green Ford truck to take me home. He told me my mother had been in an accident and was badly hurt, that it was important we get back home immediately. I didn’t want to go with him. I didn’t trust him. My grandmother urged me to leave, however; she told me my mother needed me and I could come back later. I still remember the crazed look in Roy’s eyes as he drove, way faster than he should have. He was preoccupied, and I knew whatever was going on in his head would disturb me.
    From an extremely young age, I’d seen my relatively sane family members drink themselves into delirium, and it scared me. I hated being around drunk people, and I did whatever I could to avoid them. I usually retreated to my room, listened to records, or read books. I thought that getting inebriated was what older people did. Yet, each time I watched an adult slip into drunkenness, I’d worry the fix would never wear off, that he or she would never return to normal, whatever that was. And,while almost every adult I knew got wasted and stupid, there was something different about Uncle Roy when he drank. He never did anything to me, and, at that age, I couldn’t really pinpoint why he seemed to be the worst, most pathetic drunk. But I began to associate everything about Uncle Roy - his creepy, perverse sense of humor, the glazed, psychotic look that could take over his face - with everything awful about alcohol.
    We drove the hundred and fifty miles back to my parents’ house in record time. Everything moved as if it had been set to fast forward. During the ride, I kept my face fixed on the passenger side window. I was staring into the ditches on the side of the highway, watching colors blur, browns into greens, nothing really in focus. In truth, I don’t remember seeing or processing a single thing. I got out of the truck and walked up to the house, and saw the back door gaping open as if someone had carelessly forgotten to close it. Inside, I was shocked to see, for the first time in my life, my dad shaking and sobbing. In the basement, past the green tile steps, my Uncle Steve washed blood off the wall. There was so much blood, all of it thickened in a dark, red stain that, no matter how forcefully he rubbed, didn’t seem to get any smaller. I watched as Uncle Steve kept his eyes riveted to his work, wiping furiously until the center grew larger, spread outward, and finally began to dissolve. I realized that I hadn’t known what complete shock felt like until this moment,
    My father wept as he told me my mother had been in a car accident and was taken to the hospital. I could tell he was lying, probably because he had never lied to me before. I asked him why Uncle Steve was washing blood off the wall, but he just stuttered and cried more. I went to my room. I didn’t feel safe. Iwas doomed. I assumed things would only get worse. My brother and I shared bunk beds, and as I fell onto the bottom one that was mine, I tried to rationalize everything in my brain, produce an answer for what I’d just seen. My mother lived eight hours more before she died. As I lay there, I prayed and made promises, but I somehow knew she was dead, even while she