We are shown to another room, walking past cells of prisoners, shouting out slurs and profanity. Ford places a hand on the small of my back, as we almost speed up to get past them as quickly as possible, almost hiding me beside him. We finally get to the infirmary and to the empty room, where there is a table and four chairs. It isn't until we get into the room that Ford removes his hand from my back and then puts the recorder on the table, "do you really think we should talk to Tex?"

I nod and shrug, "Yeah, I mean, he was the one running the show, so to speak."

"You realize Kemper is reeling you in, just like he did Holden, right?" Tench shakes his head.

Ford looks over to Tench, "he's the most cogent, credible subject we've ever interviewed."

"The bar is low."

"If Kemper hadn't turned himself in, he could've avoided capture for as long as he wanted." I shake my head, "He's an incredible resource." I look down to the recorder and then to Ford, "you bought a new microphone."

"For posterity." Ford shrugs

We hear the door buzz and open, before heading shackles rattling. I am standing between the boys, who are sitting, we all turn to the door, as wait, Ford stands as well, placing his hand back on my back, at this point I'm not sure if it's for my comfort or for his. Tench crosses his arms, "like a fucking king." As Manson walks in, Tench looks to the rather large guard with him, "Uncuff him, please."

I'm not sure if the guard is truly a very large man, or if he just looks that way compared to Manson. The guard does as we ask and uncuffs Manson, but leaves his foot shackles on. I take a deep breath, "all of them please."

"Ma'am…" the guard starts.

I put up a hand, while shaking my head, "we will be fine. Please uncuff him." the guard nods and unshackles Manson's feet.

"I'm Special Agent Tench," Tench gestures up to Ford and I, "This is Special Agent Ford and Special Agent Freeman."

I cross my arms, "this isn't an interrogation, Mr. Manson. We know that you didn't commit the Tate or LaBianca murders. What we're interested in is your relationship with your Family. And what bearing that relationship had on the crimes."

"Please." Tench gestures to the chair we have across from us.

Manson doesn't sit though, he paces around a small area about seven feet away from us. Ford and I sit down, Ford's hand finally leaving my back. Ford takes a deep breath, "We'd like to hear from you, in your own words, about what happened." It isn't until the door fully closes that Manson walks over to us, with a smirk on his face. Sitting on the back of the chair, no doubt to make himself either feel or appear taller. "Do you mind if we record this?"

Manson looks to Ford, responding with nothing but a small smile. I lean forward, placing my forearms on the table, as I clear my throat, "Over the years, some members have blamed you for the murders, then changed their story. Others, quite famously, have protected you. You seem to have a hold on them even from prison. I have to say, it's rather impressive. But no matter what they say, you maintain the same story."

Manson looks over to me and shrugs his shoulders, "Because my truth is simple. And your truth's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"Well, you don't see it, but the only truth is now. Now is the only thing that's real."

"Well, we're mainly interested in then. How you met, influenced, and indoctrinated the people who followed you."

"Indoctrinated," Manson chuckles, "come on, babe."

"How did the Family begin?" Ford straightens up, "did you start with the girls?"

"These people you call the 'Family,' they're just children that you didn't want. You threw 'em out like trash. So I picked them up off the side of the road, and I said this: in love, there is no wrong."

"Love?" Tench scoffs, "that's what you taught your Family?"

"You're a family man, Agent Tench?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?" Manson nods, looking from Tench to the guard, waiting just outside the door, pointing to the guard, "Yeah, he's a family man, too, with his keys and his gun. He's teaching his children right now. They're learning his beliefs, and they'll be living 'em. And you, you're teaching your children. Look at yourself, judge the lies you live in. These children that come at you with knives, they're your children."

I roll my eyes a bit, "yet yours waiting to start a race war."

"They were your followers, Charlie." Tench shakes his head, "you gave them the knife."

"You taught 'em!" Manson chuckles, "I didn't teach 'em. I just tried to help 'em stand up."

"And they stood up, went out, and killed seven innocent people."

"Oh, so now it's my fault?" Manson leans back a bit, placing his hands on his thighs, "It's my fault that your children do what they do? Your own children who you are neglecting?"

I shake my head, "We know that no one in the Family acts without your approval, Charlie."

Manson just continues to chuckle, "Well, if you know, you know. You don't need to talk to me. It's yourself you need to talk to."

Tench lights a cigarette, "Let's talk about August 9th, 1969."

"That is gone in the past. And then it is gone, it is gone, brother."

"That summer, you told the Family," Ford looks down to the file, "'now is the time for Helter Skelter.' That they needed to start a race war by murdering wealthy white people…"

Manson shakes his head, interrupting Ford, "That's the district attorney's fantasy. That's his fear. That's a reflection of his fears."

Tench places a copy of Helter Skelter out of the binder, in front of me, "So you're saying that this never happened?"

"Sure, I'm saying that never happened! Bugliosi is a genius, man! He got everything a prosecutor would want, except one thing: a case. He doesn't have a case! So he puts Linda Kasabian on the stand, and she tells a sad story about how she has lied, and cheated, and… and done every dishonest thing that she can think of. Oh, but it's okay, she's telling the truth now. She wouldn't have any ulterior motive, like immunity for seven counts of murder."

"You're saying she lied? All the witnesses lied?"

"Each witness got up and testified only what was best for them. They didn't testify what was best for me."

"If they did you'd be out." I take a deep breath, rather tired of Manson.

"Do you believe this Helter Skelter bullshit?"

Ford shrugs, "'Death to Pigs.' 'Political Piggy.' Got to admit, it sounds like a vision."

"There's no vision." Manson shakes his head, "I might have had an opinion about blacks and whites and the hassles they were havin'. But I don't recall saying anything about starting a race war."

"So how did that become the story?"

"It was Sadie who started hearing messages in the White Album. She gave the media the material for any perversion they cared print. The DA grabbed Sadie's version, ran all the way through the courtroom with it: 'Charles Manson: the most dangerous man alive.' 'Hippie cult leader who programmed people to kill.' In that book, he's got me so powerful, a look from me stopped his watch! I'd lay there in my cell wondering, 'Wow, am I really all they say?' I was halfway believing that shit myself. But I've been staring at every clock I see. And you know what? As hard as I stare, the clock never stops." Ford chuckles at Manson's little joke.

Tench shakes his head, feed up with Manson, as I am, "You had a group of teenagers isolated in the desert. You gave 'em drugs, you convinced 'em you were God, and you sent 'em out to kill."

"Listen man, Bobby Beausoleil was sitting in jail for murder, you dig? Tex and Sadie came to m and said, 'Let's do some copycat killings to get him off.'"

I scoff, "You're saying the murders, everything, was just to get Bobby Beausoleil out of prison?"

"Those kids were looking at me with hard eyes." Manson points to Tench, "yeah, your kids. Tex Watson, the all-American boy? The pride of Copeville, Texas? I have better sense than to disagree with him. So I said this: 'you do what your love tells you to do. I'll do what my love tells me.' Now whatever he did, that's up to him. He'll have to explain it to you."

Ford nods, picking up his pen, "Just to be clear, this was their plan? You weren't responsible…"

"You got a circle that a man lives inside of. He's responsible for his circle and his circle only." Manson begins to become a bit irritated, "Now, I don't recall saying anything about, 'go get a knife and kill anyone' or anything."

Tench leans back in his chair, "bull shit."

"If I wanted, I could kill you with your mic cord. With your pencil. But I wanna love myself, so I'm not going to do that."

"No, you're gonna put it in someone else's circle."

"Listen, man. Tex? It was hard to tell if he was at the end of an old high or startin' a new one. Now, I went back to the Cielo Drive house that night, and sent one of the kids inside to see if he'd really done it."

Ford nods, "Why didn't you go inside?"

"It was a crime scene. I'd have been in violation of my parole."

"But you were at the LaBianca murders, weren't you, Charlie?"

"I had to go. I had to go."

"You had to?" I chuckle, "what about your parole?"

"Yeah. Listen, Tex, he put himself on me, man. He tried to make me look weak. We were moving forward inside ourselves. We were learnin' new things. And he changed it. See, he went outside. He made his own circle. And, what, now he wants to go back to 'Jesus love me'? Blood of the lamb, the right/wrong games we played for 2,000 years?"

"Right and wrong is a game?" Tench shakes his head.

"There are no rights and wrongs, only ises. Whatever life is, it is. Right and wrong got nothing to do with it."

"So the murder of seven people just 'is'?" I cross my arms.

"Well, it is, isn't it?" Manson chuckles. "No one ever dies, no one ever lives. Those are two words in a leftover game."

"People did die, Charlie. You made sure of it."

"Everything is love, babe. There's nothing that isn't love."

"Really?" I glance over to Tench, who nods, as if to give my permission, "so if I were to stab you with my heel, that would be love?"

"For you." Manson nods.

"Really? Because it seems to me like pure hate."

"It'd be you love for justice, wouldn' it? You would be taking someone you believe is a horrible person off this Earth."

Tench takes deep breath and looks over to Ford, "How much more of this shit do you wanna listen to?"

"You need to walk on a different street, guy. Put your clothes on backwards, and let everyone laugh at you."

"You're a coward, Charlie. A coward who takes no responsibility for his actions."

"Yeah, you eat meat with your teeth, you kill things that are better than you, and then you say your children are killers."

"No, I'm saying you're a killer."

"I have killed no one…"

Tench and Manson talk over each other, "You ordered them to go to that house and slaughter everyone there."

"... and I wanted no one to be killed." Manson pauses for a moment, "I did not direct anyone to do anything other than what they wanted to do."

"You didn't stop them either." I shake my head.

"I always let children go. If he falls, that is how he learns. You become strong by fallin'."

"You're not supposed to let children fall." Tench shakes his head, "you're supposed to guide them."

"Guide them into what? Guide them into what you've guided them into?"

"You fucking midget!"

"Bill!" I look over to Tench, scolding him while trying not to laugh.

Manson chuckles, "This anger that you're feeling, Agent Tench, this is just the anger that you have got for you. Find someone else to put yourself on. I'm tired of being your goat. I'm tired of being your reflection."

"You're not my reflection," Tench clenches his jaw.

"I've always been yours. I've been in your cell since I was eight years old. I don't even have a name. I'm B-33920. A bell rings, I get up! A bell rings, I go out! A bell rings, I do what that bell says." Manson stands on the chair and puts his arms out, "I'm Pavlov's dog, man. I'm anything you want me to be." he sits back down on the back of the chair, "But what you want is a fiend… because that's what you are. See, I never had any say in your world, you created it. How do you feel about those murders? That's what counts. Happened in your world, not in mine."

"What 'counts' is that you ordered the deaths of seven people." I stand, placing my palms on the table, leaning toward Manson, keeping my voice as calm as possible, "including a pregnant woman, so eight if you 'count' an unborn child"

"And now you can reflect it back on me, and you can lock me up in your penitentiary, and you can say that your world is better. But prison's a frame of thought. We're all our own prisons, we are each our own wardens, we do our own time. Prison is in your mind" Manson laughs, "can't you see I'm free?"

"You don't look free to me, Charlie."

"You don't look free to me. You look like a composite of what someone told you you are. You live for other peoples' opinion, you got pain on your face, and you wonder if you look okay."

"That's it." Tench shakes his head and stands, gathering up our things.

Manson, finally sits correctly in his chair, grabbing the book and a pen, "hey, man." he points over to Ford, "I like your I have 'em?" As Manson rather aggressively writes something, Ford nods and hands him his sunglasses. Tench looks over to Ford a bit shocked before he basically runs out of the room. "thank you, kindly." Manson smiles as he puts them on.

Ford and I leave together, I wait until we get past the door before I glance over to Ford, "those weren't the ones I gave you, were they?"

"No," Ford shakes his head, "I would have decked him for asking if they were."

We caught up to Tench, who is waiting at the end of the hall. He begins to walk with us as he pass him, "The guru of Munchkinland can fuck off straight to hell as far as I'm concerned."

Before we even get two cell blocks away a guard calls out to us, "Agent Ford." Ford turns and the guard hands him the sunglasses, "Manson said he lifted these from you."

Ford looks down to this sunglasses, then up to the guard, "he said he stole them?"

"He was braggin' about it. He's on his way to the hole."