“No, actually, I wanted to know what you’d learned from the experience.”

Tony looked down for a minute, and laughed to himself. “You got about a week to listen to my story? I learned a lot, but it’s almost impossible to put it into words. I knew I was heading the wrong way for a long time, but, to tell you the truth, I think it started with simple things, like laziness and arrogance, or pride.”

Mitch nodded. He knew what Tony meant because he had grappled with the same issues in his young life.

“Things just came easily to me when I was young. I didn’t have to study much, but always got good grades. I was usually the best player on any team we had, and sports was pretty much my life. Then, when I discovered that the cute girls and the easy girls in school went for my bad boy act, I just played that up.

“Before I knew it, I was out of high school. When I didn’t get an athletic scholarship, I was pretty surprised. So rather than paying to go to school, I figured, screw them, I don’t need to waste my time with that. When I look back, I can see that if I hadn’t let my pride get in the way, things would have been different.

“It’s no one thing, Mitch. It’s lots of little things put together. So, I accept that prison may have been the best thing ever to happen to me, and now I intend to work my ass off to make something of myself instead of feeling sorry for myself. You get it?”

“I get it,” Mitch said, and he really did.

Around that time, Tony met a smart and attractive young woman named Emily, and it was clear they had fallen in love. She accepted him for who he was, despite his past mistakes, and she encouraged him to grab life with both hands and go for it. She was a big fan of his Thursday night hoops because she knew how good it was for him to excel at something again, and frankly it got him out of her hair for a night. He was nuts about her, and the feeling was mutual. Danny and Mitch were both a bit envious, which meant they teased Tony endlessly about Emily.