Andy went in. And if I did find the right one, I might never know it Because I might
overlook that black piece of volcanic glass, or, much more likely, Andy put it into his
pocket and took it with him.
So I’d agree with you. A fool’s errand, no doubt about it. Worse, a dangerous one for a
man on parole, because some of those fields were clearly marked with NO
TRESPASSING signs. And, as I’ve said, they’re more than happy to slam your ass back
inside if you get out of line. A fool’s errand … but so is chipping at a blank concrete wall
for twenty-eight years. And when you’re no longer the man who can get it for you and just
an old bag-boy, it’s nice to have a hobby to take your mind off your new life. My hobby
was looking for Andy’s rock.
So I’d hitchhike to Buxton and walk the roads. I’d listen to the birds, to the spring
runoff in the culverts, examine the bottles the retreating snows had revealed – all useless
non-returnables, I am sorry to say; the world seems to have gotten awfully spendthrift
since I went into the slam – and looking for hayfields.
Most of them could be eliminated right off. No rock walls. Others had rock walls, but
my compass told me they were facing the wrong direction. I walked these wrong ones
anyway. It was a comfortable thing to be doing, and on those outings I really felt free, at peace. An old dog walked with me one Saturday. And one day I saw a winter-skinny deer.
Then came 23 April, a day I’ll not forget even if I live another fifty-eight years. It was
a balmy Saturday afternoon, and I was walking up what a little boy fishing from a bridge
told me was called The Old Smith Road. I had taken a lunch in a brown FoodWay bag,
and had eaten it sitting on a rock by the road. When I was done I carefully buried my
leavings, as my dad had taught me before he died, when I was a sprat no older than the
fisherman who had named the road for me.
Around two o’clock I came to a big field on my left. There was a stone wall at the far
end of it, running roughly northwest I walked back to it, squelching over the wet ground,
and began to walk the wall. A squirrel scolded me from an oak tree.
Three-quarters of the way to the end, I saw the rock. No mistake. Black glass and as
smooth as silk. A rock with no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. For a long time I just
looked at it, feeling that I might cry, for whatever reason. The squirrel had followed me,
and it was still chattering away. My heart was beating madly.
When I felt I had myself under control, I went to the rock, squatted beside it – the joints
in my knees went off like a double-barrelled shotgun – and let my hand touch it It was
real. I didn’t pick it up because I thought there would be anything under it; I could just as
easily have walked away without finding what was beneath. I certainly had no plans to
take it away with me, because I didn’t fed it was mine to take – I had a feeling that taking
that rock from the field would have been the worst kind of theft. No, I only picked it up to
feel it better, to get the heft of the thing, and, I suppose, to prove its reality by feeling its satiny texture against my skin.
I had to look at what was underneath for a long time. My eyes saw it, but it took a
while for my mind to catch up. It was an envelope, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag to
keep away the damp. My name was written across the front in Andy’s clear script.
I took the envelope and left the rock where Andy had left it, and Andy’s friend before
him.
Dear Red,
If you’re reading this, then you’re out. One way or another, you’re out. And If you’ve
followed along this far, you might be willing to come a little further. 1 think you
remember the name of the town, don’t you? I could use a good man to help me get my
project on wheels.
Meantime, have a drink on me – and do think it over. I will be keeping an eye out for
you. Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good
thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.
Your friend, Peter Stevens
I didn’t read that letter in the field. A kind of terror had come over me, a need to get
away from there before I was seen. To make what may be an appropriate pun, I was in
terror of being apprehended.
I went back to my room and read it there, with the smell of old men’s dinners drifting
up the stairwell to me – Beefaroni, Ricearoni, Noodleroni. You can bet that whatever the
old folks of America, the ones on fixed incomes, are eating tonight, it almost certainly
ends in roni.
I opened the envelope and read the letter and then I put my head in my arms and cried.
With the letter there were twenty new fifty-dollar bills.
And here I am in the Brewster Hotel, technically a fugitive from justice again – parole
violation is my crime. No one’s going to throw up any roadblocks to catch a criminal
wanted on that charge, I guess – wondering what I should do now.
I have this manuscript I have a small piece of luggage about the size of a doctor’s bag
that holds everything I own. I have nineteen fifties, four tens, a five, three ones, and
assorted change. I broke one of the fifties to buy this tablet of paper and a deck of
smokes.
Wondering what I should do.
But there’s really no question. It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy
living or get busy dying.
First I’m going to put this manuscript back in my bag. Then I’m going to buckle it up,
grab my coat, go downstairs, and check out of this fleabag. Then I’m going to walk
uptown to a bar and put that five dollar bill down in front of the bartender and ask him to
bring me two straight shots of Jack Daniels — one for me and one for Andy Dufresne.
Other than a beer or two, they’ll be the first drinks I’ve taken as a free man since 1938.
Then I am going to tip the bartender a dollar and thank him kindly. I will leave the bar
and walk up Spring Street to the Greyhound terminal there and buy a bus ticket to El Paso
by way of New York City. When I get to El Paso, I’m going to buy a ticket to McNary.
And when I get to McNary, I guess I’ll have a chance to find out if an old crook like me
can find a way to float across the border and into Mexico.
Sure I remember the name. Zihuatanejo. A name like that is just too pretty to forget
I find I am excited, so excited I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I
think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey
whose conclusion is uncertain.
I hope Andy is down there.
I hope I can make it across the border.
I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
I hope.
APT PUPIL
He looked like the total all-American kid as he pedalled his twenty-six-inch Schwinn with the ape-hanger handlebars up the residential suburban street, and that’s just what he
was: Todd Bowden, thirteen years old, five-feet-eight and a healthy one hundred and
forty pounds, hair the colour of ripe corn, blue eyes, white even teeth, lightly tanned skin
marred by not even the first shadow of adolescent acne.
He was smiling a summer vacation smile as he pedalled through the sun and shade
three blocks from his own house. He looked like the kind of kid who might have a paper
route, and as a matter of fact, he did – he delivered the Santa Donato Clarion. He also
looked like the kind of kid who might sell greeting cards for premiums, and he had done
that, too. They were the kind that come with your name printed inside – JACK AND
MARY BURKE, or DON AND SALLY, or THE MURCHISONS. He looked like the
sort of boy who might whistle while he worked, and he often did so. He whistled quite