The Books: “Music for Chameleons” – ‘Then It All Came Down’ (Truman Capote)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction (although Capote’s stuff walks the line with nonfiction):

Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote. Today’s excerpt is from ‘Then It All Came Down’. This is another transcription of a conversation Capote had, and it’s the most chilling in all the collection. Truman Capote sits in a maximum security prison cell with Robert Beausoleil – the real key to the Manson murders. He was convicted of killing musician Gary Hinman – and imprisoned. Manson thought, “Hmmm … maybe if we – my little brood of happy hippies and gunmen – do some copycat killings while he’s in jail – then it will be obvious that he is innocent and he’ll be released.” On the wall of Hinman’s apartment were the words “Death to Pigs” – written in his blood. Of course we all know that other such erudite statements were found on the walls of the Tate house and the LaBianca house. Naturally, Manson’s little plot to free his bud didn’t work out as planned. The rest is history. Bobby Beausoleil is still in jail to this day. Truman Capote, ever since In Cold Blood spent a lot of time in prisons – interviewing killers and those on death row – he became quite in demand … and I think there was something in him that was quite fascinated by people’s capacity for evil. It made him sick to his stomach (he said he would vomit when he left the prison after interviewing Perry Smith and Dick Hickock) – but he also just wanted to get close to it. What secrets could such people reveal? And, the eternal question: WHY? As a novelist, as a student of human nature – it is perhaps the most important question to ask.

I am not sure of the date that this takes place – it must be the late 70s. Beausoleil has been in jail for a decade.

Truman Capote sits in the cramped cell, and asks questions.

Here’s just a bit of it. The whole thing, though, is a must-read. It gives no answers (naturally) – it’s just a terrifying glimpse.

Excerpt from Music for Chameleons – by Truman Capote. Today’s excerpt is from ‘Then It All Came Down’.

RB: (reaches for guitar, tunes it, strums it, sings): “This is my song, this is my song, this is my dark song, my dark song …” Everybody always wants to know how I got together with Manson. It was through our music. He plays some, too. One night I was driving around with a bunch of my ladies. Well, we came to this old roadhouse, beer place, with a lot of cars outside. So we went inside, and there was Charlie with some of his ladies. We all got to talking, played some together; the next day Charlie came to see me in my van, and we all, his people and my people, ended up camping out together. Brothers and sisters. A family.

TC: Did you see Manson as a leader? Did you feel influenced by him right away?

RB: Hell, no. He had his people, I had mine. If anybody was influenced, it was him. By me.

TC: Yes, he was attracted to you. Infatuated. Or so he says. You seem to have had that effect on a lot of people, men and women.

RB: Whatever happens, happens. It’s all good.

TC: Do you consider killing innocent people a good thing?

RB: Who said they were innocent?

TC: Well, we’ll return to that. But for now: What is your own sense of morality? How do you differentiate between good and bad?

RB: Good and bad? It’s all good. If it happens, it’s got to be good. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening. It’s just the way life flows. Moves together. I move with it. I don’t question it.

TC: In other words, you don’t question the act of murder. You consider it “good” because it “happens”. Justifiable.

RB: I have my own justice. I live by my own law, you know. I don’t respect the laws of this society. Because society doesn’t respect its own laws. I make my own laws and live by them. I have my own sense of justice.

TC: And what is your sense of justice?

RB: I believe what goes around comes around. What goes up comes down. That’s how life flows, and I flow with it.

TC: You’re not making much sense – at least to me. And I don’t think you’re stupid. Let’s try again. In your opinion, it’s all right that Manson sent Tex Watson and those girls into that house to slaughter total strangers, innocent people —

RB: I said: Who says they were innocent? They burned people on dope deals. Sharon Tate and that gang. They picked up kids on the Strip and took them home and whipped them. Made movies of it. Ask the cops; they found the movies. Not that they’d tell you the truth.

TC: The truth is, the LaBiancas and Sharon Tate and her friends were killed to protect you. Their deaths were directly linked to the Gary Hinman murder.

RB: I hear you. I hear where you’re coming from.

TC: Those were imitations of the Hinman murder – to prove that you couldn’t have killed Hinman. And thereby get you out of jail.

RB: To get me out of jail. (He nods, smiles, sighs – complimented). None of that came out at any of the trials. The girls got on the stand and tried to really tell how it all came down, but nobody would listen. People couldn’t believe anything except what the media said. The media had them programmed to believe it all happened because we were out to start a race war. That it was mean niggers going around hurting all these good white folks. Only – it was like you say. The media, they called us a “family”. And it was the only true thing they said. We were a family. We were mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son. If a member of our family was in jeopardy, we didn’t abandon that person. And so for the love of a brother, a brother who was in jail on a murder rap, all those killings came down.

TC: And you don’t regret that?

RB: No. If my brothers and sisters did it, then it’s good. Everything in life is good. It all flows. It’s all good. It’s all music.

TC: When you were up on Death Row, if you’d been forced to flow down to the gas chamber and whiff the peaches, would you have given that your stamp of approval?

RB: If that’s how it came down. Everything that happens is good.

TC: War. Starving children. Pain. Cruelty. Blindness. Prisons. Desperation. Indifference. All good?

RB: What’s that look you’re giving me?

TC: Nothing. I was noticing how your face changes. One moment, with just the slightest shift of angle, you look so boyish, entirely innocent, a charmer. And then – well, one can see you as a sort of Forty-second Street Lucifer. Have you ever seen Night Must Fall? An old movie with Robert Montgomery? No? Well, it’s about an impish, innocent-looking delightful young man who travels about the English countryside charming old ladies, then cutting off their heads and carrying the heads around with him in leather hat-boxes.

RB: So what’s that got to do with me?

TC: I was thinking – if it was ever remade, if someone Americanized it, turned the Montgomery character into a young drifter with hazel eyes and a smoky voice, you’d be very good in the part.

RB: Are you trying to say I’m a psychopath? I’m not a nut. If I have to use violence, I’ll use it, but I don’t believe in killing.

TC: Then I must be deaf. Am I mistaken, or didn’t you just tell me that it didn’t matter what atrocity one person committed against another, it was good, all good?

RB: (Silence)