The story centers between Mathes's release from federal prison and his release from the purgatory of a halfway house in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1985. Mathes had been an honorable, decorated soldier in the Army National Guard who had become a federal inmate after conviction for my role in covering up the theft of a machine-gun by a friend. At its heart, it is the story of a young man, who after his release from prison, struggles to create a new life as he searches for work and friendship with the stigma of being a felon as he copes with a fractured sense of identity, his past, and the lure of booze he is forbidden to have.