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1957,6-1 in '58, 7-0 again in '59, and 5-2 in '60. After that I don't know, but I do know
that sixteen years later he was still in Cell 14 of Cellblock 5. By tben, 1976, he was fifty-
eight. They probably would have fatten big-hearted and let him out around 1983. They
give you fife, and that's what they take - all of it that counts, anyway. Maybe they set you
loose someday, but ... well, Listen: I knew this guy, Sherwood Bolton, his name was, and
he had this pigeon in his cell. From 1945 until 1953, when they let him out, he had that
pigeon. He wasn't any Birdman of Alcatraz; he just had this pigeon. Jake, he called him.
He set Jake free a day before he, Sherwood, that is, was to walk, and Jake flew away just
as pretty as you could want. But about a week after Sherwood Bolton left our happy little
family, a friend of mine called me over to the west corner of the exercise yard, where
Sherwood used to hang out, and my friend said: 'Isn't that Jake, Red?' It was. That pigeon
was just as dead as a turd.
I remember the first time Andy Dufresne got in touch with me for something; I remember
like it was yesterday. That wasn't the time he wanted Rita Hayworth, though. That came
question.
I'll tell you,' I said. 'If you wanted a toothbrush, I wouldn't ask questions. I'd just quote
you a price. Because a toothbrush, you see, is a non-lethal sort of a weapon.'
"You have strong feelings about lethal weapons?'
'I do.'
An old friction-taped baseball flew towards us and he turned, cat-quick, and picked it out
of the air. It was a move Frank Malzone would have been proud of. Andy flicked the bail
back to where it had come from -just a quick and easy-looking flick of the wrist, but that
throw had some mustard on it, just the same. I could see a lot of people were watching us
with one eye as they went about their business. Probably the guards in tile tower were
watching, too. I won't gild the lily; there are cons that swing weight in any prison, maybe
four or five in a small one, maybe two or three dozen in a big one. At Shawshank I was
one of those with some weight, and what I thought of Andy Dufresne would have a lot to
do with how his time went. He probably knew it too, but he wasn't kowtowing or sucking
up to me, and I respected him for that.
'Fair enough. Ill tell you what it is and why I want it A rock-hammer looks like a
miniature pickaxe - about so long.' He held his hands about a foot apart, and that was
when I first noticed how neatly kept his nails were. 'It's got a small sharp pick on one end
and a fiat, blunt hammerhead on the other. I want it because I like rocks.'
'Rocks,' I said.
'Squat down here a minute,' he said.
I humoured him. We hunkered down on our haunches like Indians.
Andy took a handful of exercise yard dirt and began to sift it between his neat hands, so it
emerged in a fine cloud. Small pebbles were left over, one or two sparkly, the rest dull
and plain. One of the dull ones was quartz, but it was only dull until you'd rubbed it
clean. Then it had a nice milky glow. Andy did the cleaning and then tossed it to me. I
caught it and named it.
'Quartz, sure,' he said, 'And look. Mica. Shale, silted granite. Here's a piece of graded