found no man at all. There were fourteen cells in Cellblock 5, seven to a side, all
fairly neat–restriction of visiting privileges is the penalty for a sloppy cell at
Shawshank–and all very empty.
Gonyar’s first assumption was that there had been a miscount or a practical
joke. So instead of going off to work after breakfast, the inmates of Cellblock 5 were sent back to their cells, joking and happy. Any break in the routine was always
welcome.
Cell doors opened; prisoners stepped in; cell doors closed. Some clown
shouting, ‘I want my lawyer, I want my lawyer, you guys run this place just like a
frigging prison.’
Burkes: ‘Shut up in there, or I’ll rank you.’
The clown: ‘I ranked your wife, Burkie,’
Gonyar: ‘Shut up, all of you, or you’ll spend the day in there.’
He and Burkes went up the line again, counting noses. They didn’t have to go
far.
‘Who belongs in this cell?’ Gonyar asked the rightside night guard.
‘Andrew Dufresne,’ the rightside answered, and that was all it took. Everything
stopped being routine right then. The balloon went up.
In all the prison movies I’ve seen, this wailing horn goes off when there’s been
a break.
That never happens at Shawshank. The first thing Gonyar did was to get in
touch with the warden. The second thing was to get a search of the prison going. The
third was to alert the State Police in Scarborough to the possibility of a breakout That was the routine. It didn’t call for them to search the suspected escapee’s cell, and so no one did. Not then. Why would they? It was a case of what you see is what you get. It
was a small square room, bars on the window and bars on the sliding door. There was
a toilet and an empty cot. Some pretty rocks on the windowsill.
And the poster, of course. It was Linda Ronstadt by then. The poster was right
over his bunk. There had been a poster there, in that exact same place, for twenty-six years. And when someone–it was Warden Norton himself, as it turned out, poetic
justice if there ever was any–looked behind it, they got one hell of a shock.
But that didn’t happen until 6 .30 that night, almost twelve hours after Andy
had been reported missing, probably twenty hours after he had actually made his
escape.
Norton hit the roof.
I have it on good authority–Chester, the trustee, who was waxing the hall
floor in the Admin Wing that day. He didn’t have to polish any keyplates with his ear
that day; he said you could hear the warden clear down to Records & Files as he
chewed on Rich Gonyar’s ass.
‘What do you mean, you’re “satisfied he’s not on the prison grounds”? What
does that mean? It means you didn’t find him! You better find him! You better!
Because I want him! Do you hear me? I want him!’
Gonyar said something.
‘Didn’t happen on your shift? That’s what you say. So far as I can tell, no one knows when it happened. Or how. Or if it really did. Now, I want him in my office by
three o’clock this afternoon, or some heads are going to roll. I can promise you that, and I always keep my promises.’
Something else from Gonyar, something that seemed to provoke Norton to
even greater rage.
‘No? Then look at this! Look at this! You recognize it? Last night’s tally for
Cellblock 5.
Every prisoner accounted for! Dufresne was locked up last night at nine and it
is impossible for him to be gone now! It is impossible! Now you find him!”
But at six that evening Andy was still among the missing, Norton himself
stormed down to Cellblock 5, where the rest of us had been locked up all of that day.
Had we been questioned? We had spent most of that long day being questioned by
harried screws who were feeling the breath of the dragon on the backs of their necks.
We all said the same thing: we had seen nothing, heard nothing. And so far as I know,
we were all telling the truth. I know that I was. All we could say was that Andy had