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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 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.