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spectacular fashion? You tell me!
But did he get away, you ask? What happened after? What happened when he got to that
meadow and turned over the rock ... always assuming the rock was still there?
I can't describe that scene for you, because this institutional man is still in this institution,
and expects to be for years to come.
But I'll tell you this. Very late in the summer of 1975, on 15 September to be exact, I got
a postcard which had been mailed from the tiny town of McNary, Texas. That town is on
the American side of the border, directly across from El Porvenir. The message side of
the card was totally blank. But I know. I know it in my heart as surely as I know that
we're all going to die someday.
McNary was where he crossed. McNary, Texas.
So that's my story, Jack. I never believed how long it would take to write it all down, or
how many pages it would take. I started writing just after I got that postcard, and here I
am finishing up on 14 January 1976. I've used three pencils right down to knuckle-stubs,
and a whole tablet of paper. I've kept the pages carefully hidden ... not that many could
read my. hen-tracks, anyway.
It stirred up more memories than I ever would have believed. Writing about yourself
seems to be a lot like sticking a branch into clear river-water and roiling up the muddy
bottom.
Well, you weren't writing about yourself, I hear someone in the peanut-gallery saying.
You were writing about Andy Dufresne. You're nothing but a minor character in your
own story. But you know, that's just not so. It's all about me, every damned word of it
Andy was the part of me they could never lock up, the part of me that will rejoice when
the gates finally open for me and I walk out in my cheap suit with my twenty dollars of
mad-money in my pocket That part of me will rejoice no matter how old and broken and
scared the rest of me is. I guess it's just that Andy had more of that part than me, and used
it better.
There are others here like me, others who remember Andy. We're glad he's gone, but a
little sad, too. Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too
bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to
feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to
imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much
more drab and empty for their departure.
That's the story and I'm glad I told it, even if it is a bit inconclusive and even though
some of the memories the pencil prodded up (like that branch poking up the river-mud)
made me feel a little sad and even older than I am. Thank you for listening. And Andy: If
you're really down there, as I believe you are, look at the stars for me just after sunset,
and touch the sand, and wade in the water, and feel free.
I never expected to take up this narrative again, but here I am with the dog-eared, folded
pages open on the desk in front of me. Here I am adding another three or four pages,
writing in a brand-new tablet. A tablet I bought in a store - I just walked into a store on