Celestial Timepiece

By Joyce Carol Oates

Originally published in Boulevard, Spring 2020.
Collected in Night, Neon: Tales of Mystery and Suspense.
Included in Pushcart Prize XLVI: Best of the Small Presses  and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021

Written from the perspective of Manson Family member Patricia Krenwinkel. (In 2023, Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten was granted parole and released from prison.)

Parole Hearing, California Institution for Women, Chino, CA

Why am I requesting parole another time?—because I am penitent.

Because I am remorseful for the wrongs I have inflicted upon the innocent.

Because I am a changed person.

Because I have punished myself every day, every hour, and every minute of my incarceration.

Because the warden will testify on my behalf: I have been a model prisoner.

Because the chaplain will testify on my behalf: I have welcomed Jesus Christ into my heart.

Because I have served fifty-one years in prison. Because I have been rejected for parole fifteen times.

Because I am seventy years old, I am no longer nineteen years old.

Because I cannot remember who I was when I was nineteen years old.

Because I regret all that I was commanded to do in August 1969.

Because the person I hurt most at that terrible time was—myself.

◊

Why am I requesting parole?—because (I believe) I have paid what is called my debt to society.

Because I have completed college while in prison. I have a community college degree, Chino Valley Community College.

Because I have taught generations of inmates to read and write.

Because I have assisted the arts and crafts instructors and they have praised me.

(I love the thrill of power, making lesser beings my slaves.)

Because I have goodness in my heart that yearns to be released into the world.

Because I would make amends.

Because I am an example to the younger women.

Because I am the oldest woman prisoner in California, and there is shame in this.

Because the other prisoners are all younger than I am, and they pity me.

Because I am not a threat to society.

Because I was a battered woman and did not realize.

Because all that happened in 1969 happened because of that.

Because it was not fair, and is not fair.

Because the person I hurt most was—myself.

◊

Why am I requesting parole?—Because Jesus has come into my heart, and He has forgiven me.

Because Jesus understood, it was the Devil who guided my hand to smite the innocent with evil intent.

Because the Devil whispered to us—Do something witchy!

Because I had no choice, I had to obey.

Because he would have punished me if I did not.

Because he would have ceased to love me if I did not.

Because he has passed away now and left me with this (swastika) scar on my forehead.

Because, seeing this scar I have borne for fifty-one years, you will judge me harshly.

Because the person he hurt most was—me.

◊

Because I was abused by others.

Because I was trusting in my heart, and so I was abused by others.

Because I was abused by him.

Because I was weak-willed. Because I was a victim of what the therapist has called low self-esteem.

Because I was starving, and he gave me nourishment.

Because he asked of me—Don’t you know who I am?

Because I dissolved into tears before him at such words. Because all my life I had been awaiting such words.

Because the Family welcomed me, at his bidding.

Because soon they called me Big Patty. Because they called me Pimply Face. Because they made me crouch down and eat from the dog’s dish.

Because they laughed at me.

Because he did not protect me from them.

Because I gave my soul to him.

Because I am begging understanding and forgiveness from you, on my knees.

Because I am a good person, in my heart.

Because you can see—can’t you?—I am a good person, in my heart.

Because it was easy to hypnotize me.

Because it was easy to drug me.

Because I could not say no.

Because very feebly I did say no, no—but he laughed at me and made me serve him on my knees.

Because I was ravenous for love—for touch.

Because stabbing the victims, I was stabbing myself.

Because sinking my hands into the wounds of the victims, to mock and defile them, I was mocking and defiling myself.

Because tasting the blood that was “warm and sticky,” I was tasting my own blood that spurted out onto walls, ceilings, carpets.

Because, at my trial, prejudiced jurors found me guilty of “seven counts of homicide,” not knowing how I was but his instrument.

Because you who sit in judgment of me have no idea of the being I am in my innermost heart.

Because you gaze upon me with pity and contempt, thinking—Oh she is a monster! She is nothing like me.

But I am like you. In my heart that is without pity, I am you.

Because it is true, certain terrible things were done by my hand, which was but his hand.

Because it is true, these were terrible acts and yet joyous, as he had ordained.

Because it is true, I showed no mercy to those who begged for their lives on their knees.

On my knees for all of my life, I did not receive mercy, and so I had no mercy to give.

Well, yes—it is true, I stabbed her sixteen times. The beautiful “movie star.”

And it is true, each stab was a shriek of pure joy.

And it is true, in a frenzy I stabbed the baby in her belly, eight months, five weeks old. For a mere second it crossed my mind, I could “deliver” this baby by Caesarean, for I had a razor-sharp butcher knife, and if I did this and brought the baby to Charlie … But I could not think beyond the moment, I did not know if Charlie would bless me or curse me, and I could not risk it.

For the baby too, that had no name, I showed no mercy. For no mercy had been shown me.

Because for these acts that are so terrible in your eyes, I have repented.

For these acts and others, I have repented.

◊

Because in this prison I am a white woman.

A pearl in a sea of mud. A pearl cast before swine.

Amid the brown- and black-skinned, my skin shines, it is so pure.

He entrusted us with the first battle of Helter Skelter.

He sent us on our mission, to pitch the first battle of the Race War.

He kissed my forehead. He told me—You are beautiful.

Because I had not known this!—in my soul I believed that I was ugly.

Because at school, in all the schools I had gone to—there were jeering eyes, cruel laughter.

Because, when I was not yet twelve years old, already dark hairs grew thick and coarse on my head and beneath my arms and at the pit of my belly. In that place between my legs that was sin to touch. On my legs that were muscled like a boy’s, and on my forearms. Wiry hairs on my naked breasts, ticklish at the nipples.

Yet of my body Charlie declared—You are beautiful.

Except: blood, like sludge, oozed between my thighs. A nasty smell lifted from me.

Go away, you disgust me, Charlie said.

Because you are saying—The poor girl!—she was abused, hypnotized.

Because you are saying—She wasn’t herself.

Because none of that was true. Because love is a kind of hypnosis, but it was one I chose.

Because Charlie favored the pretty ones, even so.

Because I hated them. Because I had always hated them—beautiful women and girls.

Because it is not fair that some that are sluts, are beautiful like Sharon Tate, and some are ugly like me.

Because when we were done with her, she was not so beautiful.

Because I would not do it again!—I promise.

Because I stuck a fork in a man’s belly and laughed at how it dangled from the flab of his belly, but I can scarcely remember.

Because I have been washed clean of these sins through the grace of Jesus.

Because I am a Christian woman, my Savior dwells in my heart.

Because I was not evil, but weak.

Because I was a “criminal” in the eyes of the law but a “victim” in the eyes of God.

Because the swastika scar between my eyes calls your eye to it, in judgment. Because you think—She is disfigured! She bears the sign of Satan, she must not ever be paroled.

Because the scar is faded now. Because if you did not know what it was, you would not recognize it.

Because I was a battered woman—a therapist has told me.

Because my case should be reopened. Because my incarceration should be ended. Because I have served my time.

Because sin has faded in my memory.

Because where there was the Devil, there is now Love.

◊

Because in the blood of the dying I wrote on the walls of the fancy house—DEATH TO PIGS HEALTER SKELTER.

Because it was not to be that I would have a baby—so it was fitting, she could not have her baby.

Such a big belly! Big white drum-belly! Screaming, like they say a stuck pig screams, and squeals, and tries to crawl away—so you must straddle it, knees gripping her slippery, naked back to wreak the greatest vengeance.

Because she was so beautiful, the sun shone out of her face.

Because she was so beautiful, she did not deserve to live.

All of them, strangers to us—they did not deserve to live.

Do it gruesome—Charlie commanded.

Because that was the address he’d given us on a winding canyon road in the night—Leave no one alive there.

Because we did not question. (Why would we question?)

Because rage is justice, if you are the meek.

Because it is said—Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth.

Because when flames burst inside you, you know that you are redeemed.

Because it is time for my parole, Jesus is commanding you—Turn my minion loose!

Because you are fools who think you see a putty-skinned plain old woman in prison clothes humbling herself before you, a harmless old bag with a collapsed face and collapsed breasts to her waist—you have not the eyes to see who I am, as with his laser eyes Charlie saw at once—You are beautiful.

Because Charlie perceived in me within a minute of seeing me, I might be a sword of God.

Because I might be a scourge of the enemy.

Because I had wanted to be a nun, but the nuns rejected me.

Because you will all pay, that the nuns rejected me.

Because if you release me, I have more justice to seek.

Because you hold the keys to the prison, but one day you will suffer as we suffer, in the flaming pits of Hell.

Because you are trying to find a way to comprehend me. So you can pity me. So you can be superior to me. She was brainwashed. She was not responsible. She was fed hallucinogens—LSD. She was weak-minded, under the spell of the madman.

Because you are mistaken. Because you have no idea what is in my heart.

Because beside Charlie, who was our beautiful Christ, you are vermin.

He would grind you beneath his feet.

Because we made her famous—“Sharon Tate.”

Because the slut would be forgotten by now if we had not made her famous.

Because I dipped my hands in her hot, pulsing blood. Shoved my hands into her big belly. Eviscerate—Charlie commanded.

Because you see?—I am meeting your eyes, I am not looking away.

Because I am not servile to the Board of Parole like others who appear meekly before you.

Because I am a woman of dignity. Because prison has not broken my spirit, which is suffused with Charlie’s love.

Because I can see, you are filled with loathing for me. As I am filled with loathing for you.

Because even in death her eyes were the color of burnt sugar, her skin flawless and so smooth … I thought that I would tell Charlie—I will go back and skin her! Should I go back and skin her!

Because I was sure that Charlie would laugh and say—Yes! Go back and skin the slut and return to me wearing her skin, then I will love you above all the others because you are more beautiful than all of them.

Because this did not happen, and yet it is more real to me than many things that have happened.

As Charlie is more real to me than any of you.

Because we would tear out your throats with our teeth if we could.

Because it is ended now—my (last) parole hearing.

Because I leave you with my curse—DEATH TO PIGS.

Image: George Brich / AP: Patricia Krenwinkel (center) arrives at court with fellow Manson Family members Susan Atkins (left) and Leslie Van Houten, 1969.