LISBON, Ohio - Two old timers, one toting a 16-gauge shotgun, trudged through a stiff headwind on the country road near the federal prison complex where former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. is scheduled to spend the next five years.

William Dearth and Tom Anderson make the trip from nearby East Liverpool every weekend to hunt deer, pheasants and squirrels in the corn and soybean fields.

Cianci? Never heard of him.

"What'd he do?" asked Dearth, whose long, white beard brushed against his camouflage jacket.

The hunters snickered when they were told Cianci was convicted of running a criminal enterprise from Providence City Hall. They know a little about crooked politicians. They were represented by one.

Rep. James A. Traficant Jr., the flamboyant Democrat, had been their U.S. representative for 17 years until last spring when a federal jury convicted him of corruption. He was expelled from the House of Representatives, but he refused to quit and campaigned unsuccessfully from a federal prison in Pennsylvania.

Traficant had wanted to remain in his district, serving his time in Lisbon. But others who have been there say Cianci is headed for a tough time.

CIANCI, of course, hopes to put off his reporting date, which is set for Dec. 6.

The former mayor has asked the appeals court in Boston to allow him to remain free until he exhausts his appeals of his racketeering conspiracy conviction. That process could take as long as two years.

A decision is due soon. Meanwhile, Cianci has continued to live in a presidential suite at the Providence Biltmore Hotel and cohost a weekday talk show on WPRO-AM radio. On election night, Cianci served as a political analyst for WLNE-Channel 6 television.

In Ohio, however, the authorities have already issued him an inmate number: 05000-070. The federal Bureau of Prisons lists his status as "in transit."

THE FEDERAL Correctional Institution at Elkton is actually in Lisbon, a sleepy town of 3,037 in eastern Ohio, not far from the Pennsylvania and West Virginia state lines.

The area, about 575 miles west of Providence — and a world away from the bustle of Kennedy Plaza, the fine downtown restaurants, cultural attractions and Waterfire Providence. Elkton and Lisbon are part of the Appalachia region, known for rural poverty and the legendary feuds between the Hatfields and McCoys.

Elkton, named after the herds of elk that once roamed the area, is a small hamlet with a post office, Methodist church and drive-up liquor store. The only restaurant, Lock 24, closed a while ago. Little Beaver Creek runs alongside the main road that passes through Elkton and Lisbon.

At Lisbon's Steel Trolly Diner, patrons eat breakfast and smoke cigarettes at the counter. Drop a dime in the parking meter and you can park for an hour.

Folks drive pickup trucks and SUVs. Last weekend, the talk centered around hunting and the "big game" between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns.

The prison complex sits on a hilly 33-acre site about 100 yards from Elkton, and about two miles east of the center of Lisbon.

Sold to residents to boost the economy in the early 1990s, the first group of prisoners arrived in August 1997.

The prison complex is divided into two parts: a 1,534-bed, low-security facility and a separate 512-bed, low-security satellite prison. The satellite prison, where Cianci is expected to serve his sentence, is about 100 yards from the larger facility.

Satellite prisons were once considered "country clubs." Most of the inmates were tax cheats, crooked accountants, dirty politicians and others convicted of financial fraud.

But that changed in the late 1980s when Congress passed minimum mandatory penalties on a variety of drug offenses, leading to an explosion in the prison population.

In 1990, there were 54,613 inmates in the federal prison system. As of Nov. 1, the population had more than tripled to 164,164 prisoners, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

As the population has grown, officials have been forced to lock drug offenders up with white-collar criminals.

The Elkton prisons house 2,443 inmates, almost 400 more than capacity and nearly 70 percent of them are drug offenders.

Gary Grimm, the prison's public information officer, said that, there is little difference between the Elkton prisons. The prison populations are basically the same. All the prisoners live in dormitory-style quarters with common restrooms, showers and dayrooms. They are assigned to two- or three-man cubicles.

From the outside, both facilities are daunting. They are constructed of beige stone and surrounded by about 20-feet of fencing and coils of razor wire.

Prison guards patrol the paved perimeters of the buildings in white pickup trucks with rifle racks visible in the rear windows.

CIANCI has been ordered to report to FCI-Elkton by noon on Dec. 6. When he arrives, he will have to surrender his toupee. The Bureau of Prisons prohibits inmates from wearing toupees or hair pieces because they can be used as a disguise.

He will be issued a surplus military outfit that will include his inmate identification number above the right shirt pocket. Other than a wedding band, pre-approved religious medals and glasses, inmates are not allowed to bring other belongings into the prison.

The toughest part of Cianci's new life will be adapting to the slow — yet regimented pace — of prison life.

He will be assigned a job such as sweeping floors, serving food or filing paperwork. He will be expected to work about seven hours a day, Monday through Friday, for less than $1 an hour.

The prisoners are awoken for breakfast at 6 a.m. and they are required to have their beds made by 7:30 a.m. Lights are turned off for the night at 10 p.m.

Guards conduct headcounts at midnight, 3 a.m., 5 a.m. and 4 p.m. Inmates are required to stand next to their beds for the 4 p.m. count.

Cianci and the other inmates can watch television in a common room but they are not allowed to have their own television. They are allowed to buy radios at the commissary, where they are allowed to spend up to $235 a month, and they are required to wear headphones so they don't disturb others.

Cianci will be subjected to random body searches and guards are allowed to rifle through his personal belongings at anytime.

Approved visitors are allowed to visit Cianci and others in the satellite camp on Saturdays, Sundays and federal holidays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

JIMMY TAYOUN, a former Philadelphia city councilman and state representative, knows a lot about the monotony of prison life.

Tayoun was convicted of corruption charges 10 years ago and spent 35 months at the Schuylkill federal prison camp in Pennsylvania. Tayoun wrote two books while he was locked up, including Going to Prison, a guide for first-time offenders.

Like Cianci and Traficant, Tayoun was 61 years old when he began his sentence. He said Cianci will quickly learn that no one cares that he was once the mayor of Providence.

"He is going to be in a prison where they only know you by your number," Tayoun said. "They don't care who you are, or what you are. He's got to remember that every day is the longest day of his life."

Tayoun's advice for Cianci? Get in better physical shape, counsel younger inmates and write.

THE BEST known current resident of the satellite prison is Michael "Mickey" Monus, the founder of the Ohio-based Phar-Mor drugstore chain and a one-time owner of major league baseball's Colorado Rockies. Monus was found guilty of participating in a billion-dollar fraud scheme to finance his drugstore empire. He also was convicted of embezzling $8.8 million from Phar-Mor to fund a professional basketball league for players under 6 foot 7. He is serving a sentence of 139 months.

Philip Berrigan, a pacifist and renowned war protestor who burned draft cards in the 1960s, spent about a year at the satellite prison and was released last December.

Berrigan, now 79, was sent there for violating his probation for participating in an antiwar demonstration in York, Maine.

He said he was the oldest inmate at the prison. His job was emptying ash trays and picking up cigarette butts at designated smoking areas in the prison yard.

Berrigan, a former priest, spent most of his time writing and counseling inmates. He scoffed at the mention of Elkton as a country club prison. He said that he saw plenty of fights while he was there.

He said he once witnessed an inmate throw boiling water in another inmate's face and then beat him with a combination lock stuffed in a sock. Inmates are allowed to buy locks at the prison commissary.

Three times, Berrigan said he was sent "up the hill," and locked up in a prison cell at the larger, low-security prison. He was barred from having contact with other prisoners, making phone calls, or receiving visitors and mail.

Berrigan said that he spent 12 days in solitary confinement following the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. He said that officials never told him why. He also was sent there another time because prison officials suspected that he helped one of two prisoners — a convicted drug trafficker — who escaped from the satellite prison.

Berrigan said he had nothing to do with it.

However, Berrigan said that the food was "very good" and that the guards treated him fairly.

AT THE FOOT of the hill near the entrance of the prison complex, is the Elkton Auto Corral, a small used-car dealership with an office slightly larger than a shed.

The owners, Jay and Susan Mullen say arriving inmates and their families regularly drop by for directions. They come from Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, New York and Florida. Some arrive in limousines, others in junks with mufflers scrapping the road.

Jay Mullen toured the satellite prison before it first opened. He remembered that the television in the common room had a mesh screen protecting the tube.

In the summer of 2001, Susan Mullen said she unknowingly gave directions to a Hispanic woman, who it turned out, helped the two convicted drug traffickers escape. Neither of the escapees have been captured.

After the escapes, the Mullens said prison officials beefed up security and put additional rolls of razor wire on the fence surrounding the satellite prison. Since then, there have been no escapes.

The Mullens chuckled when they were shown a jar of The Mayor's Own Marinara Sauce featuring a photograph of Cianci in front of the Providence skyline.

"I've never heard of this guy," said Jay Mullen.

Last Saturday morning, Dennis Curtis stopped by with his teenage son. Curtis, who lives nearby, had a good friend who spent time in Elkton.

The friend, Curtis said, told him that the only difference between Elkton's two prisons was that his mattress in the satellite prison had springs.

Curtis had some advice for Cianci: Work on a transfer.

"If you can get a hold of him, tell him to try to go anyplace but here," he said. "This is a minimum, but I don't know why they call it a minimum. They have some bad people there."