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 that, Fields himself started playing games with me like I was some joint punk, available to anyone. On numerous occasions, depending on his mood, he would tell me, “Pull your pants down, Manson, I want to see if you’ve been getting fucked.” The first time I thought he was just kidding and I walked right on by him, but he grabbed me and yanked my pants down around my ankles and made me bend over while he looked at my ass. He always did this in the presence of several other inmates. To add insult, he would pick up a handful of raw silage from the dairy floor, spit tobacco juice on it and shove it up my ass. “I got him lubed,” he’d tell his pets, “so fuck him if you get a chance.” The tobacco juice and silage burned and I got an infection from it, but the humiliation was worse. Yeah, Fields was a real beauty, he really knew how to care for the wards of the state and earn his state paycheck. I worked in the dairy for five months and every day was some kind of unimaginable experience.
I never was able to even things up with Fields, but I did take some of the desire out of the first guy who put his dick in my ass. That was about the only thing I ever got away with at Plainfield. One night after the lights were out and everyone was asleep, I took one of the iron handles used for cranking the windows open or closed off a window. The crank was about twelve inches long and weighed two or three pounds. It wasn’t as large or as heavy as I would have liked, but it did the job. I crept down to where Mr. Stiff Dick was sleeping, eased his blanket up over his head and clubbed him several times as hard as I could. I left him there unconscious, and on the way back to my bed I slipped the crank under the covers of one of the other guys who had been in on the rape. The beaten inmate might have died, but he was lucky; security came through the cottage for a late-night count a few minutes later. In routinely lifting the blanket to make sure there was someone under the covers, the security man saw the blood and realized the guy was unconscious. He was taken to the hospital and treated for a severe concussion. Shaking down the cottage for the weapon, the guards found it in the other guy’s bed. All of us were questioned. No one was charged with the assault, although the other rapist was the prime suspect.
When his partner returned from the hospital, the two of them didn’t have much to do with each other. It was whispered that I had done the clubbing, and no matter how small I was, no one else at Plainfield tried to put his dick in my ass again.
I ran away constantly, not because I was such a rebel but because it was always me who was punished when someone had to be punished to illustrate a point. I didn’t have anyone on the outside to tell my troubles to. No one was visiting me and I got very little mail. I was just there, and nobody gave a fuck. The fear of getting caught wasn’t any worse than the fear of what the next breath might bring, so my head was looking toward the road every minute.
One of my escapes was planned so skillfully that I was sure I’d make it. About six guys were on early wake-up crew so that they could go out in the pastures, round up the milk cows, put them in the barn and feed them during milking time. Bed tags were used to identify them to the night attendant, who would wake them up around four-thirty. These inmates were trusted to work without supervision until Fields showed up at six o’clock. One