A Mid-Winter Nightmare

So, here it is.  I don't know if I can capture the angst of the moment from 38 years ago tonight.

I am doing something, I don't know, maybe watching TV to pass the time away, because tomorrow I get out of prison.  Even only to the halfway house over on Wabash but it's still OUT.  I have been in 6 1/2 years and while not long by others sentences, long enough. My mind is pretty much a blank because I don't have a plan, I don't know what I am going to do, I don't have a job or a guaranteed place to stay, no nothing.  My counselor, John Conte, comes on the floor and asks to speak to me in his office.  Unusual for him to be here this late but maybe he wants to go over some fine points about my release. Boy does he ever.
"We have a problem." Mr. Conte said.  "Mr. Arborgast is advising the Warden not to send you over to the Halfway House."
What does this guy have against me? As the Associate Warden, he has already showed his contempt for me  by removing me  from my work assignment in the basement as a Shipping and Receiving Clerk and transferring me off the Honor Floor.  Ed Arborgast had been a guard at Marion Federal Prison during the years  1965 to 1967, the years I had served another sentence. I did not recall him at all.  I either made a very bad impression upon him then or, having him now look at my record as having been to Marion encouraged him to make this drastic recommendation.  "No, Mr. Conte, WE don't have a problem.  You're going home tonight. I am staying here."
Dejectedly, I called Mary and told her the disappointing news. She asked me how I felt?  I told her I felt like tearing the place up.  I had felt this powerlessness before and in the past, I had done exactly that.  Hopelessness settled in like a cancerous sore overwhelming my efforts to pray. Mr. Conte had said my past record had shown that I never made it in past releases and why should this one be any different. He compared me to a race horse that had never won a race and who would bet on a loser.  Through clenched teeth, I spit out the words. "I'm not a horse, I'm a man and men change." Mr. Conte concluded our discussion by telling me that I would interview the Halfway House Administrator in the morning and he would make his own recommendation to the Warden.