It also served as a halfway house for guys transitioning out of prison. I had been there maybe a month, still had the shakes and couldn’t sleep worth a damn, when Mike rode in from doing a bit in Erie Correctional for B & E. He seemed right at home, was even on a first name basis with one of the day staff, who had been a CO in the old Mansfield Reformatory when Mike did time there back in the 80s. He was the only guy on the unit that wasn’t a spin artist, or so I thought. No great scheme for when he hit the outside. No glorified tales of triumph. Just what seemed like a sincere desire to make love to his wife, spend time with his kid, and get out on his boat to do a little fishing.
“We’ll have to go, you and me,” he told me once in the common room. Then every other night, as we played Spa
