By now Leslie Van Houten has finished eating her institutional dinner and may lie on a cot in her cell in the women's prison at Frontera, California, planning for her next parole hearing, expecting the worst, since her crime was heinous, and she might never be released or pardoned. I veer toward an unshakable admiration for the rule of law and, in the American way, with undeniable fascination toward those who break it, and to those who, failing to find truth, mete out justice, or for those who, professing any and all law restrictive, violate it, especially a criminal who applies a unique standard that appears just or more human, though I don't support violent crimes against persons. Leslie Van Houten was the least culpable of the girls in the Manson Family, she's now sustained by hope and religion, she's been born again, and even if she's released when she's old, her youth long gone, she knows in her heart she's been rehabilitated, she knows it, she's not that girl who stuck a knife into Rosemary LaBianca's back nineteen times. Still, Leslie relives her absurd and terrible crime, her lawless association with Manson and the Family, her devoted love of him, and does penance, but it can never be enough, she can't explain herself, the girl she was then, she doesn't know why she did what she did. It doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter that she'd never do it again. This too doesn't make sense, and she can't recognize that person, but it doesn't matter.
For me, only a seance lies ahead, with its bizarre seductions, and I focus on it, conjuring the Rotunda Room and several faces and bodies convened around a dark wood round table. I'm wondering how the Magician will conduct it, if it has specific rules and rites, like a religious ceremony, when I hear my name shouted several times by what sounds like several voices, an unusual occurrence, since there's an unwritten law, part of the honor code, that we residents shouldn't raise our voices and interrupt another's peace. They shout my name again, more insistently. I put on my robe and go to the window, there are some residents waving, "Come outside," they mouth, so I gesture my willingness, but I don't want to join them. They appear anxious, even stricken-fl, the demanding man, the dour man, the fretful woman, the disconsolate young woman with asthma, and her friend, the Wineman, an unfortunate group, but at least there is no one of the staff, for which I am grateful, I fear bureaucracy and its devotees, and this must be spontaneous and ex-officio. Reluctantly, I pull on the clothes I recently discarded that lie in a mound on the floor, so the pants are wrinkled, and grab my one hundred percent virgin wool black coat, battleship-gray cashmere scarf, and furtively pat the crystal ball on the way out.
Now, what happens is strange and unbelievable, and, even as it happens, I can't believe it or countenance it, even in this peculiar, portmanteau community, it is also unique in my experience, and their fervor, a group who acts like a mob, immediately offends my sensibilities, since generally I don't appreciate outrage or moralisms of any sort from a group, and especially in a setting where we residents are encouraged to be ourselves, although that they are being themselves is a likely, unhappy fact. The demanding man speaks first. News has come to them about the seance of which they heartily disapprove and in which they want no part, they believe it's wrong for our place to have such a thing happen "under its roof." He repeats this phrase three times. I wonder if the Magician asked them to attend, though I doubt it, but some of them were in the main room when I left it, and someone must have stirred their communal bowl by dropping in the word "seance," an unpredictable seasoning. The dour man objects to seances as voodoo, the fretful woman is offended by the idea that the dead might be raised and disturbed by the living, a more arcane objection, so, with deliberateness, I explain that they don't have to be and aren't involved, the seance is harmless, since it will be ineffective, and I don't expect miracles, but the Wineman complains sourly that this kind of silliness brings bad karma, while JJ invokes the townspeople who will know we're crazy as loons, absolutely crazy. The demanding man insists our reputations must be upheld, and, if word gets out, if the townspeople and administration hear about this, it'll bring disgrace. "There'll be trouble," the disconsolate woman reiterates, holding her stomach. I notice I have placed, in a cross, my hands over my heart, where a pressure or burden lives. Everyone has an opinion and speaks it, and, in this way, a democracy works, which is admirable, but in our democracy the rights of the minority must be protected, I think of Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, "the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression," but don't mention it. Instead, I inquire why they care so much about what others think, a solemn question, but to it the disconsolate woman, whose asthma the cold, wet night air might bother, mutters, "You obviously don't care about what people think, because otherwise how could you. " There she halts, tantalizingly, biting her lip, her face darkening or maybe reddening, but it's nighttime and I can't be sure. Unable to hold her tongue, though, she actually sputters:
— You monopolize Gardner at dinner. He's never shown me his Breguet.
— But Helen, the dour man exclaims, it's not that we don't like….
— I don't like you, the demanding man vehemently interrupts.