but I was afraid that actually being there would scare me to death–the bigness of it
Anyhow, the day of that conversation about Mexico, and about Mr Peter Stevens…
that was the day I began to believe that Andy had some idea of doing a disappearing
act. I hoped to God he would be careful if he did, and still, I wouldn’t have bet money on his chances of succeeding. Warden Norton, you see, was watching Andy with a
special close eye. Andy wasn’t just another deadhead with a number to Norton; they
had a working relationship, you might say. Also, he had brains and he had heart
Norton was determined to use the one and crush the other.
As there are honest politicians on the outside–ones who stay bought–there are
honest prison guards, and if you are a good judge of character and if you have some
loot to spread around, I suppose it’s possible that you could buy enough look-the-
other-way to make a break. I’m not the man to tell you such a thing has never been
done, but Andy Dufresne wasn’t the man who could do it Because, as I’ve said,
Norton was watching.
Andy knew it, and the screws knew it, too.
Nobody was going to nominate Andy for the Inside-Out program, not as long
as Warden Norton was evaluating the nominations. And Andy was not the kind of
man to try a casual Sid Nedeau type of escape.
If I had been him, the thought of that key would have tormented me endlessly.
I would have been lucky to get two hours’ worth of honest shuteye a night Buxton was
less than thirty miles from Shawshank. So near and yet so far.
I still thought his best chance was to engage a lawyer and try for the retrial.
Anything to get out from under Norton’s thumb. Maybe Tommy Williams could be
shut up by nothing more than a cushy furlough programme, but I wasn’t entirely sure.
Maybe a good old Mississippi hardass lawyer could crack him… and maybe that
lawyer wouldn’t even have to work that hard. Williams had honestly liked Andy.
Every now and then I’d bring these points up to Andy, who would only smile, his eyes
far away, and say he was thinking about it.
Apparently he’d been thinking about a lot of other things, as well.
In 1975, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank. He hasn’t been recaptured,
and I don’t think he ever will be. In fact, I don’t think Andy Dufresne even exists
anymore. But I think there’s a man down in Zihuatanejo, Mexico named Peter Stevens.
Probably running a very new small hotel in this year of our Lord 1977.
I’ll tell you what I know and what I think; that’s about all I can do, isn’t it?
On 12 March 1975, the cell doors in Cellblock 5 opened at 6 .30 a. m., as they
do every morning around here except Sunday. And as they do every day except
Sunday, the inmates of those cells stepped forward into the corridor and formed two
lines as the cell doors slammed shut behind them. They walked up to the main
cellblock gate, where they were counted off by two guards before being sent on down
to the cafeteria for a breakfast of oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and fatty bacon.
All of this went according to routine until the count at the cellblock gate.
There should have been twenty-nine. Instead, there were twenty-eight. After a call to
the Captain of the Guards, Cellblock 5 was allowed to go to breakfast.
The Captain of the Guards, a not half-bad fellow named Richard Gonyar, and
his assistant, a jolly prick named Dave Burkes, came down to Cellblock 5 right away.
Gonyar reopened the cell doors and he and Burkes went down the corridor together, dragging their sticks over the bars, their guns out. In a case like that what you usually have is someone who has been taken sick in the night, so sick he can’t
even step out of his cell in the morning. More rarely, someone has died… or
committed suicide.
But this time, they found a mystery instead of a sick man or a dead man. They