Spiral Misery Madness and Meditation

By R. Troy Bridges

The riveting true story of one man's extraordinary transformation from bank robber to meditation teacher and award-winning artist.

Troy Bridges was born in South Carolina to poor, abusive, alcoholic parents who rarely stayed in one place for long. He tried to escape this chaos by joining the Marine Corps at 18, but a final

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bar Nothing Books
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9780998770932

R. Troy Bridges

Given Troy Bridges' childhood, "author" is perhaps the least likely title one would expect to find attached to his name. He was born in 1948 to severely alcoholic parents who moved frequently, were usually broke, often abusive, and occasionally tender. When Troy emerged from this chaotic upbringing he almost managed to stay with a hitch in the Marines, but a final betrayal by his parents sent him AWOL. Following this came a period in which he often supported himself by robbing banks. Although he was jailed many times he always escaped-until he didn't. At that point he began wondering why his life turned out the way it did. Troy's self-reflection, assisted by meditation techniques he learned from a book he chanced to pick up in a prison corridor, allowed him to transform his life. He now leads meditation groups for other prisoners and expresses himself through painting. Spiral is his first book. Deemed a nonviolent offender, he is due to be released in 2030.

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Introduction

Written over a twenty‐year period, this book is more than just about childhood abuse, true crime, or prison (where I’ve spent more than forty years); it is also about hope, forgiveness, change, and the power of love to transform.

Once, asked by Ruth Porter, friend, author, publisher, and mentor, how I had been able to remember my past in such detail, I replied that after spending so many years in isolation without access to books or pencils or paper, I discovered I could count my fingers and toes only so many times before I had to face my past, particularly my childhood. Eventually I had to ask myself, How did I get here?

Of course, everything written here is not exactly as it happened. How could it be? But it is as truthful as my memory could make it. I have changed most of the names, but I have tried to give an honest account of the brutality and violence and racism that prisoners encounter in their everyday lives. Some of the language is shocking but it is not exaggerated. It’s what I hear every day. I could have left it out but I wanted to tell my story truly.

It was also in isolation (after another failed escape attempt) that I discovered meditation. Meditation not only quieted my mind and gave me new insight, but infused my memories with energy, giving them new clarity.

Later, finally released to the general prison population, I started a meditation group that led to the discovery of a course in emotional healing based on the book Houses of Healing by teacher and author Robin Casarjian. Participating in this course (and later helping to facilitate it for over ten years) taught me how to use meditation and visualization to help heal the wounded inner child that lives inside many of us and is responsible for many of the harmful choices we make as adults.

This practice led to the writing of letters to that child and became the basis for this book. I am forever grateful for Robin’s friendship over the years. Without her help, I would never have had my prison sentence reduced or have had the courage to write this memoir.

—R.T.B.

Prologue

After my mother’s suicide attempt, she was sent to the state asylum at Morganton. My sisters Dianne, now ten, and Tonda, two, were taken in by relatives, and my father and I moved to Trade Alley.

Trade Alley was made up of eight dilapidated frame duplexes randomly placed in a low‑lying area surrounded by hills. Built in the early 1930s, it was an attempt by the town of Shelby, North Carolina, to provide cheap housing for the white poor and served as a buffer between the town’s middle class and a small but growing population of Black people in an area called shantytown. Few of Shelby’s respectable citizens ever went to Trade Alley unless it was to hire a laborer or to collect a debt. And they almost never went to shantytown unless it was to buy bootlegged whiskey or to arrest someone.

But our family was different. We often went there. I went to shoot marbles in shantytown’s dusty alleys, while my mother went to buy bootlegged whiskey and hide from my father. My father went there to search for my mother.

Most of what I knew of my family’s history I learned from my mother during her more lucid moments. When we were alone, we talked for hours. And according to her, even the circumstances surrounding my birth involved fraud and deception. It was almost as if at the moment of my birth I had been enrolled in a school for future criminals.

PART I

MISERY

If security and happiness are among your early companions, there’s a good chance they’ll continue to be so. But if despair and difficulty rock your cradle, they may show an unfortunate tendency to take up permanent residence in your household.

—Margo Livesey, The Third Servant

(Five Points, fall 1998)

Chapter 1

December 1956

Our electricity had been turned off. Mama and I were cold and alone in our house in Trade Alley. She lit the oven and all four burners on our old gas range in the kitchen. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and sat near the oven’s open door, talking. Mama smoked a cigarette. You was nearly born in the cab of that big truck your daddy used to drive for F.M., said Mama. Bet you didn’t know that.

Of course I knew. My mother told me the same stories over and over, and this was one of her favorites. But I didn’t care. I just loved to hear her talk, so I always played along.

What happened, Mama? I asked.

You was almost born in that truck, that’s what happened.

Why’s that, Mama?

’Cause your daddy can’t pay his bills and we had to drive all the way to Lauderdale County, that’s why—almost forty miles away. Mama paused. She took a drag off her cigarette. Let me tell you what happened. The day you was born, I worked like the devil washin’ and dryin’ every curtain in that house, then moppin’ and waxin’ all the floors. That’s when we had our own house, you know, before your daddy lost it. Mama took another drag off her cigarette, then wiped a fleck of tobacco from her bottom lip with the tip of her little finger. She examined it briefly, then flicked it away. Honey, that was a nice house, not like this dump here. Mama shook her head, a disgusted look on her face.

"Anyway, I guess it was all the work I did that day ’cause labor pains started that night. And I couldn’t call nobody ’cause we didn’t have a phone, and I couldn’t walk over to your pawpaw and granny’s ’cause it was too far. Besides, I had your sister Dianne to look after; she was just two.

It was 10:00 at night. I remember ’cause I kept starin’ at a little clock I kept on the mantelpiece and thinkin’, Where’s Chuck? Ten o’clock and I ain’t seen him since 5:00 this mornin’. I couldn’t take it no more, so I just balled up on the sofa with your sister, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t.

’Cause you was hurtin’, huh, Mama?

"That’s right, honey. Mama was hurtin’—hurtin’ real bad.

So here comes your daddy, staggerin’ in the front door at 2:00 in the mornin’. Honey, he just stood there in the doorway lookin’ at me and Dianne lyin’ there on the sofa. You know what he said?

What, Mama?

"He said, ‘Irene, what’s wrong? How come you and Dianne ain’t in bed?’

"‘What the hell you think’s wrong, Chuck,’ I yelled at him. ‘I’m about to have this here baby, while you been out all night gallivantin’, doin’ Lord knows what!’

"‘Just tryin’ to make a livin’, Irene, that’s all.’

"‘You call hangin’ out at the Moose Club all night makin’ a livin’, Chuck? You smell like a whiskey bottle,’ I told him.

"‘I had a coupla drinks with the fellas down at the Moose Club, that’s all.’

Till 2:00 in the mornin’, Chuck! I can’t believe what a sorry excuse for a man you are!’ Mama took another drag off her cigarette, then a sip from a coffee cup near her right hand.

"Then your daddy carried me and your sister out to F.M.’s truck. He put us in the cab and off we went. Honey, it was a rough ride. I bounced up and down like a rubber ball every time your daddy shifted gears. I ain’t never hurt so much in my life. I thought I was gonna die. Then I looked out the window and realized that we weren’t goin’ to the hospital in Shelby at all.

‘Chuck, where you goin’?’ I said. ‘The hospital’s that way.’ ‘I’m takin’ you to the hospital to have this baby,’ he said. ‘But the hospital’s in Shelby,’ I told him. ‘I know, Irene, but I’m takin’ you to this clinic in Lauderdale County.’ ‘But, Chuck, that’s forty miles away.’

Mama paused, shook her head.

Well, honey, when your daddy didn’t answer, it dawned on me what I’d been suspectin’ for a long time.

What’s that, Mama?

"Your daddy never did pay the hospital bill in Shelby for your sister Dianne, and that’s why we had to drive all the way to Lauderdale County so I could have you.

That was a long, painful trip, honey, and I almost didn’t make it. My water broke right there as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of that clinic, said Mama. You know what your daddy said when he first laid eyes on you, honey?

What, Mama?

He said, ‘Damn, Irene! That’s the ugliest baby I ever saw! All red and wrinkled, bald as an onion! Damn, if he ain’t the spittin’ image of F.M.! Just my luck!’

I was ugly, Mama? I asked, my feelings hurt.

Just till your skin cleared up and you grew some hair, then you turned out to be the prettiest baby ever. Just look how handsome you are now.

Mama tousled my hair. I grinned.

My father hated his father, F.M., although he worked for him off and on for years. Of Scottish descent, F.M., whose real name was Frederick Martin, was a stern, tightfisted, but successful businessman. He often operated two or three small businesses simultaneously and always had at least one small grocery store where he charged high prices for extending credit to the poor. He also supplied moonshine and illegal whiskey to most of the bootleggers in shantytown. F.M. himself drank moonshine his entire life but only a half glass at night before bed.

My mother once told me that the ill will between my father and F.M. started because of an incident that occurred during World War II.

Your daddy didn’t fight in the war, Mama told me, ’cause he only had that one eye. So F.M. put your daddy in charge of this service station he owned in downtown Shelby, right across from the high school. Mama took a drag off her cigarette.

"Honey, during the war, you couldn’t just buy all the gasoline you wanted, you know. Gas was rationed—and not just gas but all kinds of products needed for the war effort, stuff like tires and batteries. So the government issued these little stamps, kinda like postage stamps, that you had to have to buy products that was rationed. Every adult got a certain number of ration stamps every month, that is, unless you had a job, like a truck driver, taxi driver, or a farmer. Then you got extra stamps and could buy extra gas and tires.

"Everybody wanted more stamps so they could buy more products, especially gas. So, somehow your daddy got his hands on these counterfeit stamps and started givin’ them to his customers so they could buy more gas.

Pretty soon your daddy’s sellin’ more gas than anybody in Shelby. I don’t know if F.M. knew anything about it. Maybe he did and just looked the other way, I don’t know. But I do know that F.M.’s always been smart enough to get somebody else to do his dirt for him. Anyway, somehow the government finds out about the fake stamps and they sent two agents over to the station. Your daddy recognized the government car as soon as it pulled up.

What did daddy do, Mama?

Mama laughed. Honey, your daddy’s always been a damn fool. He grabbed up all those fake stamps and ran to the storeroom. He locked the door, then your daddy ate all them fake stamps, except for a couple he dropped on the floor. But that was enough evidence for the government to shut down F.M.’s station and to fine F.M. They let your daddy off with probation. F.M. ain’t trusted your daddy with any real responsibility since. Sure, he still lets your daddy work for him, but he won’t put him in charge of nothin’.

My father was tall, lean, brooding, and handsome. He had brown eyes and black hair, his Native American lineage evident. He took great pride in being a hard worker and showed a lively sense of humor with his peers but seldom at home. He could also be charming, particularly with a debtor or employer and, at times, even with my mother.

I remember once watching my father make my mother smile even though she was angry with him. He crooned the old ballad Goodnight, Irene and refused to stop until she smiled.

My father was intelligent but had little formal education. I often heard him say that school was unimportant and that learning to work hard was what mattered most. More than once I heard him brag about how he had jumped out of the school window when he was nine and never returned.

Years later, I learned that my father’s disdain for education really had to do with a tragedy that occurred when he was very young.

Your daddy lost his right eye when he was only six years old, Mama told me. "He was playing hide‐and‐seek with his older brothers when he was accidentally hit in the eye by a branch with long thorns on it.

The doctor had to remove your daddy’s right eye, and he had to wear a black eye patch until he was old enough to be fitted with an artificial eye. At school, your daddy was teased by the other kids. They called him One‑Eye and Patch. Your daddy often came home from school cryin’. He got to where he hated to go. It was around this time that your daddy started smokin’, said Mama.

"Every mornin’ on his way to school, your daddy would stop off at the cotton mill and pick up cigarette butts the mill workers threw away. When Mama Bridges found out, it broke her heart. Even though she knew smokin’ wasn’t good for him, she just couldn’t deny her youngest son, a little boy who had already suffered so much, so she struck a bargain. She told your daddy that she would buy him a carton of cigarettes every week if he would go to school every day and quit pickin’ up cigarette butts.

Mama Bridges kept her part of the bargain until your daddy quit school at nine and went to work. Then your daddy bought his own cigarettes.

My paternal grandmother was a tall, quiet, attractive woman with long black hair that she always kept neatly pinned and coiled. Native American, she was born and raised on the Cherokee reservation in the nearby Smoky Mountains. How she and F.M. met, I don’t know.

All of her grandchildren called her Mama Bridges. She carried herself with great dignity and humility. Mama Bridges was one of those rare people that quietly separated herself from the normal chaos and concerns of ordinary people yet stayed connected and was always present to encourage and guide others with a smile, kind words, and, most importantly, by making her life a living example.

Always busy, Mama Bridges still found time to devote to her church, community, and family—cleaning, cooking, and working at her sewing machine or in her vegetable garden.

Whenever I visited her home as a boy, I always felt a sense of awe. Her quiet presence always seemed to soothe the barbarian growing inside me. Without prompting, I would lower my voice and speak in hushed tones, as if I had just walked into a museum or a cathedral.

When it became obvious how harmful was my parents’ lifestyle, Mama Bridges saved my older sister, Dianne. She convinced first F.M., then my parents, that it would be best for Dianne to come live with them.

My mother was a preacher’s daughter. When she met my father, she was a beautiful teenage girl standing five‑four, with long golden hair. Her nose wrinkled when she smiled and her laughter was contagious. But her most beautiful and dominant feature were her intense blue‑green eyes, eyes that she inherited from her father and then passed on to me.

As a girl, my mother was precocious and popular, always the center of attention. When all my aunts and uncles and cousins gathered on major holidays, she was the golden girl who played the piano and sang with the voice of an angel.

Honey, I met your daddy during the war when he managed that service station for F.M., Mama told me. That station was right across the street from Shelby High. Me and my friends used to stop there after school for a Coke. Lord, he was good lookin’ then.

Daddy! I was shocked.

"Yes, honey, your daddy was good lookin’ when I met him. He had an artificial eye, but you couldn’t tell it. I’d stop at the station after school and your daddy would flirt like crazy with me. He was always askin’ me to go out with him. But I couldn’t. Your pawpaw wouldn’t let me date. But that didn’t stop your daddy; he just kept on askin’.

I finally gave in and we started sneakin’ around seein’ each other. After a coupla months, we decided to elope one night. We was just crazy, like most teenagers. You’ll see what I mean one day, honey. Anyway, we drove to South Carolina and got married by a justice of the peace. Your daddy was nineteen and I was fifteen. When your pawpaw found out, he was fit to be tied.

Growing up, I often wondered why my mother had chosen to marry my father, a man I saw as inferior in intelligence and appearance. When I was older, I asked her.

Honey, the reason I married your daddy, she said, was because he just kept askin’ me, wouldn’t take no for an answer. And your daddy made me laugh.

Years later, after I had been bitten by the love bug myself and had learned a little about human nature, I came up with my own theory. I believe that as a young teen, my mother had felt trapped in a household of ten siblings dominated by a religious zealot and had seen marriage as a way out—a doorway to freedom and adventure. But there was a problem; because of the war, there were few eligible young men, and those that had been left were all flawed. I believe that my mother had simply chosen the best of those left behind—my father.

When my mother got home from Morganton, she looked brand new, like a doll just taken out of the box. Her hair was lustrous and she wore just a hint of makeup. Her beautiful eyes were clear and free of fear. Dressed in a blue linen summer dress and white sandals, she smiled when she saw me. I ran to her.

Everything was perfect for about six weeks. My father came home every night instead of going to the Moose Club, and every night my mother had a carefully prepared supper on the table. During the day, she scrubbed and cleaned. She taught me to play solitaire and gin rummy (games she had learned in Morganton) and we talked. Then one night my father failed to come home directly after work. Supper grew cold on the table. My mother smoked cigarette after cigarette. She paced the small apartment and kept staring out the window.

My father didn’t come home until after midnight, and my parents argued for the first time since my mother had gotten out of Morganton.

During the next few days, I watched my mother wind down like a toy with a weak battery. Every day she cleaned, cooked, talked, and smiled less until finally all she could do was sit in her ladder‐back chair and stare out the window.

After school, I opened the door and shouted, Mama, I’m home!

There was no response, so I walked into the living room and looked around. My mother was sitting in a chair in front of the window, staring out while slowly rubbing the base of the third finger of her left hand with the pad of her left thumb.

I’m home, I told her, but she ignored me and continued to stare out the window as if in a trance. I walked up behind her and put my right hand on her right shoulder. She turned her head, looked up at me, and covered my hand with her own. She squeezed weakly, dropped her hand, then turned back to the window.

Looking over her shoulder, I strained to see what had captured her attention, but all I saw was the red dirt road out front, the drainage ditch alongside, and the grassy ridge that led to shantytown. Beyond the ridge was a cornfield. Months before, the corn had been vibrant and bursting with life, shimmering in the sun like regimented rows of green soldiers at attention, but with the change of season all that remained was a field of brown rotten cornstalks, randomly scattered about like a child’s plastic pick‐up sticks.

I walked over to the sofa and sat down. Picking up a schoolbook, I began to read, every page or two looking over at Mama, who continued to stare out the window. I wondered why she kept rubbing her finger with her thumb. Then, all of a sudden, she stood and said, Mama’s okay now, honey. She walked past me and down the short hall to her bedroom. I heard her shut and lock the door.

My father almost never made considered choices but rather acted impulsively then struggled to live with the consequences. Trade Alley was the worst possible location that he could have chosen for my mother after her suicide attempt because of its proximity to shantytown. On the other hand, it was great for the bootleggers in shantytown. They treated my mother like royalty. It was the Deep South in the 1950s and she was a white woman but, more importantly, she was F.M.’s daughter‐in‐law, so they allowed her to drink on credit (one bill my father always paid).

The next day, when I got home from school my mother was gone and I knew where. I grabbed my bag of marbles and walked the grassy ridge to shantytown.

A couple hours later, hot and sweaty, standing on the porch of a bare‑wood shack, drinking a glass of cold water given me by a playmate’s mother, I casually looked through the window into the living room. There, curled up on a sofa asleep, was my mother. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Finally, with great effort I looked away, then slowly looked around to see if anyone had seen my reaction. Embarrassed, I felt myself blush. I finished the water and handed the glass to my friend’s mother while pretending that I hadn’t just seen my own.

My father’s old Pontiac bounced to a stop in front of where I sat on the front porch steps. He opened the door and walked toward me, smelling of burnt grease, the black lubricant smeared across the front of his dark‑blue uniform shirt. I felt guilty when my father looked at me, sensing that he not only knew that she was gone but that I knew where she was.

Shaking his head in frustration, my father rubbed his face with a stained hand, his broken fingernails caked with black grease, and without a word brushed past me, hurrying through the front door. Cautiously I followed, stopping just inside. I watched my father search the bedroom first, then the bathroom. He walked back into the living room and, hands on his hips, stared at me, his good eye accusatory, his glass eye cloudy, a thin film of mucus strung across it like yellow taffy. In a quiet but strained voice he asked, Where is she? How long’s she been gone? Was she drinkin’?

I wanted to tell him the truth, that I had just seen her in shantytown and could even tell him which house, but for some reason I couldn’t. I lied. I don’t know Da … Daddy, I stammered, staring at the floor. She was here this mornin’ when I went to school.

You don’t know! yelled my father, moving toward me. I stepped back. Hell, you’re the one here with her all the time—her little pet! She tells you everything! And you say you don’t know! How many times have I told you don’t let her leave this house!

But, Daddy, I … I was …

Shut up! Just shut up! He drew back his hand and I flinched. My father grabbed my arm and shook me. I fell to the floor and whimpered. He looked down at me and, as if examining roadkill on the highway, nudged my arm with his boot. Shut up that cryin’!

Without washing his hands or changing his clothes, my father left, slamming the screen door behind him so hard it rocked back and forth on its rusty hinges for what seemed a long time.

When I heard my father’s car crank, I got up, walked to the screen door, and watched the old Pontiac drive away. A cloud of red dust arose, then settled onto the front porch.

Chapter 2

Damnit, Irene! shouted my father, shocking me awake. I sat up and watched him shove my mother through the front door. She stumbled and like a blind woman caught the wall with both hands.

My mother’s once beautiful hair was now stringy and greasy, plastered to the side of her head. Her once pleasing voice was now raspy and slurred, painful to listen to. My mother’s once intensely alive eyes were now dull and glazed, difficult to look into.

Instead of her usually charming self, she was now mordant and mean and aggressive, screaming and cursing until out of breath, then calmly pretending that she hadn’t said an ill word to anyone.

You son of a bitch! she yelled. Turning, she beat my father in the chest with her fists.

My father grabbed her wrist and shook her. Damnit, Irene! Go to bed!

You one‑eyed bastard! screamed my mother.

My father slapped her, the sound so sudden I jumped. She stumbled sideways, hit her head against the wall, and slid to the floor. My father stood over her. Irene, I’m tired of chasin’ you all over Shelby! I can’t work all day and chase you all night. I’m goin’ to bed. You can come with me or sleep on the floor, I don’t care.

I walked over and got down on my knees beside my mother, cradled her head while she whimpered. She squinted at me through swollen eyes. Her lips were split and bleeding. My baby, she slurred. You’re the only one that understands. She reached up and hugged me in a tight grip, her foul breath causing me to turn my head.

I pried myself free and rushed to the bathroom where I wet a washcloth with warm water. After wiping the blood from my mother’s face, I helped her to the bedroom.

The bedroom reeked of whiskey, cigarettes, grease, and dirty feet. Still in his uniform, my father lay on his back, already asleep, his artificial eye open and staring blankly at the ceiling. When my mother saw him sleeping peacefully, the sight enraged her and gave her new life. She charged the bed and climbed him like a rock face. Straddling him, she beat him with her clenched fists.

You bastard! she screamed. You one‑eyed bastard!

I grabbed her from behind and tried to restrain her, but when she pulled back to hit him again, she caught me with a backhand in the face. I let go of her and cupped my nose. Tears filled my eyes and blood trickled onto my upper lip.

My mother hit my father a hard blow high on the right cheek, dislodging his glass eye. It flew through the air, bounced off the wall, and landed on the floor at my feet. My father sat up, let out a grunt, then flopped back onto the bed. My mother’s eyes rolled back in her head. She fell forward, passing out atop my father.

Quiet now, I stood at the foot of the bed and looked at my parents entwined. Their posture reminded me of an engraving I had seen in a National Geographic magazine at school; it was of petrified Pompeians after the eruption of Vesuvius.

Bending down, I picked up my father’s glass eye and rubbed it with my thumb. It felt smooth and cool like a marble. Turning, I placed it on the dresser next to a chipped black lacquer music box my father had given my mother years before on her birthday. On top of the music box was a tiny, painted ballerina, the head and one arm missing. I turned a recessed key on the bottom of the box and opened the lid. Music played and the disfigured dancer twirled. I placed my father’s glass eye inside and closed the lid.

Our electricity disconnected, night found the three of us sitting at the small table in the kitchen, two candles for light. We ate Spam and mayonnaise sandwiches.

Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door. We froze, looked at each other. My father leaned forward and blew out the candles. The scent of candle wax filled the air.

Again there was a loud knock, this one more insistent.

My father carefully parted the blinds and looked out.

Who is it, Chuck? asked my mother.

Shhh, he whispered. Keep quiet, Irene. It’s Old Man Stuart.

Well, Chuck, just answer the door. He’s gotta know you’re in here; the car’s parked out front. Tell him you’ll pay the rent Friday when you get paid.

Just hush up, Irene, hissed my father. Just be quiet and wait. The old bastard’ll get tired and leave.

Sure enough, a few minutes later we heard a car door slam, then the sound of a car driving away. He’s gone, said my father, relighting the candles.

Chuck, I hate this not havin’ electricity and hidin’ out in our own house. I can’t even fix a decent meal. Why don’t you just pay your bills like a man! My mother puffed her cigarette, the tip flaring in the dim light. What kinda man lets his family live like this!

What kinda woman runs off and leaves her family for two or three days at a time. Irene, I could probably pay the rent and the power bill if I didn’t have to give all my money to the bootleggers!

My mother glared at my father and after a moment stubbed out her cigarette. She stood and picked up one of the lit candles. Chuck, you quit stayin’ out all night, gamblin’ away all your money at the Moose Club, and I’ll stay at home too! But as long as you go out, I’m goin’ out! She turned and walked to the bedroom. I followed.

Sitting on the bed, her arms crossed, my mother nervously tapped her foot. I sat down beside her. We heard the screen door slam, then the sound of my father’s old Pontiac.

Is Daddy leavin’? I