have it, the same day I was put in juvie hall, a maintenance man was doing some work around the place. He turned his back on his toolbox and I stole a pair of wire cutters. That night, after we were counted and the lights were out, I got busy with the wire cutters. In about twenty minutes’ time, some thirty to thirty-five juvenile delinquents were loose on the streets of Indianapolis.
Some of the guys may have stayed on the loose for a lengthy period of time, but for me it was wasted effort. I was picked up less than two hours later driving a stolen car—I hardly knew how to shift it and could barely see over the dashboard. I was back in custody by the time the morning paper hit the newsstands with a front page spread, complete with photo, that wrote me up as the “ringleader.” Instead of keeping me in juvenile hall, they booked me in the county jail. The youngest offender ever, they told me.
That was in 1948; I was thirteen years old and almost a year had passed since the day I entered the Gibault School for Boys, the beginning of my life in institutions. I had been a frightened little boy when I went there, and I had resented it with an indescribable passion, but I have to admit the administration at Gibault had the boys’ interest and future as their top priority. That is more than I can say for the place I spent the next three years of my life.
The escapes from Gibault and Boys Town and my escapades on the run left the judge very little to do but sentence me to a bona fide reform school: the Indiana School for Boys at Plainfield, Indiana. And let me say, Plainfield was a real beauty! It has to have changed since I was there; too many human rights groups and concerned citizens have appeared for a place like that to continue to operate in the manner it did then. I know the school is still in operation, but I hope all the warped, sadistic bastards I met there are now dead.
While most who get sentenced to those places do need to be separated from the honest element of society, Plainfield has turned out more hard-core criminals than honest citizens. That’s because of the type of person who seeks employment in prisons. For every person whose heart is in the right place, for every person who is dedicated to constructive rehabilitation, there are ten status-seekers out to prove something to themselves. Some are frustrated policemen who, couldn’t qualify for the police force. Others are without the ambition or skills to maintain a job in a competitive trade. Believe it or not, a great many of them are there to obtain an outlet for their own perversion. Confinement and punishment are necessary in the present society, but having sadistic, perverted assholes working in an institution that is supposed to rehabilitate is the biggest bunch of bullshit going. You can’t expect to straighten out an offender’s life when the people in charge of him have worse hang-ups than he does.
At Plainfield I was in trouble from the very beginning. The probation officer who took me there left me standing in the hallway while he went to the administrator’s office to sign me in. I had already noticed there were no fences, so while waiting I checked the front door. It wasn’t locked—I was gone! My escape attempt lasted about fifteen minutes; I didn’t even get off the grounds. Thirty minutes after arriving at Plainfield I had been registered, assigned to a housing unit and a work detail and charged with an escape attempt. Cottage eleven was my home and the dairy was my work assignment.
That evening, like every evening and morning, the whole institution assembled for “count,” as in the military. When the count was completed and cleared, a supervisor, A.B. Clark was his name, shouted out that cottage eleven was to report to the plumbing shop. As we marched, I was thinking the whole detail was going to do some extra work. We got there, halted, and stood like soldiers on parade. Clark called out, “Charles Manson and his four best friends step forward.” Hell, I didn’t know what was happening but I stepped forward as commanded. Naturally “four best friends” didn’t step forward. I didn’t have any! I’d only been there for three hours. When no one else moved, old Clark had four detail boys from the cottage step out, then motioned us inside the plumbing shop. Tension was beginning to mount and I started to realize that I was in for something other than just extra work. Once inside, Clark grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me toward the center of the room, saying, “Okay, Manson, drop your strides!” I asked what for. “Just get those fucking pants down, you little bastard,” shouted Clark. The shop had regular work benches around the walls, but in the middle of the room was a bench that was espefcially designed for what was to come next. It was about waist-high on the average man. Bare ass, I was told to lay across the bench. I hesitated and Clark planted a boot in my ass and told the detail boys to anchor me down. Each of the detail boys grabbed an arm or leg and spread me out ass up on the bench. I was in proper position for one of two things, a fucking or a beating. When Clark picked up a leather strap, I remember feeling relieved; at least I wasn’t going to get fucked in my ass.
Clark wasn’t too tall, about five-foot-seven, but he was built like a fireplug and strong as a bull. The strap was made of leather, about three feet long, a quarter of an inch thick, and four inches wide, with holes drilled in the leather and a strong wooden handle. He hit the bench next to my head a couple of times to loosen himself up. I about pissed just out of fear. “Stretch him out,” Clark said, and they all tightened their grip. (I found out later that if any of them let go during the lashing, they would get the same beating I was about to take.) Clark knew how to use that strap. I wanted to shout the first time he laid it across my ass, but gritted my teeth and waited for the next blow. After three more swats, the detail boy holding my right arm whispered, “Groan or cry, don’t try to be tough with this motherfucker—he don’t come until you cry.” Clark hit me twice more on that side and, whether I wanted to or not, I screamed and the tears burst loose. He backed off and I was relieved because I thought he was through. No luck, he was just changing sides. I got an equal number on the other cheek. When Clark was finished and the boys let go of my arms and legs, I didn’t have strength enough to lift myself off the bench. I just slid to the floor and lay there like a quivering puppy. When I was able to stand I noticed that none of the detail boys would look at me. But Clark had a grin on his face, and with the strap still in his hand, said, “Manson, we’ve been told you are a rotten little bastard, and I’m here to tell you, your ass is going to be full of scars before you leave here.” It was. In fact, it still is.
I pulled my pants on. Blood was surfacing from where the strap had broken the skin and I was sobbing for breath, trying to get enough air in my lungs to control my body and erase the fear and pain. Back outside, I got in line and as a unit we marched back to the cottage. The others went to the mess hall. I was too sick to think about eating and wanted to see a doctor. But after a “fanning,” as they called it, you weren’t allowed any medical attention until the next day. Welcome to the Indiana School for Boys!
The next morning I went to the infirmary. They put some salve on the open welts and sent me to the dairy to work. A Mr. Fields was in charge of the boys on that detail. Fields had been told about the ass-whipping, so, nice guy that he was, he assigned me a wheelbarrow and a shovel. My job was to load all the manure in the wheelbarrow, push it up a steel ramp and dump it in a bin. With the strain of shoveling and the exertion needed to push the loaded wheelbarrow up the ramp, the cuts on my ass started seeping pus and bleeding. Fields was so sympathetic that he cracked me across the ass with a stick he always carried, and encouraged some of the inmates to take shots at me as I struggled up the ramp.
About a week later four of the bigger and older inmates cornered me in one of the feed bins. Right away I knew what they were up to. I made a dash for the door, but two of the guys grabbed me and the other two stripped my pants off. I fought like a wild man, struggling frantically. I screamed and hollered, but they gagged me so that my screams were muffled. Two of the guys held me while one tried to force his dick in my ass. The fourth guy was standing point at the door, watching for the man. I broke loose, but all four of them wrestled me to the floor and beat on me some more. Two of them had time to rape me before the guy at the door shouted, “The man is coming!” They tried to get away from the scene before Fields arrived, but they didn’t quite make it. I was crying and trying to get my pants back on. All Fields said was, “You know I don’t allow any wrestling. You guys get the hell out of here. And you, Manson, go wash your face and stop all your crying.”
After
