A local mafia boss is in for a "meeting", is just out of prison, a 7 year sentence for conspiracy to murder, loan sharking, various organized crime related offenses...a proper stereotypical Italian.
His time, he's nonplussed, he's had lots of day paroles, supervised releases, he's been in the restaurant with his wife and kids, prison, meh, it's no big deal he tells us, he's got his own suite, the guards are all on his payroll, he gets what he wants, when he wants it, it's business as usual just he's not getting as much of the old conjugal privilege as he'd like...
This tallies surprisingly with what I'd heard from others. My father had always advised against my going to prison, I'd had some vague plans to try it out and see what it was all about, I'm old enough now that the possibility of being made somebodies bitch isn't a concern...but these testimonies, they positively recommend it...
Hitchhiking, outside of Drumheller, outside the penitentiary, 3 hours in the blistering heat before I get a ride. 3 hours in the fucking desert and I'm basically hallucinating and feverishly thinking I'll have to catch two headed lizards and eat them to survive...when finally...
I gotta like the guy, I mean, he's the first person to stop (not just slow down and tell me it was a dumb place to be hitchhiking...), and he's going half my way. We talk, my age, he'd done a few years in the Pen back there, he's built, a big boy, 60 pounds on me easy, he'd done his time for dealing, was a family man now, reformed, still, we talked and he told me how it wasn't so bad, wasn't bad at all, really, he had his own space, made money buying and reselling foodstuffs & tobacco, guards on the lookout for the surprise inspections, only regret that he missed the birth of his twin sons...
Now he's reformed, mended his ways, repentant, the first example meanwhile has (according to him) merely honed his skills and expanded his social network, and I wonder, what was the point?...