“You found yourself working with a bunch of fucking ex-cons. This is philosophy class without the tits.” Over the next several weeks, I asked each of them why they’d gone to prison and if the experience had changed them. Was it true what Dad said—that no one could be rehabilitated, beginning with himself? “Stop trying to figure us out,” said one beefy worker with tobacco-stained teeth. “All any of us wants is some ass, lots of whiskey, and money.”
