The Shawshank Redemption

Chapter 2 The Hope of Spring The Shawshank Redemption
dedicated to lars and florence doll

I guess in every state prison and federal prison in America, there's a No. [-] guy like me, and I can get you anything.Whether it's fancy cigarettes or weed (if that's your thing), or a bottle of brandy to celebrate a son or daughter graduating from high school, pretty much anything... I mean, within reason, I'm pretty much anything I ask for; but Many situations are not necessarily reasonable.

I came to Shawshank Prison just after I turned 20.In this happy little family, I'm one of the few who readily admits what I've done.I am guilty of murder.I took out a huge life insurance policy for my wife, who was three years older than me, and then fiddled with the brakes on a Chevrolet sedan her father had given us as a wedding present.Everything was going exactly as I had planned, except that she stopped halfway to pick up the neighbor's wife and her young son, who were heading down Castle Hill into town.As a result, the brakes failed, and the car went faster and faster, rushed through the bushes on the side of the road, hit the base of a Civil War memorial statue, and burst into flames.Bystanders said the car must have been going faster than fifty miles an hour.

I didn't expect to get caught either, but instead I ended up in jail, serving a long sentence here.There is no death penalty in Maine, but prosecutors put me on trial for three counts of murder, and the judge finally sentenced me to three life sentences, combined for several counts.That puts me out of the running for parole for a long, long time.The judge also said in the verdict that I committed a serious crime and deserved to die.True, but those things are now a thing of the past.You can go to the old newspaper archives of Castle Rock, the fact that my sentence was the headline of the local newspaper at the time, juxtaposed with the news of Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt's secret agents, it seems a bit ridiculous now, It has long since become old news.

You ask me, have I reformed myself?I don't even know what rehabilitation is, at least I don't know what that means in prison, I think it's just a word used by politicians, the word may have some other meaning, maybe one day, I will understand Its implications, but that's in the future...and prisoners in prisons have long since learned not to think too much about the future.I was born poor, but young and handsome.I made a secret connection with a rich girl, born in a grand mansion in Cabin Street, beautiful and spoiled, but always sullen.Her father agreed to let us get married on the condition that I work in his eyewear company and "move up the ladder on my own."Later, I found out that his real intention was to keep me under his surveillance at all times, just like controlling the disobedient cats and dogs raised at home that can bite people.My resentment has accumulated over the years and deepened, and finally I have done this to cause this result.Given another chance, I would definitely not do it again, but I'm not sure if that means I've changed my mind.

However, what I really want to tell is not my own story, but Andy Dufresne's story.But before I get into Andy's story, there are a few things about me that won't take too long anyway.

As I said, for almost 40 years at Shawshank, I've been able to get you anything.Besides the contraband like cigarettes and booze, which are always at the top of the list, I have a way of getting a thousand other things to pass the time for people here.Some things are absolutely legal, it's just not easy to get them in this kind of place, because jail time is supposed to be a punishment.For example, there was a guy who raped a little girl, and there were dozens of exposed cases.I found him three pieces of pink Vermont marble and he carved three lovely statues of a baby, a 12-year-old boy, and a bearded young man, which he called "three different figures of Jesus" period", and now these statues have become the furnishings in the living room of the former governor.

Or, if you grew up in northern Massachusetts, you must remember this man's name-Robert Allen Cotter.In [-], he attempted to rob the First Merchant Bank in Murkanikever, and the robbery turned bloody, killing six people, including two robbers, three hostages, and a young policeman who Looked up at the wrong time and let the bullet go through the eye.Kurt has a penchant for collecting coins.Of course the prison wouldn't let him bring his collection in, but with the help of his mother and the laundry truck driver, I managed to get him what he wanted.I told him: You must be crazy to want to collect coins in this stone hotel full of thieves.He looked at me and smiled and said, "I know where to hide the coins. It's absolutely safe. Don't worry about it." He was right.Until his death from a brain tumor in [-], his coin collection was never seen.

I've tried trying to get chocolates for my cellmates on Valentine's Day; three of those green milkshakes that McDonald's sells for a crazy Irishman named O'Malley on St. Paddy's Day; I've even screened them for twenty people Went to a midnight movie titled Deep Throat and The Devil in Miss Jones (they were porn and they chipped in to rent them together)...although I was locked up for a week for these escapades, but to It is necessary to take such a risk in order to maintain the reputation of "supernatural powers".

I can also get reference books and porn, prank novelties like tickling powder, and even wives or girlfriends panties for dudes with long sentences... I guess you know that too How do people spend the long night like a knife.These things are not free, and some things cost a lot.But I'm not doing these things just for the money.What use is money to me?I could neither own a Cadillac nor fly to Jamaica for a two-week vacation in February.I do this for the same reason that the best butchers in the market do not sell non-fresh meat, just to maintain their reputation.There are only two things that I will never touch, one is guns and the other is drugs.I don't want to help anyone kill themselves or others.I've had enough killing on my mind, and I don't want to do any more for the rest of my life.

Ah, my catalog is pretty extensive, so when Andy Dufresne came to me in 1 and asked if I could get Rita Hayworth in prison, I said no problem.There really isn't any problem.

Andy was 30 years old when he arrived in Shawshank in [-]. He was short and fair, with brown hair and small and nimble hands.He wore gold-rimmed glasses, his nails were always neatly clipped and clean, and what I remember most were his hands, which is kind of funny for a man, but that seems to sum up Andy. His features always make you think he should be wearing a suit and tie.Before he came in, he was the vice president of the trust department of a large bank in Portland.In the conservative banking world, sitting in this position at a young age can be said to have a bright future.Especially in this area of ​​New England, the conservative atmosphere is ten times that of other places; unless you are a listless bald middle-aged man who adjusts the lines on his suit pants from time to time, it is difficult to gain the trust of the locals. Let them deposit the money with you.Andy was in for murdering his wife and her lover.

I believe I said that every prisoner in prison claims to be innocent.They just fell victim to hard-hearted judges, incompetent lawyers, false accusations from the police, or simply bad luck.Although they swear on the Bible, they say what they mean, like a preacher on TV.Most of the prisoners are not good people, they do no good to themselves or others, and their greatest misfortune is to be born into this world.During my years at Shawshank, I believe that Andy Dufresne was one of not more than ten people who told me they were innocent.But it took me many years to believe his innocence, and if I had been on the jury when his case was tried in Portland Superior Court in [-]-[-], I think I would have voted for his innocence. conviction.

It was a sensational case, with all the elements of a sensational case.The three protagonists, one is a beautiful socialite with a lot of friends (deceased), the other is a local sportsman (also dead), and the defendant is a famous young entrepreneur, plus newspaper renderings and hints about the scandal .The prosecutors believed that the case was almost solid, and the reason why the case went on for such a long period of time was that the prosecutor who investigated the case was about to run for the House of Representatives at that time, and wanted to leave a deep impression on everyone.This was an excellent court show, and the spectators braved the sub-zero temperature to line up at the court at four o'clock in the morning to avoid losing their seats.

In this case, Andy has never protested against the prosecutor's allegations, including Andy's wife Linda, who expressed her intention to learn golf in June [-]. For four months, the coach was Green Quentin, a professional golfer.It didn't take long for Linda to get on good terms with the golf coach, and by the end of August, Andy heard about it.So Andy and Linda had a big quarrel on the afternoon of September [-], [-]. The fuse of the argument was Linda's affair.

Andy confessed that Linda said at the time that she was glad that Andy knew about it, and said that it was really uncomfortable to secretly date him without telling him, and she was going to Reno for a divorce.Andy replied that if he wanted to go to Reno together, there was no way, they would go to hell first.Linda ran away from home that night and stayed overnight at Quentin's residence, which was near the golf course.The next morning, the servant who cleaned Quentin's laundry found them both dead in bed, each shot four times.

It was the last fact that hurt Andy the most.Prosecutors with political zeal made impassioned opening remarks and conclusions.He said that Andy Dufresne was not just a husband who was passionate about his wife's infidelity and was eager to get revenge. If it was motivated by such a motive, we could not forgive it, but we can understand it, but his revenge method was too cold-blooded.Let's imagine!He said to the jury like a cannonball: each shot four shots, not six bullets in the pistol, but a total of eight shots.After firing the bullets in the original chamber, stop, reload the bullets, and then make another shot one by one!The next day, the "Portland Sun" roared with a headline: Give him four shots, and she will have four shots!

A clerk at a pawnshop in Lewiston testified that he had sold a . 10 six-shot police pistol to Andy Dufresne two days before the murder.The bartender at the country club testified that on September 45th at about seven o'clock in the evening Andy came to the bar for drinks and drank three shots of strong whiskey in [-] minutes. When he got up from his chair, he told the bartender to go to Kun Ding's family, and said that if you want to know what will happen next, you can read the newspaper tomorrow.A convenience store clerk a mile away from Quentin's home told the court Andy Dufresne had visited his shop at about [-]pm that night.He bought cigarettes, three quarts of beer, and some dishcloths.The forensic medical examiner confirmed that Quentin and Linda were killed between about eleven o'clock at night and two o'clock in the morning.Detectives sent by the prosecutor testified that there was a sidewalk [-] yards away from Quentin’s house. On the afternoon of September [-]th, they found three physical evidence near the sidewalk: two empty beer bottles (with the defendant’s fingerprints on them) ), twelve cigarette butts (the brand the defendant smoked), and tire marks (the tire marks of the defendant's Plymouth car manufactured in [-]).

In the living room of Quentin's residence, four dish towels were thrown on the sofa, with bullet holes and gunpowder burn marks on them.The detective's theory was that the killer had wrapped a dishcloth over the gun's muzzle to silence the gun (Andy's lawyer protested strongly against the detective's unwarranted inference).

Andy Dufresne also took to the witness stand to defend himself, and he told his story calmly, calmly, and without emotion.He said that he had heard about the close relationship between his wife and Quentin as early as the end of July.At the end of August, his misery became unbearable and he began to investigate.One evening, after Linda had golf lessons, he originally planned to go shopping in Portland, but he followed Linda and Quentin to the place where Quentin lived (the media inevitably dubbed it the "love nest" ).He parked the car nearby and waited until Quentin drove Linda back to the club to pick up the car, which was three hours later.

"You mean you follow your wife in your new Plymouth?" the prosecutor asked him.

"I switched cars with a friend that night," Andy said.But he calmly admitted that he had planned so well that he would do him no good by making the jurors feel that he was a man of great power.

After returning his friend's car and getting his own, Andy headed home.Linda was already in bed and reading a book.He asked her if it was fun to go to Portland?She replied that it was interesting, but didn't see what she wanted to buy. "Now I know for sure," Andy told the breathless bystanders.He kept a calm and nonchalant tone throughout his statement.

"What was going through your head between that time and the seventeen days after your wife was killed?" Andy's lawyer asked him.

"I'm very sad." Andy said calmly. He said that he had thought about suicide and went to Lewiston Township to buy a gun on September [-]th. He said this as if he was reading a shopping list. Same.

His lawyers wanted him to tell the jury what happened after Linda left home to meet Quentin on the night his wife was killed.Andy said it, but he made a worse impression on the jury.

I've known him for almost 30 years and I can tell you he has the most self-control I've ever known.He will only reveal a little bit at a time about things that are beneficial to him; things that are not good for him are even more tight-lipped.If there are any secrets hidden in his heart, then you will never know.If he decides to commit suicide, he will wait until everything is sorted out without leaving a note.If he had cried and screamed, stammered, and even yelled at the prosecutor when he appeared in court, I believe he would not have been sentenced to life imprisonment.Even if sentenced, he would be released on parole in [-].But he told his story like he was playing a record, as if telling the jury: Believe it or not.And they didn't believe it at all.

He said that he was drunk that night, and since August 24th, he has been drunk often, and he is not a good drinker.The jury couldn't believe that such a calm, self-possessed young man in a crisp double-breasted three-piece wool suit would drink heavily because of his wife's affair with the town golf coach, but I believed it because I had the opportunity to be with him Get along with him for a long time and observe him carefully, but the jury of six men and six women did not have such an opportunity.

Since I've known him, he's only had alcohol four times a year.Every year he meets me at the playground a week before his birthday, and then again a fortnight before Christmas.Every time he asks me to get him a bottle of wine.Like other prisoners, he bought alcohol with the money he earned working in prison, and made up the shortfall from his own pocket.Before [-], Shawshank's salary was [-] cents per hour, but since [-] it has been raised to [-] cents per hour.I take a [-] percent commission on every bottle, so you can figure out how much Andy Dufresne would have to sweat in the laundry to afford four drinks a year.

On the morning of his birthday, September [-]th, he would get really drunk, and then get drunk again that night after lights out.The next day he would give me the remaining half bottle to share with others.As for the other bottle, he drank it once on Christmas Eve and once on New Year's Eve, and then gave me the rest of the wine to share with others.He only drank four times a year, because he was ruined by alcohol.

He told the jury that he was very drunk on the night of the [-]th and only remembered fragments of what happened that night.In fact, he was drunk as early as that afternoon: "Drink a double dose of Dutch courage," he said.

After Linda ran away from home, he decided to go to them to argue face to face.On the way to Quentin's house, he stopped into the country club bar for a few more drinks.He didn't remember telling the bartender to read the paper the next day, or saying anything to him.He remembers going to the convenience store to buy beer, but not dish towels. "Why should I buy a dish towel?" he asked rhetorically.One of the newspapers reported that three female jurors shuddered at the words.

Then, much later, when Andy and I were talking, there was some speculation about why the clerk testified that he had bought dish towels, and I thought I should jot down what he said at the time. "Suppose when they're looking around for witnesses, Red," Andy said to me one day at the playground, "they come across this clerk who sold me beer, and it's been three days since all the discoveries about the case, It's been played up in all the newspapers. Maybe five or six policemen, plus the detectives and assistants sent by the prosecutor's office to deal with the case, came to him. Memory is actually a very subjective thing. They might just ask at first: 'Could he have bought four or five dish towels?' And then just keep pushing. When enough people keep asking you to remember something, it's amazing how persuasive it is."

I agree, it's possible.

Andy went on: "But there's a stronger force of persuasion, and I think it's at least possible, that he's convinced himself that he really sold me the dish towels. This case is the center of attention. Reporters interviewed him, his picture was published in the newspapers... And of course, he appeared in court like a star. I am not saying that he deliberately made up stories or perjured witnesses. I think it is possible that he passed the test Lie, or swear in his mother's holy name, that I did buy dishcloths, but... memory can still be a fucking very subjective thing. All I know is: Although even my lawyer thinks what I Half the story was a lie, but he didn't believe the dish towel part either. It was crazy, I was so drunk at the time, how could I even think of wrapping a gun to silence it? If true I killed it, so I don't care about 21."

He drove to the side road, parked the car beside him, drank beer and smoked quietly.He saw that the lights downstairs in Quentin's house went out, leaving only one light on upstairs...after another 15 minutes, that light went out too.He said he could guess what happened next.

"Mr. Dufresne, did you then go into Quentin's house and kill them both?" his lawyer yelled.

"No, I didn't," Andy replied.By midnight, he said, he was gradually sober, and the hangover began to make him uncomfortable.So he decided to go home, get some sleep, and think calmly the next day like an adult, "As I was driving home, I started to think that the best thing to do would be for her to go to Renault for a divorce. Bar."

"Thank you, Mr. Dufresne."

The prosecutor jumped up from his chair to speak.

"You used the fastest way to divorce, didn't you? Just shoot her with a . [-] revolver wrapped in cloth, didn't you?"

"No, sir, I haven't." Andy said calmly.

"And then you killed her lover."

"Not so, sir."

"You mean, you shot Quentin first?"

"I mean I didn't kill anybody, I drank two quarts of beer and smoked as many cigarettes as the cops found at the side road and drove home and went to bed."

"You told the jury that between August 24th and September [-]th you contemplated suicide."

"Yes, sir."

"So to buy a revolver?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Dufresne, I don't think you look like someone who wants to commit suicide. If I say so, will I offend you?"

"No," Andy said, "but you don't look like a particularly sensitive person. If I really wanted to kill myself, I probably wouldn't talk to you about my depression."

There was a snicker in the courtroom, but his remarks did not win the sympathy of the jury.

"Did you have your .[-] with you that night?"

"No, I already said—"

"Oh! That's right!" the prosecutor smiled sarcastically. "You threw it into the river, didn't you? On the afternoon of September [-]th, into the Royal River."

"Yes, sir."

"The day before the murder."

"Yes, sir."

"What a coincidence, isn't it?"

"It doesn't matter if it's a coincidence or not, it's just a fact."

"I believe you have heard the testimony of Officer Mincher?" Mincher led people to search the waters around the Pound Road Bridge. Andy said that he threw the gun into the river from there, but the police did not find it.

"Yes, sir, you know I hear you."

"Then you heard him tell the court that they hadn't found the gun after three days of searching. Is that a coincidence?"

"Whether it's a coincidence or not, it's true that they didn't find the gun," Andy said calmly, "but I want to explain one thing to you and the jury: The Bond Road Bridge is very close to the mouth of the Royal River, where the current is very strong , the gun may have been washed into the bay."

"So there's no comparison between the bullets in your pistol and the bullets that went into the bloody bodies of your wife and Mr. Quentin, can you?"

"Yes."

"Isn't this also a coincidence?"

According to the newspaper records at the time, when Andy heard him say this, a wry smile appeared on his face. During the six-week trial process, this was one of Andy's rare emotional reactions.

"Because of my innocence and the fact that I was telling the truth when I said I threw the gun in the river, it's just unfortunate for me that it wasn't found," Andy said.

Prosecutors grilled him for two days, rereading the portion of the convenience store clerk's testimony about the dish towels.Andy repeats that he can't remember ever buying a dish towel, but admits he can't remember not buying one.

Andy and Linda bought insurance together in early 5, didn't they?Yes.If Andy is acquitted, can he get an insurance claim of [-] yuan?Yes.So when he went to Quentin's house, didn't he intend to kill someone?Planning to kill his wife and Quentin?no.If not, then he thinks what happened that day, because this case is not like robbery and murder.

"Sir, I have no idea what's going on," Andy said quietly.

The case went to the jury at one o'clock on a snowy Wednesday afternoon.The twelve jurors returned to court at 03:30.Marshals said they could have returned to court earlier, but delayed a while to enjoy a free chicken dinner bought from Bentley's restaurant and served by the public.The jury found Andy guilty.Folks, if there was a death penalty in Maine, he'd be gone before the crocuses came out of the snow.

Prosecutors asked Andy what he thought happened that night, and Andy avoided answering.But he did have some ideas in his mind, and I formulated these ideas one evening in [-].It took seven years for the two of us to go from nodding acquaintances to fairly close friends, but I never really felt close to him until [-].And I think, I'm the only one who's ever been really close to him.We were on the same floor the whole time, except I was in the middle of the aisle and he was at the end.

"I think what's going on?" he laughed, but there was no hint of humor in his laughter. "I think that night, I was really unlucky. The most unlucky thing that ever happened was concentrated in a few short hours." Happened. I figured a stranger must have happened to pass by. Maybe after I left, someone had a flat tire, maybe a robber, maybe a psycho, walked in and killed them, and that was it, I was locked in. "

It's that simple.And he would have to spend the rest of his life—at least until he could leave—in Shawshank.Five years later, he started applying for parole, but was rejected every time, despite being a model prisoner.But when you've been branded murdered, you have to wait to leave Shawshank. Time slows down like water erodes rock.There are seven commissioners in a parole hearing, two more than the average state prison, and you can't buy those guys off, or sweet talk them, or beg them.In a parole hearing, money doesn't help, and whoever you are can't fly.As for Andy's situation, the reasons are more complicated...but let's break it down below.

A model prisoner named Kendricks borrowed a lot of money from me in the [-]s, and it took four years to pay it off.Most of the interest he paid me was covered by information.In my line of work, if you are not informed, you will die.Kendricks has access to records and files that I absolutely cannot.He's not like me who only runs the platen machines in that damn license plate factory.

Kendricks told me that in parole hearings prior to 16, the voting record against Andy's parole was 14-57, [-]-[-] in [-], and [-] again in [-]. Compared with 〇, it was five to two in [-], and I don't know about it after that.All I know is that after [-] years, he is still in Cell No. [-] in District [-].By [-], he was [-] years old.They probably wouldn't show mercy until [-] and let him go.

They spare your life, but take away everything important in your life.Maybe one day, they'll let you go, but... listen: I knew a guy named Burton who kept a pigeon in his cell.From [-] to [-], when they let him out, he took this pigeon with him.He called the pigeon "Jack".Bolton also released Jack the day before he was released from prison, and Jack immediately flew away beautifully.But a week after Burton left our happy little family, a friend took me to the corner of the playground, where Burton's old favorite was hanging out.A bird lay limp like a pile of dirty sheets, looking famished.My friend said, "Is that Jack?" Yes, it was Jack, and the pigeon was lying there like dung.

I can still remember the first time Andy Dufresne approached me asking for something, it's like it was yesterday.Not when he wanted a Rita Hayworth poster, that was later.In the summer of [-], he came to me asking for something else.

Most of my business is done on the playing field, and this deal was no exception.Our playground is a large square, ninety yards on each side.To the north is the outer wall, with watchtowers at each end, armed with guards armed with binoculars and riot guns.With the gate on the north and the truck unloading area on the south, there are five unloading areas in Shawshank Prison.On a typical weekday, The Shawshank is a busy place with goods coming in and out.We have a factory for car license plates, a big laundry room.In addition to washing and ironing all the linens in the prison, the laundry room also washes the linens for a hospital and a nursing home.In addition, there is a large auto repair shop, where the mechanics of the prisoners are responsible for repairing the prison cars and the cars of the city government and the state government, not to mention the private cars of the prison staff, and the cars of the parole board can often be seen parked there. build.

On the east side is a thick wall with many small windows that look like slits, and on the other side of the wall are the cells in the fifth block.To the west are offices and infirmary.Shawshank was never overcrowded like other prisons.In 120, there were still one-third of the vacancies.But at any one time, eighty to [-] inmates were on the playing field playing football or baseball, playing craps, gossip, or shady deals.On Sunday, there are more people on the field, like a holiday country...if you add a few women.

Andy first came to see me on a Sunday.I was just finishing talking with a man named Anne; Anme does me a little favor every now and then, and we were talking about a radio that day.Of course I knew who Andy was, everyone thought he was a cold snob who looked like he needed a beating.One of the people who said that was Boggs Diamond, and it was a really bad thing to have him.Andy doesn't have a roommate, and it's said he doesn't want one.Others said that he thought his shit smelled better than others.But I don't just listen to other people's rumors, I have to judge for myself.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Andy Dufresne." He held out his hand, and I shook it.He is not the kind of person who likes to chat, and he will say what he wants straight to the point. "I know you can get anything."

I admit that I often have a way of getting something.

"How did you do it?" Andy asked.

"Sometimes," I said, "things seem to come to me out of nowhere. I can't explain it, except because I'm Irish."

He smiled. "I would like to trouble you to get me a hammer for striking rocks."

"What kind of hammer? What do you want that hammer for?"

Andy was surprised, "Do you still have to go to the bottom of your business?" Just from his words, I already know why he has earned a reputation as a snob, the kind of person who always loves to put on airs-but I also There was a hint of humor in his questioning.

"I tell you," I said, "if you want a toothbrush, I won't ask you questions. I'll just tell you the price, because toothbrushes are not fatal things."

"Are you allergic to something deadly?"

"Yes."

An old, tape-covered baseball flew toward us, and Andy turned around, cat-like, and caught the ball in mid-air with a move that would have amazed Frank Mazon.Andy throws the ball back in one quick, clean motion.I could see quite a few people keeping one eye on us as they went about their business, and maybe the guards on the tower were watching us too.I don't do things that are superfluous or get in trouble.In every prison, there are some very important people. There may be four or five in a small prison, and there may be as many as twenty or thirty in a large prison. In Shawshank, I can be regarded as a person with a head and face. , may affect his life here.Andy probably knew it too, but he never kowtowed or flattered me, and I respect him for that.

"Sure. I'll tell you what it looks like, and why I need it. It's a small stone hammer that looks like a pickaxe, and it's about this long." His hands were about a foot wide. , this is the first time I saw his neat and clean nails. "A hammer has a small sharp pick on one end and a blunt point on the other. I'm buying a hammer because I like rocks."

"Stone?" I said.

"You squat down for a while," he said.

We squat like Indians.

Andy grabbed a handful of playing field dust and let it run down between his clean fingers, kicking up a cloud of ash.In the end he was left with a few small stones, one or two of which glowed, the rest were gray and dull.One of the small gray stones was quartz, but it was not until it was rubbed clean that it could be seen that it was quartz, emitting a milky light.Andy wiped it clean and threw it to me.After I caught it, I immediately called out my name.

"Quartz, yes," he said. "You see, mica, shale, sandy granite. There's a lot of limestone in this place, left over from when the hills were built to build prisons." Dust on hands. "I'm a stone fan. At least...was. I hope to start collecting stones again, on a small scale, of course."

"A Sunday playground adventure?" I asked, standing up.What a silly idea, but... Seeing that small piece of quartz, I couldn't help but feel a little bit moved. I don't know why; I think it must have some kind of connection with the outside world.You wouldn't expect to see quartz on a playing field, it's something you'd pick up in a running stream.

"It's better to have something to do on Sunday than nothing," he said.

"You can stick a hammer in someone's head," I commented.

"I have no enemies here," he said quietly.

"No?" I smiled, "wait for a while."

"If there's trouble, I'm not going to fix it with a hammer."

"Maybe you want to break out? Tunnel under the wall? Because if you—"

He smiled politely.When I saw the stone hammer in person three weeks later, I understood why he smiled.

"You know," I said, "if anyone sees you with that, they'll take it away. They'll even see you have a spoon, and they'll take it away. What do you do? Just squat Is it knocking here?"

"Oh, I'll figure out a better way."

I nodded, that part was really none of my business anyway.I'm only responsible for supplying things, as for whether he can keep that thing, it's entirely his business.

"How much does a thing like this cost?" I asked, beginning to enjoy his quiet, low-key demeanor.If you're like me and have spent ten years in prison, you're terribly sick of people who rant, brag, and have big mouths.So, let's just say I liked Andy from the moment we first met.

"Any stone and jade store can get it for eight dollars," he said, "but of course I understand that there's a commission on everything you handle—"

"Usually it's ten percent more, but I have to raise the price of dangerous items a little more. What you want is less easy to get, so let's count it for ten dollars."

"That's ten dollars."

I looked at him and smiled. "Do you have ten dollars?"

"Yes." He said calmly.

After a long time, I found out that he had at least [-] yuan, which was the money he brought in when he was imprisoned.Everyone has to go through some inspections when they enter the prison. They will force you to bend down and look at a certain part of you carefully.But there is a lot of space in that part, and determined people still have a way to hide it. Things go straight in, and you don’t even see it on the surface, unless the person who checks you happens to be in the mood to put on rubber gloves and dig inside.

"Very well," I said, "you should know what to do if what I gave you is found?"

"I think I should know." I could tell from the change in his eyes that he had already guessed what I was going to say.There was a gleam of his characteristic sardonic humor in his eyes.

"If you get caught, you say you found it yourself. They give you three or four weeks of confinement... and, of course, your toys are confiscated, and they'll be kept in your A blot on the record. But if you say my name, you'll never do business with me again, not even a pair of shoelaces or a pack of cigarettes. I'll send you some too Look at the color. I don't like violence, but you have to understand my situation, I can't just give people a reason, so I won't be able to get along in the future."

"I understand, you don't have to worry."

"I never worry," I said, "it doesn't help in a place like this."

He nodded and walked away.Three days later, during his morning laundry break, he came to me.He didn't speak to me, didn't even look at me, but slipped me a neatly folded bill as neatly as a magician might do a poker trick.This guy is a quick learner.I got him a hammer that was exactly the size and shape he described.This hammer was hidden in my cell overnight. This hammer is not like an escape tool. I guess it will take about 600 years to dig a tunnel with such a hammer to escape, but I am still a little worried.Because if you stick this thing in someone's head, he'll never listen to pop music on the radio again, and Andy's always had a hard time with gays, and I hope they're not the ones he really wants to hammer.

In the end, I still trust my own judgment.The next morning, before the wake-up call sounded, I hid the hammer in a cigarette case and gave it to Ernie, a model prisoner who cleaned the corridors of the Fifth Ward until he was released in 19. .Without saying a word, he quickly stuffed the hammer into his jacket. After [-] years, I never saw the hammer again. When I saw it again, the hammer was worn out and useless.

The following Sunday, Andy came up to me again on the playground.He looked horrible, with his lower lip swollen like a sausage, his right eye swollen shut, and a series of scratches on his cheek.He was at odds with the "sisters" again, but he never mentioned it. "Thank you for the tool," he said, and left.

I looked at him curiously.He walked a few steps, saw something on the ground, bent down to pick it up.It was a small rock.Prison uniforms have no pockets (the exception is the smocks worn by prisoners working as mechanics), but there is always a way, so the little stone disappeared into Andy's sleeve and never fell out. Admirable...and I admire him for going on with his life despite all his troubles, while thousands of other people in the world can't, won't or can't, Many of them weren't in prison at all, and still didn't know how to live.I also noticed that while Andy's face suggested he was in trouble, his hands were as clean as ever, with manicured nails.

For the next six months I saw very little of him.Andy was kept in solitary confinement for quite some time.

Having said that, I would like to talk about some things about "sisters".

These people go by many different names, like "Bull Freaks" or "Cell Susie" and so on--"Killer Queens" is the latest buzzword, but at Shawshank they're always called "Sisters."I don't know why, but other than the name, I guess there is nothing different.

Most people are used to sodomy in prisons, with the possible exception of some newcomers, especially the unlucky, slender, handsome, and unwary young ones.But homosexuality, like heterosexuality, comes in hundreds of different forms.Some people turn to men in prison because they can't bear the asexual life, so they don't go crazy.Usually there is then some kind of arrangement between the two men who were originally straight, although I often wonder if, when they go back to their wives and girlfriends one day, they will really be straight again as they say they are.

There are also some people who "convert" their sexuality in prison.It is now popular to say that they became gay, or "come out."And most of these gay men play the role of women, and they are very popular.

So there is this group of "sisters".

They are to the small society of the prison what rapists are to the larger society outside the walls.They were often heinous long-term offenders, and their prey was young, thin, inexperienced prisoners...or, in Andy's case, weak-looking prisoners.Showers, narrow passages behind washing machines and sometimes even infirmaries have become their hunting grounds.On more than one occasion, the rapes also took place in the closet-sized movie screening room at the back of the auditorium.Oftentimes, they don't have to be violent to get their way, because inmates who turn gay seem to be infatuated with one of the "sisters" in the same way a teenage girl becomes obsessed with a star or pop idol.But for these sisters, the fun is in the violence... and I guess that part will never change.

Because Andy was relatively short and had a handsome face, and perhaps because of his unique poised demeanor, he was immediately spotted by the group of sisters as soon as he came in.If I were talking about a fairy tale, I would tell you that Andy fought until they gave up.I wish I could say that, but I can't.Prison is not a fairy tale world.

The first time it happened was in the bathroom less than three days after he joined our happy Shawshank family.As far as I can tell, it was just a series of teases and insults.Those people like to play tricks on their prey before taking real action, just like the jackal wants to test whether the prey is really as weak as it looks.

Andy fought back fiercely, and split the lip of the big man named Boggs Diamond. The guard rushed in in time to stop the further movements of the two parties, but Boggs swore to catch Andy, and he really do as promised.

The second time it happened behind the laundry room.Over the years, many things have happened in that narrow and dirty passage, and the guards know it all, but let it go.It's dark and littered with sachets of laundry detergent, bleach and buckets of Hexlite [3] catalyst, which is fine if your hands are dry, but if wet, the chemicals It will kill you like battery acid.The guards in the prison don't like to come here, and they also warn newcomers not to come here, because if you are trapped in this place by prisoners, you have no way to retreat, and there is not even enough space to fight.

Boggs wasn't there, but Henry Baker, a laundry foreman since [-], told me that all four of Boggs' friends were there.Andy initially held them back with a bowl of Hexlite in his hand, threatening to throw the catalyst in their eyes if they got any closer.But when Andy stepped back, he accidentally fell, and they all rushed forward.

I think the meaning of the term "gang violence" will never change, and that's exactly what these four sisters did to him.They pinned Andy to the gear box, held a screwdriver to his temple, and forced him to submit.There will be a little wound after being raped, but not too serious.You ask, is this my experience? —I hope not.You'll bleed for a few days afterwards, and if you don't want some boring clown asking you if you're on your period, put extra sheets of toilet paper in your pants.Usually the bleeding stops after two or three days, unless they treat you in a more unnatural way.But even though there was no major physical damage, rape is rape after all, and when you look at your face in the mirror afterwards, you will think about how you will treat yourself in the future.

Andy was alone through these things, as he was alone in everything else in those days.He must have come to this conclusion like many before him: There are only two ways to deal with these sisters, either to fight hard and lose, or to admit it from the beginning.

He decided to fight them hard.When Boggs and two henchmen followed Andy a week later, Andy fired back fiercely, as Ernie happened to be nearby.According to Ernie, Boggs said, "I hear you're broke." Andy broke the nose of a guy named Luster, a burly farmer who died for killing his stepdaughter. was thrown into prison.I will gladly tell you that he died here afterwards.

The three of them teamed up to subdue him, raped him in turn, and then forced Andy to his knees.Standing before him was Boggs, who at that time had a pearl-handled razor with "Diamond Pearl" engraved on the handle.He opened the razor and said, "I'm going to unzip it now, Mr. Man, and you'll have to swallow what I want you to swallow. When you've swallowed what I've given you, you'll have to swallow Luce." Something special, you broke his nose, you should make it up to him."

Andy said, "If you put anything in my mouth, you lose that thing."

Ernie said Boggs looked at Andy and thought he was crazy.

"No," he said slowly to Andy, as if Andy was a stupid kid, "you didn't understand me. If you dared to do it, I'd take this eight-inch thing out of your ear." Insert it, understand?"

"I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you understand me. If you put anything in my mouth, I'll bite it off. You can put a knife in my head, but You should understand that when a person is suddenly severely traumatized in the brain, he will pee and shit at the same time ... and bite hard."

Andy looked up at Boggs, with his usual smile on his face, and Ernie described it as if the three of them were just discussing stocks and bonds with him, as if he was still working in a bank, wearing a three-piece suit , instead of kneeling on the dirty floor of the laundry room, pants down to the ankles, bleeding between the thighs.

"Actually," he went on, "I just know that the bite-down reflex is sometimes so violent that you'll have to use a shovel or a drill afterwards to pry his jaw open."

As a result, Boggs hadn't dared to put anything in Andy's mouth that night in February [-], nor had Lust, nor, as far as I know, has anyone else since.The three of them beat Andy solidly and almost killed him; and all four of them spent a while in solitary.Andy and Luster were first sent to the prison's infirmary for treatment.

How many times have these guys troubled him?I have no idea.I think Lust lost interest in him early on, and having to splint the bridge of his nose for a full month is a turn off for one.Boggs stopped bothering him that summer, too.

That was a strange thing.One morning in early June, Boggs didn't come out for breakfast, and they found him beaten to death and dying in his cell.He didn't say who did it, or how it happened, but in my line of business, I know very well that you can pay the prison guards to do almost anything, as long as they don't bring guns in for prisoners.Their salaries were not high then, and they are not high now, and there were no electric door locks, CCTV or a central system to monitor the entire prison.In [-], each cell had its own gate and guard, and it was easy to bribe the guards to get two or three people in, yes, even into Boggs' cell.

Of course, it costs a lot of money to do so, not according to outside standards, no, the prison is a small-scale economy, and you will find that a one-dollar bill in your hand is as effective as a 20-yuan bill outside after you come in for a while.I guess if Boggs was plotted like this, someone paid a lot of money, maybe 15 yuan for the guards, and two or three yuan for each of the goons.

I'm not saying Andy necessarily did it, but I do know he came in with five hundred dollars.He worked in a bank before he came here, and he knows better than any of us the power that money can exert.

All I know is this: since this beating - Boggs broke three ribs, bleeding eyes, strained back and dislocated femur - he doesn't bother Andy anymore, in fact, he doesn't see anyone trouble.He is like a strong wind in summer, although it is blowing wildly, it is all bluffing.You could say that he became a "weak" sister.

So ends the story of Boggs, who could have killed Andy if Andy hadn't taken any precautions.But that doesn't mean that the other sisters don't bother him anymore. Occasionally they still take advantage of his unsuspecting, but not many times.After all, jackals still prefer easy prey, and in Shawshank, there are more easy prey than Andy.

However, I remember Andy fighting hard every time.I guess he knew that if he made it easy for them once, it would never work out again.So Andy occasionally got paint on his face, and about six or eight months after Boggs was beaten, he lost two fingers.By the way, at the end of [-], he also went to the infirmary because of a broken cheek bone. It seems that someone wrapped the iron pipe with a cloth and slapped him hard on the face.He always fought back, so he was often held in solitary confinement.I think the solitary confinement was not hard for him, not as overwhelming as the others, and he wasn't at all afraid of being alone.

He barely adjusted to dealing with the sisters—but by [-], it had almost completely stopped.I'll go into more detail about this part later.

One morning in the fall of [-], Andy met me at the playground and asked if I could get him a grinding stone cloth.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

He told me it was a stoner's term for a cloth about the size of a dishcloth, used to polish stones.The stone cloth was thick, rough on one side and smooth on the other, like sandpaper on the smooth side and industrial steel wool on the rough side (Andy also had a box of steel wool in his cell, but I didn't get it for him, I guess he stole it from the laundry room).

I told him there was no problem with the business and got him what he wanted from the same rock and jade store.This time I only charged [-] percent for the service, and didn't charge him any more, because I didn't think the seven-inch-by-seven-inch square cloth pad was dangerous.Mostone cloth, really.

Five months later Andy asked me if I could get Rita Hayworth for him.We talked about business this time by taking advantage of the movie screening in the auditorium.Now we see a movie once or twice a week, where we used to see it once a month, and the screenings often have strong moral implications, and that screening, "The Lost Weekend," was no exception, warning us of the dangers of drinking alcohol.This kind of moral lesson makes us feel a little comforted in prison.

Andy managed to get a seat next to me, and in the middle of the movie he approached me and asked if I could get him Rita Hayworth.To be honest, I really want to laugh.He's always been calm and straight-forward, but that night he fidgeted and was terribly embarrassed, as if he was asking me for a condom.He seemed to be fully charged and ready to erupt at any moment.

"Okay," I said, "take it easy, calm down, do you want the big one or the small one?" • Hayworth posters come in two sizes.For a dollar you can get a small one, and for two dollars and a half you can get a big one, four feet tall and very feminine.

"Big one," he said, without looking at me.He was really shy that night, blushing like a child who wanted to steal his brother's ID card to go to the Xiangyan show, "Can you get it?"

"Of course, don't be nervous." At this time, everyone saw the highlights of the movie and started clapping and screaming.

"How long will it take to get it?"

"A week, maybe faster."

"Okay," his voice was full of disappointment, as if he hoped that I would take one out of my pocket and give it to him right away, "how much?"

This time I will pay him the wholesale price.I can still afford that discount; he's been a good customer and a good baby--when Boggs, Lust, and the others keep bugging him, I've often wondered if he'll someday Take his stone hammer and crack someone's head?
Posters are my big business, second only to booze and cigarettes, and usually more in demand than marijuana.In the 60s, the demand for various posters increased greatly. For example, many people wanted posters of Bob Dylan[4], Jimi Hendrix[5] and the movie "Easy Rider".But most people still like the posters of women, one sexy and beautiful poster queen after another.

A few days after Andy and I spoke, the laundry driver I did business with brought back over 60 posters, mostly Rita Hayworth posters.You may remember that famous photo, I do, it's Rita Hayworth in a swimsuit, with one hand behind her head, her eyes half closed, her full red lips slightly parted, ok A fire-breathing girl.

Maybe you're wondering, do prison authorities know there's a black market?Of course I do.They probably know my business as well as I do, but they turn a blind eye because they know that the whole prison is like a big pressure cooker and there has to be a place to breathe.They occasionally come to surprise inspections, and I always get locked up two or three times a year, but things like posters, they just blink and forget, let each other live.When a large poster of Rita Hayworth turns up in an inmate's cell, they assume it's probably from a friend or relative.Of course, in fact, all the packages sent by relatives and friends to the prison will be opened and inspected, and then registered on the list, but if it is a completely harmless sexy poster like Rita Hayworth or Ava Garner, who will go back? What about revisiting that list?When you live in a pressure cooker, you have to learn how to survive and let others live, or someone will cut your throat.You have to learn to understand.

Ernie took the poster to Andy's No.14 cell again for me, and at the same time brought back a note to my No. [-] cell, with Andy's meticulous handwriting on it, only two words: "Thank you."

Then one morning, while queuing for breakfast, I took a chance to peek into Andy's room and saw a Rita Hayworth swimsuit poster plastered brightly above his bed so that he could still look after the lights out every night. Looking at Rita Hayworth in a swimsuit by the mercury lamp on the sports field, she puts one hand behind her head, her eyes are half closed, and her full red lips are slightly parted.However, during the day, her face was covered with black lines, because the sunlight printed the shadows of the bars on the posters.

Now I'm going to tell you what happened in mid-May, [-], which ended Andy's three-year skirmish with the sisters, and for which he was finally transferred from the laundry room to the library. He worked in the library, and he stayed in the library until he left this happy little family at the beginning of this year.

You may have noticed that many of the things I tell you are hearsay—someone tells me something after seeing it, and I tell you about it.In some cases, I have greatly simplified the stories that have been passed down through four or five hands.But here, life is what it is.There is indeed a secret intelligence network here, and if you want to stay informed, you have to use this intelligence network.Of course, you have to know how to separate the chaff from the chaff, how to pick out the really useful news from a lot of lies, rumors and fantasies.

Also, you might think I'm describing a legend rather than an ordinary person, and I have to admit that's more or less true.For those of us who have known Andy for years as life-long criminals, Andy does have a bit of a legend, if you know what I mean.Stories circulated in the prison, including his refusal to submit to Boggs, his constant resistance to other sisters, and even the process of getting a job in the library are legendary.But there is one big difference, this last incident was witnessed by me, and I swear on my mother's name that everything I say is true.A murderer's oath may be of little value, but trust me: I never lie.

We had developed a good relationship at the time, and this guy was a lot of fun.I also forgot to tell you one thing, maybe I should mention it.Just five weeks after he put up the Rita Hayworth poster—I had long since forgotten about the whole thing and was busy with other business—Ernie handed me a small white Box.

"Andy gave it to you," he whispered, still waving the broom with both hands.

"Thanks!" I said, surreptitiously handing him half a pack of Camels.

When I opened the box, I wondered what would be inside?There is a lot of cotton in it, and below is...

I looked at them for a long time, and for a few minutes, I was a little afraid to even touch them, they were so beautiful.There is an extreme lack of good things here, and it is a real pity that many people do not even miss these beautiful things.

Inside the box were two pieces of quartz, both carefully polished and hewn into the shape of driftwood, and the iron sulfide in the quartz shone like gold.If it wasn't so heavy, it would make a very nice pair of cufflinks. These two pieces of quartz are so symmetrical and delicate.

How long will it take to ponder these two stones?It is conceivable that it must have been countless hours of hard work after lights out.First of all, the stone has to be cut into the desired shape, and then it is continuously polished with a grindstone cloth.Looking at them, I felt a warmth rise within me, the feeling that comes to anyone who sees something beautiful.This kind of beauty is created with time and effort, and it is the reason why human beings are different from animals.I was in awe of his perseverance, but I didn't really understand how persistent he was until later.

In May 70, it was decided to renovate the roof of the prison license plate factory.They plan to finish it while the weather is not too hot, and they are looking for volunteers to do the work, and the whole project is expected to take a week.More than [-] people are willing to go, because they can take the opportunity to get some fresh air outdoors, and May is a pleasant season for outdoor work.There were nine or ten people selected by lottery, and two of them happened to be Andy and me.

In the following week, after breakfast every day, two guards at the front and two at the back escorted us across the stadium, and all the guards on the watchtower watched us from a distance with binoculars.

On the morning march, four of us took the ladder, set it up next to the flat-roofed building, and started the line, passing buckets of hot asphalt onto the roof—a thing that only needs to be splashed One point is on you, and you have to jump all the way to the infirmary to find a doctor.

There were six guards overseeing us, all experienced guards.For them, that week was almost like a vacation, and instead of sweating in a laundry room or a factory where license plates are made, or standing and watching a group of prisoners sweep the floor, they are now enjoying a normal May in the sun During the holidays, sitting there, leaning against the railing, making a big show.

They didn't even have to keep half an eye on us, because the guard post on the south wall was so close that the guards could spit on us if they wanted to.If any prisoner working on the roof dared to act rashly, it would only take four seconds to be swept into a hornet's nest by a .[-]-caliber machine gun, so the guards sat there leisurely; The beer in the store can be drunk, and it is simply happy like a fairy.

One of the guards was Byron Harley, and he'd been at Shawshank longer than I had, in fact, longer than the two previous wardens combined.In [-], the warden was a Yankee named George Dunahy, who had a degree in prison administration.As far as I know, nobody likes him except those who appointed him.I heard that he was only interested in three things: the first was collecting statistics to compile his book (which was later published by a small publishing house called Pink Easy, probably at his own expense), The second is to care about which team wins the prison baseball fraternity championship every September, and the third is to push Maine to pass the death penalty law.He was fired in [-] for running an underground auto repair service in the prison garage and sharing dividends with Harley and Stammer.Harley and Stammer knew how to stay out of the way because of their experience, but Dunahy had to go.No one was sad that Dunahy was gone, but no one was really happy to see Sturmah in his place, either.Stammer is short, with cold brown eyes, and a perpetual, pained smile on his face, as if he couldn't contain himself, had to go to the bathroom, and couldn't get it out.During Stammer's term of office, Shawshank tortured constantly. Although I have no definite evidence, I believe that there may have been five or six moonlit night burials of corpses in the bushes east of the prison.Dunahy is not a good person, but Stammer is a cruel, cold-blooded and despicable villain.

Stoma and Harry are good friends.When Dunahy was the warden, he was just a pretending puppet, and the real people in charge were Sturm and Harley.

Harry was tall, with a wobbly walk and thinning red hair.He gets red easily and loves to yell.If your movements don't match the speed he requires, he'll hit you hard with a stick.On our third day of roofing, he was chatting with another guard named Mad Anhui.

Harry had heard the great news, so he was whining there.This was typical of Harry, an ungrateful man who never had a kind word for anyone and decided that the whole world was against him: a world that cheated him of the golden years of his life and would kill him for the rest of his life. squeeze dry.I've seen some guards who are almost saintly in character, and I can see why they are--they understand that their lives, though poor and difficult, are still a lot better than the group of prisoners the state pays them to guard.These jailers were able to make comparisons of suffering that others could not and would not do.

For Harry, there was no comparison.He could sit idly there in the warm May sun, lamenting his good fortune, while not ten feet away some men were sweating at work with buckets of hot asphalt threatening to burn their hands, but For those who need to work hard on weekdays, this job is already equivalent to rest.Perhaps you remember the old "half glass of water" question that people often ask, and your answer reflects your outlook on life.For someone like Harry, his answer is definitely: half empty, and a glass full of water is always half empty.If you give him a glass of cold apple cider, he'll want a glass of vinegar.If you tell him that his wife has always been faithful to him, he will say that it is because she is as ugly as a mother without salt.

So he sat there talking to Maddie, loud enough for all of us to hear, his broad forehead already getting red from the sun.He leaned on the low railing around the roof with one hand, and with the other he rested on the butt of his .[-] pistol.

We've all heard about him.The thing is, Harry's eldest brother went to Texas 14 years ago and has not been heard from since. The whole family thought he was dead, which was a great relief.A week ago, a lawyer called long distance from Austin. His brother died four months ago, leaving an inheritance of almost a million dollars. He made his fortune in the oil business. "It's unbelievable how lucky some fools are," said the damned heartless fellow, standing on the roof of the factory.

Harry didn't become a millionaire, though—and if he did, even someone like Harry would probably be happy, at least for a while—his brother left his home in Maine. $[-] apiece for every living family member, not bad, like winning the lottery.

But in Harry's eyes, the glass filled with water is always half empty.Harry had been complaining to Maddall all morning that the damned government was going to take most of his windfall. "The money left is only enough to buy a new car," he said angrily, "and then what? After buying a car And the goddamn taxes and repairs and upkeep and the goddamn kids clamoring for you to take them out for a ride—”

"When they grow up, they'll ask for the car to be taken out," said Maddock, who knew which side of the bread was buttered, and he didn't say what was in each of us, "Old man, if that money If it is really so hot, I am willing to take over this hot potato, otherwise, what do you want a friend to do?"

"That's right! They will ask to drive, ask to learn to drive, my God!" Harry said here with a little shudder, "and what will happen at the end of the year? If you accidentally miscalculated the tax, you have to pay for it out of your own pocket." Taxes, even borrowing money to pay taxes. Then they audit your finances, and after the audit they are bound to collect more taxes, forever. Who can stand against Uncle Sam? They put their hands in your shirt Squeeze your nipples until you turn purple and black, and it will be me who is unlucky in the end, God!"

He fell into an annoyed silence, thinking how unlucky he had been to inherit the thirty-five thousand dollars.Andy, who was painting asphalt with a big brush fifteen feet away, dropped the brush into the bucket and walked over to where Maddow and Harry sat.

We all tensed up, and I saw a guard named Yang Le ready to draw a gun.A guard on the watchtower also poked his partner's arm, and the two turned around together.For a while, I thought Andy was going to be shot, beaten up, or both.

He asked Harry softly, "Can you trust your wife?"

Harry just stared at him and started to flush, I knew something was going to happen.In three seconds, he'd be pulling out his baton and hitting Andy in the gut, right behind the stomach is where the solar plexus is, that's a bunch of nerves that, if you hit hard enough, can send someone to hell. But they will still fight, and if they don't die, it will be enough to paralyze you for a long time, forgetting what you were trying to do.

"Boy," said Harry, "I'm only giving you one chance to pick up the brush and roll off this roof."

Andy just looked at him, very calm, his eyes were ice-cold, as if he didn't hear what he said.I really want to go up there and tell him to be smart, to give him a crash course, to tell him that you must never let the guards know you are eavesdropping on their conversations, let alone interrupt unless they ask you (and even if they do, only Can answer every question, then immediately shut up).Here, no matter black, white, red, or yellow, people are all the same in the eyes of the jailers. They all treat you as a nigger. If you want to survive under the hands of Harry and Stoma, you have to get used to it. This kind of thinking.When you are in jail, your life belongs to the country, and if you forget this, you are the only one out of luck.I've seen people who were blind, people with broken fingers and toes, and one with a life cut off, and secretly glad it was just that.I want to tell Andy it's too late.He could go back and pick up his brushes, but there would still be a jerk waiting for him in the shower at night, ready to beat him so that his legs cramped and he rolled on the floor in pain.And you can pay off such a fool with a pack of cigarettes.Most of all, I want to tell him that things are bad enough, don't make things worse than they are.

But I didn't do anything, just continued laying the asphalt as if nothing had happened.I, like everyone else, know how to play it safe.I have to.The thing was cracking, and at Shawshank there was always someone like Harley who would be more than happy to break it.

Andy said: "Maybe I'm wrong. It doesn't matter whether you believe her or not. The question is whether you think she will play tricks behind your back."

Ha Li stood up, Mai De stood up, and Yang Le also stood up.Harry's face flushed. "The only question now is, how many bones do you still have? You can go to the infirmary and count them. Come on, Mad! Let's throw this guy away."

Yang Le drew his gun.The rest of us are crazily buried in the asphalt.They were about to do it under the sun, and Harry and Maddow were going to throw him down alone.Terrible accident!Number [-]—SHNK prisoner Dufresne missed a few steps and slipped down the ladder.That's horrible.

The two of them grabbed him together, Maid on the right, Harry on the left, and Andy didn't resist, keeping his eyes on Harry's swollen face.

"Mr. Harley, if she's completely under your control," he said in his usual calm and unflappable voice, "then there's no reason why you shouldn't keep the money in full. The final draw is: Byron Harley Thirty-five thousand sir, zero for Uncle Sam."

Maddow began to pull him down, but Harry just stood there.For a while, Andy was pulled between the two of them like a rope in a tug-of-war.Then Harry said, "Mad, stop for a second. What did you say?"

"If you can control your wife, you can give her the money," Andy said.

"You'd better speak clearly, or you're asking for trouble."

"The tax department allows everyone to give a gift to their spouse once in their lifetime, and the amount can reach up to 6 yuan." Andy said.

Harry stared at Andy blankly, as if he had been hit by an axe. "No way, tax-free?" he said.

"Tax free," Andy said, "the tax office won't touch a dime."

"How did you know about this?"

"He used to work in a bank, I think he might—" Yang said.

"Shut up, you trout!" Harry said, without looking at him, and Yang Le blushed and shut up.Some of the guards called him Trout because of his fat lips and bulging eyes.Harry stared at Andy, "You are the smart banker who killed his wife, why should I trust a smart banker like you? Do you want me to be behind bars like you? You want to kill me, Yes or no?"

Andy said quietly, "If you go to jail for tax evasion, you'll go to federal prison, not Shawshank, but you won't go to jail. Giving a gift to a spouse is a perfectly legal loophole, and I've done it a few times. Ten... no, hundreds of such cases. This decree is mainly for small businessmen to pass on their careers. back door."

"I think you're lying," Harry said, but he was just blunt, and the look on his face showed that he actually believed Andy.A little excitement began to appear on Harry's ugly long face, which looked very strange, and such an expression on Harry's face was especially disgusting.He was excited because he saw hope.

"No, I didn't lie. Of course you don't have to believe me, you can go to a lawyer—"

"You fucking son of a bitch!" Harry roared.

Andy shrugged, "Then you can go to the tax office and they will tell you the same thing for free. In fact, you don't need me to explain it. You can investigate it yourself."

"Fuck you, I don't need a smart banker who murders his wife to teach me where a black bear poops."

"You just need to find a lawyer or banker to help you with the gift formalities, but there will be a fee." Andy said, "or... if you want, I will be happy to help you for free, as long as you give me Each of my colleagues sent three cans of beer—”

"Colleague?" Madden said, slapping his knees and laughing.I wish he had died of bowel cancer in a world before morphine was invented. "Colleague, how ridiculous? Colleague? What else do you have—"

"Shut your beak!" Harry roared, and Maddow shut up.Harry glanced at Andy, "What did you just say?"

"I said I'd just ask you to give each colleague three cans of beer, if you think that's fair," Andy said. Drink, he'll feel more human. It's just my opinion, and I'm sure they'll appreciate it."

I've talked to several people who were there that day - including Martin, Saint-Pierre and Bonnchet - and we all saw the same thing and felt the same way.Suddenly, it was Andy who had the upper hand.Harry had a gun in his waist, a baton in his hand, and his old friend Stammer stood behind him, backed by the entire prison administration, but all of a sudden, under the bright golden sun, all of this was gone. What kind of.I felt my heart pounding in a way I hadn't felt since [-], when the prison wagon carried me and four others through the gates of Shawshank, and I stepped out onto the field.

Andy looked at Harry with calm and composed eyes. This is not just a matter of 5000 yuan. We all agree on this point.I kept replaying this scene in my mind afterwards, and I knew very well that this was a wrestling between one person and another, and the way Andy pushed forward step by step, with strong force, was like two people competing for arm strength. A situation where the weaker forcefully presses the wrist of the weaker on the table.Harry can nod to Maid, let him throw Andy down, and still follow Andy's suggestion afterwards.

He had no reason not to, but he didn't.

"I could give each of you a few cans of beer if I wanted to," Harry said, "It's nice to have a beer while you're at work."

"Let me first give you a way to keep the tax office out of trouble," Andy said.He looked at Harry without blinking. "If you're sure, give the money to your wife. If you think your wife is going to play tricks behind your back or take your money, we can think of other things—"

"Did she betray me?" Harry asked in a rough voice, "Tell me? Great Mr. Banker, unless I nod, she won't even fart."

None of Mai De and the others dared to laugh.But Andy never showed any smile on his face.

"I'll help you figure out all the forms you need, they're sold at the post office, I'll fill them out for you, and you just have to sign them."

This is important, Harry's chest heaved, and then he took one look at us and yelled, "Damn! What are you looking at? Go do your work!" He turned to Andy, "Come here, listen up, If you dare play tricks on me, you'll find yourself chasing your head in the shower before the week is over."

"I understand." Andy said softly.

Of course he does, he knows more than I do, more than anyone else.

So in 10, we, a group of prisoners who were in charge of renovating the roof, sat in a row on the roof at ten o'clock in the morning before the end of the work, drinking beer. as supplied.The beer was lukewarm, but still the best tasting beer I've ever had in my life.We sat there drinking beer, feeling the warmth of the sun on our shoulders, and even the half-contemptuous, half-joking look on Harry's face, as if he were watching an orangutan drinking beer, couldn't spoil our enjoyment.We drank for 10 minutes, and for [-] minutes we felt like free men again, like laying asphalt on our roof and drinking beer.

Only Andy didn't drink. I said he usually doesn't drink.He squatted in the shade, shaking his hands between his knees, smiling slightly, looking at us.It's amazing how many people remember Andy like this; even more amazing is how many people say that when Andy fought Harry, they were also laying the roof on the spot.I think there were only nine or ten prisoners that went to work that day, but by 200 the number of staff had exploded to at least [-], maybe more...if you really believe what people say .

In a word, if you want me to say, am I describing ordinary people, or am I describing a legend who is like a pearl in the sand, I think the answer is somewhere in between.Anyway, all I know is that Andy Dufresne isn't like me, or anyone I've ever met since I was in prison.He smuggled $[-] up his anus and smuggled it in, but it seemed he was bringing in something else as well—perhaps a deep belief in his own worth, or a belief that he would eventually win...or just a A sense of freedom, even inside this damned gray wall, he still has an inner light.I know he lost that light only once, and that's part of the story.

In [-], when the World Series started -- the Phillies lost four games in a row in the championship game, if you remember -- the sisters stopped harassing Andy, anyway. .Stammer and Harry said that if Andy went to report to them or the other guards and let them see another drop of blood in his underwear, every sister in Shawshank would go to bed with a headache that night.They didn't resist at all.As I said before, there are always car thieves, arsonists, or child molesters who end up in jail.So from the day of the roof renovation, Andy and the gang of sisters have been doing their best.

At that time, Andy had been transferred to the library, working under an old prisoner named Brooke.Brooke started to work in the library in the late 20s because he had a college education. Although Brooke studied animal husbandry in college, in a place like Shawshank, college students are so rare. There is no choice for beggars. It is the same reason.

Brooke was imprisoned when Coolidge was still president, and after losing a bet, he accidentally killed his wife and daughter.He was paroled in 68.As usual, the government would never let him out while he was of any use to society.Arthritic Brooke was [-] when he staggered out the gates of Shawshank in a Polish suit and French shoes.Holding his parole papers in one hand and his Greyhound coach ticket in the other, he cried as he walked.Over the past few decades, Shawshank has become his whole world. In Brooke's eyes, the world outside the wall is really terrible, just like a superstitious sailor in the fifteenth century was afraid when facing the Atlantic Ocean.In prison, Brooke was an important figure, a librarian and an educated intellectual.If he goes to an outside library to apply for a job, don't say that the library will not use him, he may not even be able to apply for a library card.I heard that he died in a home for poor old people in [-], and he lasted half a year longer than I expected.Yeah, the government was kind of vengeful: they trained him to get used to the cesspit, and then threw him out.

Andy took over Brooke's job. He also worked as a librarian for 23 years. He used the method of dealing with Harry to get what he wanted for the library.I watched him gradually turn the little room that used to display only the Reader's Digest and National Geographic magazines (the room has always had a smell, because until [-], it was just a paint place, never No air conditioning either), expanding into the best prison library in New England.

He takes it step by step.He began by placing a suggestion box by the door, patiently sifting through suggestions that were purely joking, such as "Please buy more pornographic books" or "Please order "Ten Lessons on the Escape"," and then sorted out the prisoners who seemed to be serious. Books needed.He then wrote to the major New York book clubs, asking them to send in their selections at special prices, and received responses from the Literary Society and the Book of the Month Club.He also found that Shawshank's inmates were eager to get information about leisure hobbies, such as professional books on soap carving, woodworking, various handicrafts and solitaire, as well as Gardner and Larry, which were very sought-after in various prisons. Moore's novels, the inmates seem to never get tired of reading books about the court.Also, he has a case of the spicy paperbacks stashed under the library counter, and although he is careful about lending them out and making sure each one is returned on time, almost every new one of this type is quickly sold out. It's broken.

He began writing letters to state legislatures in [-].Stammer was the warden at the time, and he always put on the look that Andy was just a mascot, and he used to chat with Andy in the library, and sometimes put his arm around Andy's shoulder, and talked with him. He was joking.But he couldn't fool anyone, and Andy wasn't anyone's mascot.

He tells Andy that maybe he's a banker on the outside, but that's a thing of the past, and he'd better see the realities of prison.In the eyes of those arrogant Republicans in the state legislature, the government spends money on prisons and correctional education for only three purposes: the first is to build more walls, the second is to build more bars, and the third is to increase more prisons. guard.Moreover, in the eyes of the princes of the state assembly, the prisoners locked up in Thomason, Shawshank, Pittsfield, and South Portland prisons are all scum on earth, who came in to suffer.If there are a few weevils in the bread, what a goddamn misfortune!

Andy was still smiling calmly.He asked Staema, what would happen if a drop of water was dropped on a hard concrete block every year for a million years?Stammer laughed and patted Andy on the back, "You can't live a million years, man, but if you do, I'm sure you'll still be the same, with the same smile on your face Go ahead and write your letter, and I'll post it for you, as long as you pay for the postage yourself."

So Andy continued to write.In the end, he was the one who laughed, though neither Stoma nor Harry had a chance to see it.Andy kept writing to the state legislature, requesting funding to subsidize the prison library, but was repeatedly rejected.But in 1000, he received a check for two hundred dollars.The state legislature might wish to gag him with two hundred dollars and get him to stop bothering them.But Andy felt that his efforts had achieved initial results, so he redoubled his efforts.He started writing two letters a week instead of one.By 1000, he had received four hundred dollars, and for the next ten years, the library received seven hundred dollars every year on time.In [-], the subsidy was even increased to a full [-] yuan.Of course, this cannot compare with the funding of ordinary small town libraries, but at least [-] yuan can purchase a lot of second-hand detective novels and western novels.Before Andy leaves, you can find almost any book you want to read in the Shawshank Library, and even if you can't find it, Andy will probably find it for you.By this time the library had expanded from a paint storage room to three rooms.

Is it all because Andy, you ask, told Harry how to save taxes on his windfall?The answer is: yes...and no.Perhaps you yourself have guessed how it is.

At that time, word spread on the road that Shawshank had raised a financial expert.In the late spring and summer of [-], Andy set up two trust funds for guards who wanted to save money for their children's college education.He also taught some guards who wanted to try their hand at the stock market how to trade in stocks (these guards have achieved outstanding results in stock trading, and one of the guards retired early two years later because he made a fortune).He definitely taught Warden Dunahy a lot about tax avoidance, too.By the spring of [-], more than half of the prison guards in Shawshank were assisted by Andy in handling tax refunds. By [-], all the prison guards' tax returns were handled by him.And the biggest reward he got was the most valuable thing in the prison-to win the kindness of everyone.

Later, when Stammer was in power, Andy's position became even more important.As for the details, there are some things I know, and others I have to guess.I know that many prisoners have relatives or backers outside to help them pay bribes, so they can get special benefits in prison-for example, they can have radios in their cells, or they can get extra opportunities to visit relatives and friends, etc.Inmates at the prison called the men who took care of them outside "angels".All of a sudden, some guy doesn't have to go to the factory on Saturday afternoons, and you know the angels have it all sorted out for him.The way it is usually carried out is that the angel will give the bribe to the middle-level jailer, and then the middleman will be responsible for opening the joints upwards and downwards, and everyone will share some oil and water.

Then there's the cheap car repair service that cost Dunahy his job.At first they operated in secret, but in the late 60s, they started doing business with great fanfare.I'm also pretty sure that some prison construction contractors, manufacturers that provide machinery and equipment for laundromats and license plate factories get kickbacks from prison executives.By the end of the 20s, drugs were rampant, and the same prison administrators even profited from the drug business. This illegal income added up to be quite a lot, although not as large as that in large prisons such as Edica or San Quentin. The inflow and outflow of black money is not a small amount.As a result, the money earned has become a headache instead.You can't just stuff a bunch of bills into your wallet, wait until you're building a swimming pool or adding a room at home, and then pull out a stack of crumpled, crumpled $[-] and $[-] bills from your pocket to pay for the project. fee.Once your income exceeds a certain threshold, explain how you made your money.If your powers of persuasion are very weak, you could end up in jail yourself.

Therefore, Andy's service is even more important.They moved Andy away from the laundry room to work in the library, but if you look at it another way, they never actually moved him, except Andy used to do dirty sheets, now he's laundering dirty money That's all.He exchanged all the illegal income for stocks, bonds, bonds, etc.

Ten years after the rooftop incident, he told me once that he knew exactly how he felt doing these things, and he didn't feel very guilty about them.Anyway, with or without him, the illegal activities will continue as usual.He didn't come to Shawshank voluntarily, he was an innocent, unlucky man played by fate, not a missionary or a good man.

"What's more, Reid," he said to me with that half-smile expression, "what I do here is not much different from what I do outside. I'll teach you the law of cold blood." : The degree to which an individual or company needs professional financial assistance is exactly proportional to the number of people they squeeze. The people who manage here are basically stupid and cruel monsters. In fact, the methods of those outside are still cruel and barbaric, but they are not so stupid , because the level of ability required by the outside world is a little higher than here, not much higher, just a little higher."

"But, drugs—" I said, "I don't want to be nosy, but drugs make me nervous—I'd never do that, ever."

"No," said Andy, "I don't like drugs either, I never did, and I don't like smoking or drinking. But I don't deal drugs, I don't bring them in, I don't sell them, mostly It's the jailers who sell it."

"But--"

"Yeah, I know. There's a line there. There are people who don't do anything bad at all, and they're saints, and pigeons fly on their shoulders, shit on their clothes, and so on; and there's another extreme that's Well, there are people who can do anything if they have money—gun smuggling, drug dealing, anything. Has anyone ever asked you to kill someone?"

I nod.Over the years, many people have indeed approached me, after all, I can get everything.Many people think that since I can get dry batteries for their radios, or cigarettes and marijuana for them, I can also get them someone who knows how to use a knife.

"Of course you've been approached, but you won't, will you?" said Andy, "because people like us, we know that there's a third choice between being holy and doing nothing, and that's what all mature adults People will choose a path. Therefore, you will seek a balance between gains and losses, the lesser of two evils, and try to put goodwill in front of you. I guess, from how well you sleep every night, you can judge what you do. Is it good or not...or judge from what dreams you have at night."

"Good intentions." I said and laughed. "Andy, I know very well that a person will slowly go to hell on the road of kindness."

He became more serious, "Don't you think, this is hell? Shawshank is hell. They sell drugs, and I teach them what to do with the money they make, but I also take the opportunity to fill the library. I know here At least 20 people have passed their high school equivalency exams for enriching themselves with library books. Maybe they can get out and get out of this dunghill ever since. In [-], when we needed a second library, I did it because they needed to please me, I was cheap labor, it was a deal between us."

"And you have private cells, too."

"Of course, I like that."

In the 50s, the prison population grew slowly. In the 60s, there was a threat of a population explosion, because at that time, there were many college students in the United States who wanted to try marijuana, and the laws in the United States were particularly strict.But Andy never had a roommate, except for a time when a tall and silent Indian named Normaden had room with him briefly (like all the Indians who came here, he was called a chief), but Normaden didn't live how long.Many long-term offenders thought Andy was a lunatic, but Andy just smiled.He lives alone, and he likes that... As he said, they want to please him because he's cheap labor.

For people in prison, time is slow. Sometimes you even think that time has stopped, but time is still passing bit by bit.Dunahy left Shawshank amidst the headlines of scandal.Stammer took his place, and for the next six years Shawshank was hell on earth.During Stammer's reign, the beds in the Shawshank Infirmary and the cells in the Brigade were perpetually overcrowded.

One day in 40, when I was looking at a small mirror for shaving in my cell, a [-]-year-old middle-aged man looked at me in the mirror.The boy who had come in in [-], the young man with the bushy red hair, maddened by remorse and bent on suicide, was gone.The red hair was turning gray and falling out, and crow's feet appeared around the corners of her eyes.One day, I will see an old man's face in the mirror, and it will scare me. No one wants to grow old in prison.

In early [-], Stammer also left.At that time, many reporters sneaked in to investigate, and one of them even stayed in Shawshank for four months under a false name and fictitious charges, preparing to expose the many shady scenes in the prison again, but before they had time to swing their clubs, Staema had already escaped.I can see why he's running away, really, because if he's tried, he'll be in Shawshank.If that was the case, he wouldn't survive five hours here.Harry had left two years earlier, the vampire had taken early retirement from a heart attack.

Andy was never implicated in the Stammer affair.In early [-], a new warden, a new deputy warden, and a new captain of the guard came.For the next eight months, Andy returned to his status as a regular prisoner.Also during that time, Normand became his roommate, and then it was business as usual.After Normand moved out, Andy once again enjoyed the preferential treatment of living alone.Although the people above changed back and forth, the illegal activities never stopped.

Once Normaden and I were talking about Andy. "A good one," Normaden said.It was difficult to understand him because he had a cleft lip and palate and he was slurring when he spoke. "He's a nice guy and never cracks a joke. I like living with him, but he doesn't like me living with him, I can tell." He shrugged. "I'm glad to get out of there. It's cold. He doesn't let anyone touch his stuff, and that's okay. He's nice and never cracks a joke, but the air is so bad."

Rita Hayworth's poster hung in Andy's cell until [-], when it was replaced by a still from Marilyn Monroe in the movie "The Seven Year Itch," where she stood On the iron grid cover of the subway vent, the warm wind blows, lifting her skirt.Marilyn Monroe occupied the wall until [-], when the side of the poster was almost rotten, it was replaced by Jane Mansfield. Jane has big breasts, but only hung it for a year, and then replaced it with a British star , the name seems to be Haisha Cotter, I'm not sure.In [-], it was replaced with a Raquel Welch poster.The last thing to hang on it was a beautiful rock star named Linda Ronstadt.

I asked him what those posters mean to him?He gave me a strange and surprised look, "What? They mean the same thing to me as the other inmates! Liberty, I suppose. Looking at those beautiful women, you feel like you can almost...not really, But it's almost possible to... walk through the posters and be with them. A sense of freedom. That's why I've always loved the Raquel Welch one, not just of her, but of the beach she's standing on, she's like It's by the sea in Mexico. It's that quiet place where one can hear one's inner thoughts. Have you ever felt that way about a photo? Feeling like you could almost step in?"

I said I never really thought about it that way.

"Maybe one day you'll see what I mean," he said.Yes, years later I did see exactly what he meant... When I figured it out, the first thing I thought of was what Normanden said at the time, and he said Andy's cell was always cold.

In late March or early April [-], a terrible thing happened to Andy.I told you that Andy had a quality that most inmates (me included) lacked, an inner peace, even an unwavering belief that the long nightmare would one day end.You can describe it as you like, and Andy always looks confident. Most prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment will have a gloomy and hopeless look on their faces after a period of time in prison, but Andy never appears on his face. Passed, until the late winter of [-].

At that time we had a new warden named Sam Norton.If the Mathers and sons had the opportunity to meet Norton, they would have felt very congenial. No one had ever seen a smile on Norton's face.He is a 6-year veteran of the Baptist Adventist Church and has a church badge.Since he became the patriarch of this happy little family, his biggest innovation is to let every new intruder get a copy of the "Bible New Testament".On his desk there is a small memorial plate, gold letters inlaid on teak wood read: "Christ is my Savior", and on the wall is an embroidery work by his wife, which reads: "The judgment of the Lord is about to Come.” Those words make most of us gasp, we all feel that Judgment Day has come, and we are all willing to testify that no rock will hide us, nor a dead tree provide us with shelter.He quotes the Bible every time he lectures.Every time you meet this kind of person, I suggest that you better keep a smile on your face and cover your lower body with your hands.

There were far fewer wounded patients in the infirmary than under Stammer, and there were no more moonlight burials, but that didn't mean Norton didn't believe in the efficacy of punishment.The business in the confinement room is always booming. Many people lost their teeth, not because they were beaten, but because the prison officials only allowed them to eat bread and water, resulting in malnutrition.

Norton is the nastiest hypocrite I've ever met in high places.The illegal business in prison has always been a booming business, and Norton is full of tricks.Andy knew all about the inside story, and since we had gradually become good friends at this time, he revealed some information to me from time to time.Andy always spoke of these things with a half-amusement, half-disgust look on his face, as if he were talking about some ugly, predatory bugs whose ugliness and greed are more ridiculous than terrifying .

Norton established a system of "outside prison".You may have seen this kind of report sixteen or seventeen years ago; even "Newsweek" wrote a feature about it, which sounds like a great innovation in prison administration.Let the prisoners cut wood outside the prison, build bridges and embankments, and build potato cellars.Norton called him an "outsider," and was invited to speak at every Rotary and Kiwi club in New England, especially when his photo was featured in Newsweek.The inmates called it the "road gang," but none of the inmates was ever invited to the Kiwanis or the Rotary Club to express their views.

So, from logging, digging ditches to laying underground cable conduits, Norton can be seen fishing for oil and water to fill his own pockets.Whether it's people, materials, or any item you can imagine, there are a hundred ways to monetize it.But Norton took a different approach.Since prison inmates are cheap slave labor, you can't compete with them, so the construction industry is all terrified of Norton's foreign prison plan.Therefore, Norton, a devout Christian holding a Bible and wearing a 30-year commemorative badge, received many thick envelopes from under the table during his 16-year tenure as the warden of Shawshank.When he received the envelope, he would bid too much for the project, or not bid for the project at all, or declare that his "outside prison" program had been signed by someone else.I just wondered why Norton had never been found dead in the trunk of an abandoned Thunderbird on a highway in Massachusetts, with his hands tied behind his back and six bullets in his head.

In short, as the lyrics of the old song played in the bar: My God, the money is just rolling in!Norton must have very much agreed with the Puritan tradition of knowing who God's most favored people are by simply checking their bank accounts.

During this period, Andy was Norton's right-hand man and silent partner, and the prison library became a hostage in Norton's hands.Norton knew it, and took full advantage of it.Andy said Norton's favorite adage was that one hand washes away the sins of the other.So Andy offered Norton all kinds of useful advice.I dare not say that he personally created Norton's "outside prison" plan, but I'm sure he handled all kinds of money and provided useful advice for the son of a bitch.The money is rolling in, and... boy!The library has also been stocked with new auto repair manuals, encyclopedias, and reference books for college entrance exams, as well as more Gardner and Larmore novels.

I believe that this happened because Norton didn't want to lose his left and right hands, and he was afraid that Andy would say something against him if he really got out of prison.

My information was pieced together over seven years, a little here and a little there, some from Andy, but not all.He never wanted to talk about it, and I don't blame him, some of it I got from half a dozen different sources.I have said that prisoners are nothing but slaves, and like slaves they pretend to be stupid but actually prick up their ears.I've been telling the story back and forth, but I'll tell you the whole story from the beginning to the end, and then you may understand why Andy fell into a trance of depression and despair for ten months.I don't think he knew the truth about the murder until 15, [-] years after he was in this sweet hell cell.I guess he didn't know it was going to get that bad until he got to know Tommy Williams.

Tommy joined our happy little family in November 27.Tommy considered himself a Massachusetts native, but he wasn't proud of it.During his [-] years of life, he sat in prisons in New England.He's a professional thief, but I think he should pick something else, and maybe you will too.

He is married and his wife visits him once a week.She thought that if Tommy could finish high school, the situation might gradually improve, and she and her three-year-old son would also benefit, so she persuaded Tommy to continue his education, so Tommy began to visit the library regularly.

Helping inmates with their studies has become routine for Andy, who helps Tommy revisit high school subjects (not many) and pass his equivalency exams.At the same time, he also taught Tommy how to use the correspondence courses to complete the subjects that he failed or did not take before.

Tommy may not have been the best student Andy ever taught, and I don't know if he ever got a high school diploma, but none of that matters to the story we're about to tell.The important thing is that Tommy later became very fond of Andy, as did many others.

In several conversations, he asked Andy, "How did someone as smart as you end up like this?" which was the same as asking someone, "How did a nice girl like you end up like this?" abrupt.But Andy wasn't the type to answer such questions, so he diverted the conversation with a smile.Tommy, of course, went to others for advice, and at last he figured out the whole thing, but he himself was astonished.

The object of his questioning was a fellow laundryman named Charlie Rapp.Charlie has spent 12 years in prison for murder.He couldn't wait to tell Tommy the whole trial process. The action of pulling out the clean sheets from the gin and stuffing them into the basket that day was no longer as monotonous as usual.Charlie was just telling the jury to wait until after lunch before returning to court to convict Andy when the sirens sounded and the cloth gin screeched to a halt.It was the other inmates' job to push freshly laundered nursing home sheets into the gin at the other end of the machine, and spit out a dry, ironed sheet every five seconds at Tommy and Charlie's end. Pull up the bed sheets spit out by the machine one by one, fold them and put them into the cart, which is already covered with clean brown kraft paper.

But when Tommy heard the sirens, he just stood there in a daze, his mouth wide open, his chin almost touching his chest, and he stared blankly at Charlie.The sheets spit out from the machine fell to the floor and accumulated, soaking up the dirty water on the floor, which is usually damp and dirty in the laundry room.Foreman Home came running up and growling loudly, wondering what was wrong.But Tommy turned a blind eye and continued talking to Charlie as if Home, who had beaten so many people, didn't exist at all.

"What did you say was the golf coach's name?"

"Quentin," Charlie replied, looking confused and frustrated.He said afterwards that Tommy's face was like a white flag raised when he was defeated and surrendered. "Looks like Glenn Quentin—something."

"Hey! Hey! Pay attention!" Holm's neck swelled as red as a rooster's comb. "Put the sheets back in the cold water, hurry up, God, you—"

"Glyn Quentin, my God!" said Tommy, and that was all he could say, for Holm gave him a hard blow to the back of the head with his baton, and Tommy fell to the ground, knocking the Three front teeth.When he woke up, he was already in the confinement room.He was held in solitary confinement for a week, given only water, bread, and a fine.

That happened in February [-]. After he was released from the solitary confinement, Tommy asked half a dozen more old prisoners, and all the stories he heard were similar.I was one of the people who was asked, but when I asked him why he cared, he just didn't answer.

One day, he went to the library and told Andy a lot.For the first and last time Andy lost his composure since Andy came up to me and asked me to buy a Rita Hayworth poster... only this time he was completely out of control.

When I saw him later that day, he seemed to have been hit hard, right between the eyebrows.His hands were shaking, and when I spoke to him he didn't answer.That evening he ran to Captain Billy Hanlon, and made an appointment to see Warden Norton the next day.He told me afterwards that he didn't close his eyes all night, listening to the cold wind howling outside in midwinter, watching the rays of searchlights sweeping around, drawing long moving shadows on the concrete wall of the cage, starting from the time when Truman was in power. Since the beginning of time, this cage has become his home.His mind was racing through the whole thing.He said it was as if Tommy had a key in his hand that opened the inner cage of his heart, the cage of his own self-imprisonment.What was locked in that cage was not a person, but a tiger, and the name of that tiger was "Hope".The key that Tommy had given was just enough to open the cage, releasing the Tiger of Hope, roaring in his head.

Four years ago, Tommy was arrested in Rhode Island while driving a stolen car full of stolen goods.Tommy enlists his accomplices in exchange for a reduced sentence, so he only needs to serve two to four years.When he was in prison for nearly a year, his cellmate got out and was replaced by another inmate named Aiu Blache.Blatch was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison for armed home invasion and theft.

"I've never seen such a jumpy guy," Tommy told me. "A guy like that shouldn't be a thief at all, at least not with a gun. If there's even the slightest sound around, he's likely to jump to the In mid-air, just draw the gun and shoot. He almost strangled me one night just because someone was in another cell, scratching the bars of their cell with an iron mug."

"I lived with him for seven months before I got free. I can't say we talked because you know, you can't really talk to Blatch, every time we talk, it's always him talking Well, I'm only listening. He never stops talking, and if you try to interrupt, he rolls his eyes and shakes his fist at you. Every time he does that it gives me chills down my spine. He's tall, almost Bald, with green eyes set in sunken sockets. God, I hope I never see him again in my life."

"He goes on and on every night: where he grew up, how he escaped from the orphanage, what he did, the women he fucked, the poker he won; Listen to him carefully. My face is not very good, but I don't want plastic surgery."

"It's unbelievable that he's taken at least two hundred places by what he says, and he'd startle like a firecracker when someone farts loudly, but he swears it's true.  …Listen, Ray Dude, I know some people make up stories after hearing something, but before I heard about this golf coach named Quentin, I remember thinking that if one day Bratche would sneak into my house and steal something I would be lucky if I found out after the fact. I can't imagine what would happen if she coughed or turned over in her sleep when he sneaked into a woman's room and rummaged through a jewelry box? Just thinking of this Everything is horrifying.”

"He said he killed people, killed people who pissed him off, at least that's what he said, and I believed him, he looked like he could. It's like a gun with the firing pin sawn off and ready to fire. I know a guy who has a police pistol with the firing pin sawn off. It's no good, it's just boring because the trigger on the pistol is so sensitive Well, as long as he has the stereo on full blown and puts the gun on the speaker box, it will probably fire automatically. Blatche is such a guy. I can't be more specific. Anyway, I believe he bombed some people .”

"So one night, on a whim, I asked him who had he killed? I was just kidding, you know. He laughed and said, 'There's a guy serving time in Maine for killing two people. I killed This stupid wife and another guy, I sneaked into his house, and the guy got on with me.' I don't remember if he ever told me the woman's name," Tommy went on, "maybe he did, but in New England, where Dufresne is as common as Smith and Jones elsewhere. But he did tell me the name of the fellow he killed, and he said his name was Glenn Quentin, and he was a nuisance, Rich bastard, professional golfer. He said he thought the guy had a lot of cash in the house, maybe five thousand dollars, which was a lot of money at the time. So I asked, 'What's the When did it happen?' He said: 'After the war, not long after the war ended.'"

"So, he broke into their house, woke the two of them up, and Quentin gave him some trouble, that's what he said. I thought, maybe the guy just started snoring. And he told me, Quentin was hanging out with a lawyer's wife and the court sent the lawyer to Shawshank. He laughed when he finished. God, I was so thankful when I finally got out of prison and out of that cell."

I think you can easily see why Andy lost his mind a little after hearing Tommy's story, and why he asked to see the warden immediately.Blatch was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison, and Tommy had known him four years ago.By the time Andy heard about it in [-], Blatch might have been on the verge of getting out of jail...even out of jail.What Andy worries about is that, on the one hand, Blatch may still be in prison, and on the other hand, he may also disappear with the wind.

Tommy's story isn't entirely consistent, but isn't that true of real life?Blatche told Tommy that the one locked up was a famous lawyer, while Andy was a banker, but people with little education could easily confuse the two professions.And let's not forget that it had been twelve years since Brache told Tommy about the trial.Blatche told Tommy he took more than $12 from Quentin's drawer, but police said at trial that there was no sign of theft in the house.In my opinion, first of all, if the person who owned the money is dead, how can you possibly know how much was stolen from the house?Second, maybe Blatche was lying after all?Maybe he didn't want to admit that he killed two people for no reason.Third, maybe there were indeed signs of burglary in the house, but they were ignored by the police-the police are sometimes very stupid, or they may have deliberately covered it up in order not to spoil the prosecutor's big business.Don't forget, the prosecutor was running for office at the time, and he really needed to convict people for publicity, and a burglary-murder case that was still unsolved wasn't doing him any favors.

But among these three possibilities, I think the second is the most likely.I knew a lot of guys like Blatche in Shawshank, they all had crazy eyes and were ready to pull the trigger.Even if they got caught stealing a cheap two-dollar watch and nine-dollar change, they'd make it out to be stealing a giant diamond like a Hope and getting away with it every time.

Despite slight misgivings, one thing convinces Andy of Tommy's story.Blatche didn't kill Quentin on the spur of the moment. He called Quentin a "rich bastard," and he knew Quentin was a professional golfer.During those one or two years, Andy and his wife would go to the country club to drink and eat twice a week, and after Andy found out that his wife was cheating, he often drank there alone.The country club had a marina for boats, and for a while in [-] there was a part-time employee who fit Tommy's description of Blatch.The man was tall, almost bald, with deep-set green eyes.When he stares at you, it seems that he is looking at you, which will make you feel uncomfortable.He didn't stay there long, and either resigned himself or the man in charge of the docks fired him.But you don't easily forget a guy like him, he's so conspicuous.

So Andy went to see Norton on a dreary day with low clouds and a gray sky against gray walls.It was also the day when the snow began to melt, and lifeless grass was exposed in the fields outside the prison.

The warden has a fairly spacious office in the administration building, and his office is attached to the office of the deputy warden, who was out that day, but I have a close friend who happened to be there, whose real name I forgot, Everyone called him Chester.Chester was in charge of watering the flowers and waxing the floor, and I think a lot of the plants must have died of thirst that day, and only the keyhole was waxed, because he was just trying to listen in through the keyhole with his dirty ears.

He heard the warden's door open and close, and then he heard the warden say, "Good morning, Dufresne, what's the matter?"

"The Warden," Andy said, and old Chester told us later that he could hardly recognize Andy's voice because it had become too much. "The warden...something happened...I...it was really...I don't know where to start."

"Then why don't you start at the beginning?" said the warden, probably in his "Let's open the Bible No. 20 and read the three Psalms together" voice: "It will be much easier that way."

So Andy started from the beginning.He first explained the reasons and consequences of his imprisonment, and then repeated Tommy's words.He also said Tommy's name, but judging from the development of things later, this was an unwise move, but at that time he had no other choice. If there is no witness, how can others believe what you said?

After he finished, Norton said nothing.I can imagine his expression: the whole person is leaning on the back of the chair, his head is about to hit the photo of Governor Reed hanging on the wall, his palms are clasped, his fingertips are on his chin, his lips are pouted, from the eyebrows to the top of his forehead. It's wrinkles, and the 30-year commemorative badge is shining.

"Well," he said at last, "it's the bloodiest story I've ever heard. But tell you what surprised me the most, Dufresne."

"Sir, what is it?"

"That's why you believe the story."

"Sir, I don't understand what you mean?" Chester told us that Andy Dufresne, who confronted Harry fearlessly on the roof 13 years ago, became incoherent at this moment.

Norton said: "It seemed to me that young Tommy was so impressed with you that he'd heard your story and naturally wanted to...to lift your spirits, let's say, it was very Naturally. He's too young, and not very bright, to know what it's going to do to you. I suggest you now—"

"You think I didn't suspect that?" Andy asked, "but I never told Tommy about the longshoreman. I never told anyone about it, or even thought about it! But Tommy Mi’s description of his cellmate and that worker...they are exactly the same!”

"I think you are also affected by selective cognition." Norton laughed dryly after finishing speaking. "Selective cognition" is the favorite term used by those who specialize in prison administration probation.

"Not at all, sir."

"That's your prejudice," said Norton, "but mine is different. Don't forget, I only heard your partial account of a man who worked at the country club."

"No, sir," said Andy urgently, "it's not like that, because—"

"Anyway," Norton said, raising his voice deliberately over him, "shall we look at it from another angle? Suppose—just suppose—that there was such a fellow Brocher."

"Blatch." Andy said quickly.

"Well, Blatch, let's just say he's Tommy's cellmate in the Rhode Island jail. Very likely he's out of jail, fine. We didn't even know he was in jail with Tommy. How long? All I know is that he should serve six to 12 years."

"No, we don't know how long he's been in prison, but Tommy said he's been doing poorly, and I think he's probably still in prison. Even if he's released, the prison will definitely leave his address, his relatives' name--"

"It is almost impossible to find anything from either source."

Andy was silent for a moment, then blurted out, "But it's always an opportunity, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course. So, let's assume that there is such a Blatch, and he is still in the Rhode Island prison. If we ask him about this, how will he react? Will he kneel immediately? Come down, roll your eyes up and say: 'I did it! I did it! Sentence me to life imprisonment!'"

"Why are you so slow?" Andy said.His voice was so low that old Chester could hardly hear him clearly, but he heard the warden's words clearly.

"What? What did you say about me?"

"Sluggish!" cried Andy. "Is it on purpose?"

"Dufreny, you've already wasted 5 minutes of my time, no, 7 minutes, I've been very busy today, I think we'll stop here—"

"Golf clubs have old attendance records too, didn't you think that?" Andy yelled. "They must have kept tax returns, unemployment benefits, and all sorts of files with his name on them. This one It's only been 15 years since it happened and they must remember him! They will remember Blatch. Tommy can testify that Blatch said those things and the manager of the country club can testify that Blatch does work there Yes. I can ask for a reopening! I can—”

"Guard! Guard! Pull this man out!"

"What's the matter with you?" Andy said.Andy, old Chester told me, was almost screaming. "It's my life, my chance to get out, can't you see that? Won't you make a long-distance call and check, at least check what Tommy said? I'll pay for the call, and I'll—"

At this moment, there was a sound of chaotic footsteps, and the guard came in and dragged him out.

"Solitary confinement," said Norton, probably touching his thirty-year pin as he spoke. "Water and bread only."

And so they drag Andy out of control, completely out of control, and he's yelling, "This is my life, my life, don't you understand? My life—"

Andy spent 20 days in the confinement room. This was his second time in confinement, and it was also the first time that Norton had marked him down in the record book since he joined this happy family.

While we're at it, I have to tell you something about the brig.Our Maine brig is a product of the pioneer days of the eighteenth century.At that time, no one would waste time on terms like "Prisonology" or "rehabilitation" and "selective cognition". It was a black and white era, and you were either innocent or guilty.If guilty, either hanged or imprisoned.If you are sentenced to prison, there is no prison for you to live in. The state government of Maine will give you a hoe, let you dig from sunrise to sunset, dig a hole for yourself, and then give you some animal skins and a bucket, I want you to lie down in the hole you dug.After going down, the jailer will cover the hole with an iron grid, and then throw in some grain, or give you one or two pieces of meat a week, and maybe a little barley porridge on Sunday night.You pee in the bucket, and the jailer comes every morning at six o'clock to pour the water, and you take the same bucket to collect the water.When it rains, you can still use this bucket to scoop the rain water out of the hole... unless you want to drown in the hole like a mouse.

No one would live in this kind of hole for too long, and thirty months was considered a lot.As far as I know, the person who survived the longest time in such a pit was a 14-year-old psychopath who chopped off the life of a classmate with a piece of rusted metal.He stayed in the cave for seven years, but of course because he was young and strong.

You have to remember that in those days you could be hanged for anything more serious than theft, or blasphemy, or forgetting your handkerchief to blow your nose on the Sabbath.The penalty for these offenses and other misdemeanors is three to six months or nine months in that burrow.When you come out, you'll be as white as a fish's belly, with half-blind eyes, shaken teeth, and fungus-covered feet.

Shawshank's brig wasn't that bad... I guess.Human feelings can be roughly divided into three levels: good, bad and terrible.As you step into darker and darker places in dire directions, it gets harder and harder to classify further.

When in detention, you have to go down 23 stairs to get to the detention room.The only sound there was the ticking of water, and the only light was the faint glow of some rickety sixty-watt bulbs.The cellar is barrel-shaped, just like the safes that rich people sometimes hide behind portraits. The circular entrances and exits are also like safes, with solid doors that can be opened and closed instead of fences.The air vent of the confinement room is above, but no light will come in from above, only a small light bulb is used for illumination.Every night at eight o'clock, the main control room of the prison will turn off the lights in the confinement room on time, an hour earlier than other cells.If you like living in the dark all the time, they can do that too, but not many people do that...but after eight o'clock, you don't have a choice.There was a bed against the wall and a urine can, but no toilet seat.There are only three ways to pass the time: sit, poop or sleep, what a great choice!Spending 20 days there is like a year. Thirty days is like two years, forty days is like ten years.Sometimes you'll hear rats moving in the ventilation system, in which case there's nothing to be afraid of.

If there's one good thing about being in solitary, it's that you have a lot of time to think.Andy thought about it during the 20 days he enjoyed bread and water.When he came out, he asked to see the warden again, but was refused. The warden said that such meetings would be "counterproductive." If you want to work in prison administration or corrections, this is another one you have to master first. terms of.

Andy patiently begged to see the warden again, and then made another request.he's changed.In [-], when spring returned to the land, Andy's face was wrinkled, gray hair grew on his head, and the usual smile disappeared from his mouth.His eyes were blank.When a guy starts staring like this, you know he's counting the years, months, weeks, and even days in prison he's already had.

He was patient and kept making requests.He has nothing but time.It's summer, and President Kennedy promises to eradicate poverty and inequality in the Washington capital, unaware that he has only half a year to live.In Liverpool, England, a chorus called "The Beatles" is popping up, but in the United States, no one knows who the Beatles are.And the Boston Red Sox were still at the bottom of the American League at this time, and it would be another four years before they reached what New Englanders called "the miracle year of [-]."All these things happen out there in the big free world.

Norton finally met with Andy at the end of June, and it took seven years for me to learn the contents of that conversation from Andy myself.

"If it's about money, you don't have to worry," Andy lowered his voice and said to Norton, "Do you think I'm going to tell it? I'm asking for my own death, and I'll be charged—"

"Enough," Norton interrupted.His face was stretched long and cold like a tombstone. He leaned against the back of the chair desperately, and the back of his head almost touched the embroidery on the wall that said "The judgment of the Lord is coming".

"but--"

"Never mention the word 'money' in front of me," Norton said, "in this office or anywhere, unless you want the library to be turned into a storage room, you know?"

"I just want to make you feel at ease."

"Hey, if I need a son of a bitch who cries all day long to calm my mind, then I might as well retire. I agree to meet you because I am tired of continuing to entangle with you, Dufresne, you have to stop in moderation .if you want to buy the brooklyn bridge, that's your business, don't blame me, if i allow everyone to come and say these crazy things to me, everyone here will come to me and complain. i always respect you , but that's the end of the matter, you understand?"

"I know," Andy said, "but I'll get a lawyer."

"doing what?"

"I think we can piece the whole thing together. With the testimony of Tommy and me, plus the court records and the testimony of the country club employees, I think we can piece together what really happened."

"Tommy isn't serving his sentence here anymore."

"what?"

"He's been transferred to another prison."

"Turn away, where to go?"

"Kathy Gate Prison."

Andy fell silent.He's a smart guy, but if you can't smell the terms of the deal, you're really stupid.Casey Gate is located in Arustoku County in the north and is a relatively open prison.Prisoners there usually need to dig potatoes. Although they work hard, they can get reasonable pay, and if they want, they can also go to school to participate in various skills training.More importantly, for people like Tommy with wives and children, Cassimmon has a vacation system that allows him to live a normal life on weekends. In other words, he can make out with his wife and build models with his children The plane, or the whole family going out for a picnic.

Norton must have spread all these benefits in front of Tommy. His only request to Tommy is that he is not allowed to mention Bratche again, otherwise he will be sent to the terrible Thomson Prison. Make out, but have to serve some old gays instead.

"Why?" Andy asked, "Why did you—"

"I've done you a favor," Norton said calmly. "I checked the Rhode Island Jail, and they did have an inmate named Blatch at one time, but he's out on parole because of the so-called 'Temporary Parole Program. Out of prison and never seen again. These liberal crazy schemes just let criminals roam the streets."

Andy said, "Is the warden over there... your friend?"

Norton smiled coldly, "I recognize him." He said.

"Why?" Andy repeated, "Why are you doing this? You know I won't talk nonsense...not about you, and you know it, so why do you do it?"

"Because people like you make me sick," said Norton evenly. "I like you the way you are, Mr. Dufresne, and as long as I'm Warden at Shawshank, you're going to keep going. Stay here. You used to think you were superior to other people. I'm good at seeing that on other people's faces. I noticed the superiority on your face from the first day I walked into the library. Now, this expression is gone, and I think it's good. You don't think you are useful, people like you need to learn to be humble. When you used to walk on the sports field, it seemed that it was your living room all the time. Like you're at a cocktail party and you're greeting someone's Mr or Mrs, but you're not walking around with that look anymore. I'll keep an eye on you to see if you get that look again .I'll be happy to watch you for years to come. Get the hell out of here now!"

"Okay, but all the activities between us end here, Norton. All the investment advice and tax-free guidance end here. You can find other prisoners to teach you how to declare income tax!"

Norton's face turned brick red at first...then the color faded away. "Now you go back to the solitary confinement for another 30 days, only to eat bread and water, and make another entry on your record. Think about it after you go in. If you dare to stop all this, the library will also Close the doors, I will definitely find a way to restore the library to the way it was before you came in, and I will make your life very... very difficult. You can't continue to live alone in a single room in the Hilton Hotel in the fifth arrondissement, You don't want to keep the stones on the windowsill, the guards stop protecting you from those gay men, you lose everything, understand?"

I think he made his words very clear.

Time continued to pass day by day-this is the oldest device of nature, and perhaps the only magic, Andy changed, he became more ruthless, that is the only adjective I can think of.He continued to cover Norton's dirty work, and he continued to manage the library, so outwardly, it was business as usual.Every year on his birthday and at the end of the year, he will still have a drink, and continue to share the remaining half bottle of wine with me.From time to time I got him new millstone cloths, and in 19 I got him a new hammer, the one that had broken down 19 years earlier. 22 years!When you say those words suddenly, the three syllables are like the slamming of the door on the grave.In [-], a hammer worth [-] yuan was already [-] yuan.When I handed him the hammer, both he and I couldn't help but smile sadly.

He continued to grind stones he found on the playing field, but the playing field was smaller because half of it was asphalted in [-].Still, it looks like he's found quite a few rocks to keep himself busy.Whenever he finished a stone, he would put it on the windowsill facing east, and he told me that he likes to watch the pieces of schist, quartz, granite, mica, etc. he found in the dirt, sparkling in the sun , Andy named these stones "Millennium Sandwiches" because the rock formations were accumulated over decades, hundreds, or even thousands of years.

From time to time, Andy would give away the stone sculptures to make room for the newly polished stones.He most often gave me stones, including the pair of cufflinks-like stones. I have five of them. Among them is a mica stone that looks like a man throwing a javelin, which was carefully carved.I still keep these stones and play with them from time to time.Whenever I see these stones, I always think of how many things can be done if a person knows how to use time (even if only a little time at a time), accumulating bit by bit.

So, on the surface, it's business as usual.If Norton was out to get Andy down, he'd have to pierce the surface to see the change.But I think Norton would be satisfied if he could see that Andy had changed in the four years since the conflict between Norton and Andy, because Andy has changed so much.

He once said that when Andy walked on the playground, it was like going to a cocktail party.I wouldn't describe it that way, but I know what he means.I have also said before that the feeling of freedom is like an invisible cloak on Andy. He has never developed a mental state of being in prison, his eyes have never been dull, and he has never been like other prisoners. At the end of the day, with slumped shoulders and plodding steps, I go back to my cell to face another endless night.He always holds his head up and walks briskly, as if he were on his way home - where a good supper and a nice woman were waiting for him, instead of bland vegetables and mashed potatoes and a fat piece or two , and a poster of Raquel Welch on the wall.

But during those four years, while he didn't quite become like the others, he did become silent, introspective, and often brooding.How could he be blamed?But it worked out for Norton...at least for a while.

His gloominess changed in the 9 World Series.It was a dream year. Instead of finishing No. [-], the Boston Red Sox won the American League title, just as the Las Vegas gamblers predicted.The moment they won, the whole prison erupted.There seems to be a silly thought that if the Red Sox can be brought back to life, maybe everyone else can too.I can't explain that feeling right now, any more than Beatles fans can explain their madness.But it's a very real feeling.As the Red Sox marched toward the World Series, every radio in the prison was tuned in.When the Red Sox lost two straight in the title game in St. Louis, there was gloominess in the prison; when Pitlocheri performed the bye catch, the jubilation almost knocked the roof off; In the most crucial seventh game of the World Series, when Leonberg lost the shot, the Red Sox fell short, and the championship dream was broken, everyone's mood fell to the bottom.Only Norton could be gloating on the sidelines, that son of a bitch, he likes people in prison to be ashamed all day long.

But Andy's mood didn't hit rock bottom, maybe because he wasn't a baseball fan in the first place.Still, he seemed to catch the cheer, and it didn't go away after the Red Sox lost their final game.He took out the invisibility cloak of freedom from the closet again, and put it on his body.

I remember a bright and bright autumn day in late October, two weeks after a baseball game, which must have been a Sunday, because the sports field was packed, with quite a few people throwing Frisbees, playing football, doing back-and-forth, and some Meeting relatives and friends in the reception room, smoking cigarettes, telling honest lies, and receiving packages that had been checked by the prison, under the watchful eye of the prison guards.

Andy was squatting against the wall, juggling two stones in his hands, his face turned toward the sun.In this season, the sun is surprisingly warm on this day.

"Hello, Red," he called, "come and talk."

I passed.

"Do you want this?" he asked, handing me a polished Millennium Sandwich.

"Of course," I said, "beautiful, thank you."

He shrugged and changed the subject, "Next year is your big day."

I nod, next year will be my 60.00th anniversary in prison, and I've spent [-]% of my life in Shawshank State Penitentiary.

"Do you think you can get out?"

"Of course, by then I should have a gray beard and three crumbling teeth in my mouth."

He smiled slightly, turned his face to the sun again, closed his eyes, "It feels really comfortable."

"I guess that's how it feels when you know that damn winter is coming."

He nodded.We all fell silent.

"When I get out," said Andy at last, "I'm going somewhere where there's sunshine all year round." He spoke with such poise as if he had a month to go. "Do you know where I'm going, Red?"

"do not know."

"Zihuatanijo," he said, whispering the words as if singing, "in Mexico, about twenty miles from Mexican Route 37 and Puraja Asu, A small town about a hundred miles from Cabogo, do you know how the Mexicans describe the Pacific Ocean?"

I said I don't know.

"They say the Pacific has no memory, so I'm going to spend the rest of my life there. Red, in a memoryless, warm place."

As he spoke, he picked up a handful of small rocks and threw them one by one, watching them roll across the infield.Before long, there will be a foot of snow here.

"Zihuatanejo. I'm going to run a small hotel there. Six cottages on the beach and another six close to the road. I'll find someone to take the boat out and take guests out to sea and catch the biggest marlin You can also get a trophy, I will put his picture in the lobby, this will not be the kind of hotel for the whole family, but for honeymooners... "

"Where did you get the money to buy such a wonderland?" I asked. "Your stock?"

He looked at me and smiled, "Almost," he said, "Red, you surprise me sometimes."

"what are you talking about?"

"When you are in trouble, there are only two kinds of reactions," Andy said. He circled his hands, struck a match, and lit a cigarette. "Suppose there was a room full of rare and famous paintings and antiques, Red? Suppose the owner of the house heard that a hurricane was coming? He might react in one of two ways. The first kind of person always has the most optimistic expectations, thinking that the hurricane may Will turn around, God will not let the damn hurricane destroy the famous paintings of Rembrandt and Degas; if the hurricane does come, these things are insured anyway. Another kind of person believes that the hurricane will definitely come, he His house will definitely suffer. Even though the weather bureau says the hurricane is turning, this guy still assumes the hurricane will come back and destroy his house. So he prepares for the worst because he knows just prepare for the worst , you can always have optimistic expectations.”

I also lit a cigarette. "Are you saying you're ready for the future?"

"Yeah, I'm the kind of guy who prepares for a hurricane, I know how bad it's going to be, I didn't have a lot of time, but in the time I had, I took action. I had a friend - pretty much the only one The guy who supported me — he was with an investment firm in Portland and passed away six years ago."

"I feel sorry for you."

"Well," Andy said, throwing the cigarette butt away, "Linda and I had about $4000 in savings, which wasn't a lot, but we were young and we had a great future ahead of us." He made a Grimacing, then laughing, "When the wind blows, I start moving Rembrandts to places where the hurricane doesn't. So I sell my stock, pay my taxes like any good citizen, and don't hide anything or cut corners .”

"Didn't they freeze your property?"

"I'm charged with murder, Red, I'm not dead! Thank goodness they can't just freeze the property of innocent people, and they didn't charge me with murder at the time. My friend Jimmy and I were a little Time, my loss was not small, and I sold all the stocks in a hurry. But what I needed to worry about at the time was much more serious than a small blood loss in the stock market.”

"Yeah, I guess so."

"When I came to Shawshank, the money was safe, and it still is. Red, there was a man out there in the world that no one had ever seen in person, but he had a Social Security card and a Maine A driver's license, and a birth certificate. His name is Peter Stephen, isn't that a good anonymity?"

"Who is this person?" I asked.I think I know what he's going to say, but I can't believe it.

"I."

"Are you going to tell me that you still have time to get a false identity while these people are working on you?" I said, "or that by the time you're on trial, it's all sorted—"

"I'm not going to tell you that. My friend Jimmy did it for me. He started it after my appeal was dismissed. He kept the papers until the spring of [-]."

"You must have a deep friendship, because it's absolutely illegal to do that," I said, not sure how much of what he said was true—most of it, a little of it, or none of it.But the sun came out that day, it was a nice warm day, and it was a good story.

"He and I are very good friends," Andy said. "We were together in the war, we went to France, Germany, he is a good friend. He knows that it is not legal to do it, but he also knows that in the United States. Fake identities are easy and safe. He invested all my money in Peter Stephen's name - all due taxes were paid so the IRS wouldn't bother him. He took the money When I went to invest, it was 37 and [-], and today, the amount has exceeded [-] yuan."

I guess there must have been a "pop" when my jaw dropped to my chest in astonishment, because he laughed.

"If you think about it, a lot of people often regret that if only they knew how to invest in this and that in 800, and Peter Stephen invested his money in two or three of these projects. If I hadn't been locked up in Here, I already have a net worth of seventy-eight million yuan, and I can drive a Rolls-Royce...Maybe I also have a serious stomach ulcer."

He picked up another handful of dust and gracefully let the little sand flow slowly over his fingertips.

"Hope for the best, but plan for the worst—that's all. Fake names just to save money, just remove antique calligraphy and paintings before the hurricane. But I never expected , this hurricane... unexpectedly blows for so long."

I didn't speak for a while.I was thinking, squatting next to me, the thin man in the gray prison uniform, probably possesses wealth that Norton would not be able to earn in his lifetime, even with the money he embezzled, it is still beyond reach.

"You really weren't kidding when you said you could get a lawyer," I said at last. "You could afford a lawyer of Dano's class with all that money. You Why don't you hire a lawyer to defend you? You can get out of prison soon?"

He smiled the same way he used to when he told me that he and his wife had a great future ahead of them. "No," he said.

"If you got a good lawyer, you could get that boy Tommy out of Casey Gate, whether he wanted to or not," I said, starting to get carried away. "You could ask for a reopening, hire a private eye to find Blatch and bring Norton down, why not?"

"Because I'm trapped by my own schemes, if I try to use Peter Stephen's money from prison, it's likely to lose all the money. Jimmy could have helped me, but he died, and you can see the problem Where is it?"

I understand.All Andy's money belonged to someone else, despite the great good that the money could bring.If the prosperity of the field he invests in suddenly deteriorates, Andy can only watch it fall, staring at the stock and bond pages of the newspaper every day. I think this is really a tortured life.

"I'll tell you what's going on, Red. There's a big pasture in Buxden. You know where Buxden is?"

I said I knew, it was near Scarborough.

"That's right. There's a stone wall on the north side of the pasture, just like the stone wall in Frost's poem. There's a stone at the bottom of the wall, and that stone has nothing to do with the pasture in Maine. It's a piece of volcanic glass that sat on my desk as a paperweight until [-]. My friend Jimmy put it under the stone wall and hid a key in it that opened the A safe in the Portland branch of Casco Bank."

"I think you're in big trouble. When your friend Jimmy passed away, the Tax Office must have opened all his safes, along with his executor, of course."

Andy smiled and patted my head. "Well, it's not just paste in the head. But we've prepared for it, and we've factored in the possibility of Jimmy dying before I get out. The safe was rented under Peter Stephen's name. , Jimmy's lawyer sends a check every year to the bank in Portland to pay the rent. Peter Stephen is in that box, waiting to come out, and his birth certificate, social security card, and driver's license are there, and the driver's license has It hasn't been changed in six years, because Jimmy died for six years, but it can be reissued for five bucks, his stock is there, and there are tax-free municipal bonds and bonds worth 1 yuan each, Eighteen in total."

I whistled once.

“Peter Stephen is locked in a bank safe in Portland, and Andy Dufresne is locked in a safe in Shawshank,” he said. The key to a new life is buried under a large block of black glass in Buxden Meadows. Anyway, I've told you so much, Red, I'll tell you something else. For the past twenty years, I've been When I read the newspapers, I pay special attention to whether there is any construction going on in Buxton. I always think that one day I will read in the papers that there will be a hospital or a road or a shopping center. Life is buried forever under ten feet of concrete, or thrown into the swamp with a heap of waste."

I blurted out, "My God, Andy, if what you're saying is true, how can you not go crazy?"

He smiled and said, "So far, there has been no war on the Western Front."

"But it could be years—"

"Years, but maybe not as long as Norton thinks, I can't wait that long, I've been thinking about Zihuatanejo and my little hotel, and that's all I ask of my life now, Red, This shouldn't be an unreasonable request. I didn't kill Glenn Quentin at all, and I didn't kill my wife. A small hotel...isn't it a luxury! I can swim, bask in the sun, and sleep in a room that can be opened A room with a window... that's not an unreasonable request."

He threw the stone out.

"You know, Red," he said casually, "in a place like that . . . I need someone who knows how to get what I want."

I pondered for a long time, and the biggest difficulty I thought of at the time was not that we were just talking nonsense on the small playground in the prison, and there were armed guards watching us from above. "I can't help it," I said, "I can't fit in the outside world. I've become what you call an institutionalized person. Here, I'm the one who can get you stuff, and when you get out, if you want a poster , hammers, or some special record, just look up the Ledger. Here, I'm the Ledger the fuckin', and when I get out, I don't know where to start, or how to start."

"You underestimate yourself," he said. "You're a self-educating person, a pretty remarkable person, I think."

"I don't even have a high school diploma."

"I know," he said, "but a degree doesn't make a man any more than a prison life breaks everyone."

"I can't handle it outside, Andy, I know that."

He stood up. "Think about it," he said.At that moment, the whistle blew and he walked away, as if he had just been a free man offering a job offer to another free man. At that moment, I also felt a sense of freedom.Only he has the means to do it, let me forget for a moment that we are all lifers serving life sentences, and our fate is entirely in the hands of a harsh parole board and a hymn-singing warden, and the warden is a little They don't want to let Andy out of prison. After all, Andy is a puppy who knows how to file taxes. How useful it is to keep him by his side!
But when I got back to my cell at night, I felt like a prisoner again, and the whole idea seemed absurd, and the idea of ​​imagining that blue sea, blue sky, and white sand was not only stupid, it was cruel, and it held me like a fishhook brain.I just couldn't take on the invisible cloak of freedom that Andy had.When I fell asleep that night, I dreamed that in the middle of the pasture there was a large smooth stone of black glass that looked like a blacksmith's anvil. I was shaking the stone to get out the key buried under it, but the stone was too big. I can't move at all.

And behind me, I could hear the barking of police dogs getting closer.

Now it's time to talk about jailbreaking.

In this happy little family, someone tries to escape from time to time.But in Shawshank, if you're smart enough, don't jump over the wall and escape.The prison's searchlights shot around all night, like long white fingers, shining back and forth around the prison, three of which were fields and one was a fetid swamp.Every once in a while, a prisoner would try to escape over the wall, and the searchlights would catch them straight;Farmers in the country also called the jail if they saw them walking in the fields.Prisoners who try to escape over the wall are idiots.In this rural place, a man in a prison uniform is as stealthy as a cockroach on a wedding cake.

Over the years, the best jailbreaks have often been improvised.Some people got out by lying in a pile of sheets.When I first came in, I heard many cases like this, but the prison authorities gradually stopped allowing prisoners to take advantage of it.

Norton's "outside prison" program also created some opportunities for escape.In most cases, the escape was improvised. For example, when the guards were drinking water by the truck or a few guards were discussing the football game, they threw away the blueberry digging tools and ran into the bushes.

In [-], the content of the "outside prison" project was to go to Sabatas to dig potatoes. That day was November [-], and the work was almost finished.A guard named Henry Pugh (who is no longer part of our happy family) sat eating his lunch on the rear fender of a potato wagon with his carbine in his lap, a handsome The stag (so they tell me, but sometimes these things are embellished) crept out of the mist, and Puig ran after him, imagining the loot in the family recreation room, and the three prisoners he guarded Slipping away, two of them were caught in a billiard room in another town, and the other was never found.

I think the most famous escapee was Sid Nidu.He escaped in [-], and I guess it will be difficult for anyone to surpass him in the future.Sid was drawing the line on the field for Saturday's prison game.As soon as three o'clock arrived, the whistle sounded, which meant that the guards were about to change shifts.A little beyond the sports field is the parking lot, and the electric gates are located at the opposite ends of the prison.As soon as three o'clock came, the gates opened, and the guards coming in for the shift mingled with the off-duty guards, patting each other on the shoulder, saying hello, comparing bowling records, and joking.

And Sid pushed his marking machine, walked out of the gate quietly, and drew a three-inch wide white line all the way from the home plate of the baseball field to the side of the ditch beside the road. They later found the marking machine over there.Don't ask me how he got out, he was six feet two inches tall, wearing a prison uniform, and when he walked past pushing the marking machine, he would send up a cloud of white dust, and he walked out of the gate in a grandiose manner.It can only be said that probably because it was Friday afternoon, the guard who was about to get off work was too excited because he was about to get off work, and the guard who came to change shift was too depressed because he was coming to change shift. The former raised his head proudly, while the latter With his head downcast, his eyes never left the toe of his shoe... Sid just took advantage of the opportunity to escape.

As far as I know, Sid is still at large.Andy and I have joked about Sid's escape for years.Later, when we heard about the Cooper hijacking for ransom, the story of the hijacker who parachuted out of the back door of the plane, Andy insisted that the real name of the Cooper hijacker must be Sid Nido .

"What a lucky son of a bitch," said Andy, "for luck, he's got his pockets full of chalk for marking."

But you should understand that Sid and the guy who escaped in the Sabatas potato fields were just a few lucky ones who hit the jackpot, and it seemed that all the luck was concentrated on them in an instant.A person as strict as Andy may not be able to escape after waiting 90 years.

You may recall that I mentioned a laundry foreman named Hanley Backus who was sent to Shawshank in 31 and died thirty-one years later in the prison infirmary.He almost regarded the study of prison escape as a hobby, perhaps because he never dared to try it himself.He can tell you a hundred different ways to escape, all of them crazy, and Shawshank prisoners have tried them all.My favorite is the story of Beaver Morrison, the guy who went so far as to try to build a glider in the basement of a license plate factory.He built it according to the instructions in The Modern Boy's Guide to Fun and Adventures, published in [-], and was never discovered, only to discover at last that the basement doors were too small to close Move that damn glider out.Every time Hanley told this story, it caused a burst of laughter, and he knew a dozen or two more that were equally funny.

Hanley once told me that he was aware of more than 400 escape attempts during his sentence.Before you nod your head and read on, stop and think. 400+ jailbreak attempts!It is equal to the average of [-] escape attempts per year when Hanley served his sentence in Shawshank Prison.Of course, most escapes are fairly casual, ending with some sneaky, ignorant bastard being grabbed by a guard and yelling, "Where do you think you're going, you bastard!"

According to Hanley, there have been only about sixty serious escapes, including the "Great Escape" in [-], which happened the year before I went to prison.At that time, Shawshank was building a new administrative building. Fourteen prisoners took construction tools from an unlocked warehouse and escaped from prison.The whole of southern Maine was in a panic because of these fourteen "tenacious criminals", but in fact, most of these fourteen people were scared to death, and they didn't know where to flee, just like a hare who strayed into the road by mistake and was oncoming Once the headlights of the big truck shined, they couldn't move.As a result, none of the fourteen prisoners actually escaped, and two were shot to death—but they were shot by civilians, not by police officers or prison guards. None of them managed to escape.

How many people have escaped from Shawshank since I was imprisoned in [-] to the day Andy first mentioned Zihuatanejo to me?Adding up what Han Li and I have heard, there are about ten or so.Only ten escaped outright.Although I have no way of knowing for sure, I would guess that at least five out of ten are currently serving sentences in other prisons.Because a person will indeed be restricted by the prison environment. When you deprive someone of his freedom and teach him how to survive in prison, he seems to lose the ability to think in multiple ways and become like the hare I just mentioned. The headlights of the oncoming truck that was about to hit it froze, unable to move.Many freshly released inmates commit stupid crimes that never succeed. Why?Because in this way, he can go back to the prison, back to the place he knows and knows.

Andy wasn't that kind of guy, but I was.The idea of ​​looking out at the Pacific sounds great, but I'm afraid that one day, when I do get there, the vastness of the Pacific will scare me to death.

All in all, since the day Andy talked about Mexico and Peter Stephen, I've come to believe that Andy has thoughts of fleeing.I can only pray to God that he plays it safe, but I wouldn't bet on him.Warden Norton pays special attention to his every move, and Andy is not an ordinary prisoner.There is, so to speak, an inseparable working relationship between them.Andy has brains but also a heart, and Norton is determined to use his brains and crush his heart at the same time.

Just like there are some honest politicians out there that you can always buy off, there are also some honest guards in the prison. If you know people well and have some money on hand, I guess you can indeed pay off a few guards. Deliberately throwing water and eyes looking elsewhere gives you a chance to escape.It's not like no one has done this before, but Andy couldn't do it because, as I said, Norton was watching him, and Andy knew it, and the jailers knew it.

As long as Norton continues to review the list of "outside prisons", no one will nominate Andy to participate in the "outside prison" program, and Andy is not like Sid, he will never start his escape operation so casually.

If I were him, the key out there would cause me so much pain that I couldn't sleep at night.Baxden was less than thirty miles from Shawshank, but out of reach.

I still think getting a lawyer for a new trial has the best chance of success, as long as it stays out of Norton's grasp.Maybe they just gave Tommy some extra time off and kept him quiet, I'm not sure.Maybe those lawyers were so clever they could get Tommy to talk without even trying, because Tommy admired Andy.Every time I raised these ideas with Andy, he always smiled, looked away, and said he would think about it.

It seemed that he was thinking about a lot of things at the same time.

Andy escaped from Shawshank in [-]. He was never caught, and I believe he never will be.In fact, I think Andy is long gone, and in the year [-] in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, there was a man named Peter Stephen who was running a small hotel.

I'll tell you all I know and all I guess, that's all I can do, isn't it?
March 06, 30.When the guards opened the doors to the cells in Block [-] at [-]:[-] in the morning, all the inmates came out of their rooms and stood in the hallway in two files, with the doors slamming shut behind them.When they got to the gate of the fifth district, two guards would stand at the door and count the heads, and then they would go to the restaurant to eat cereal, scrambled eggs, and greasy bacon.

Everything is routine until the counting of the heads.There should be 27 prisoners in the cell in the fifth block, but there were only 26 after counting that morning, so the guards reported to the captain, and let the prisoners in the fifth block go to have breakfast first.

The captain of the guard was Richard Goya, not a very bad guy, and he came to the fifth block cell with his assistant Dave Buck.With baton and gun in hand, Gao Ya opened the door and walked into the corridor between the two rows of cells with Buck.In cases like this, it's usually someone who gets sick in the middle of the night and is so sick that he doesn't have the energy to get out of the cell in the morning.More rarely, he died of illness at all, or committed suicide.

But this time there was a big mystery. They saw neither the sick nor the dead, and there was no one in it.There were fourteen cells in the Fifth Ward, seven on each side, and all of them were neat—at Shawshank, the penalty for being too dirty was no visitors—and all of them were empty.

Gao Ya's first reaction was that the guards miscalculated the number of people, or it was a prank, so he told all the prisoners in the fifth district to go back to their cells after breakfast.The prisoners ran back happily while joking. Anything that broke the routine was very new to them.

The cell door opened again, the prisoners walked in one by one, and the cell door closed.The joking prisoner yelled deliberately: "I want to find a lawyer, I want to find a lawyer, how can you manage the prison like a fucking prison!"

Buck yelled, "Shut up or I'll make you look good."

"I fuck your wife," the man yelled.

Gao Ya said: "You all shut up, or you will stay here all day today and you are not allowed to go out."

He and Buck checked from room to room, counting each, but didn't go very far. "Who lives in this room?" Gao Ya asked the guard on night shift.

"Andy Dufresne," the guard replied.Immediately, the entire daily routine was disrupted.There was an uproar in the prison.

In the prison movies I've seen, every time someone escapes, there will be a horn wailing, but in Shawshank, it never happens.The first thing Gao Ya did was to contact the warden immediately, the second thing was to send someone to search the entire prison, and the third thing was to call the state police to warn that someone might have escaped from prison.

That's the way it is routinely done, standard operating procedure doesn't require them to check fugitive cells, so no one does.Why?Obviously, I saw with my own eyes that no one was inside.It was a small square room with iron bars on the windows and iron bars on the door, a set of sanitary facilities and an empty bed.There are also some beautiful stones on the windowsills.

And of course that poster.At this time, the poster of Linda Ronstadt had been replaced, and the poster was pasted on his bedside. For 26 years, the poster has been stuck in the same location.But when someone checks the back of the poster—which turns out to be Norton himself, in what a karma—it's just disorienting.

It was already at 06:30 that night that there was another article behind the poster. It was twelve hours since Andy was found missing, and it might have been twenty hours since he actually fled.

Norton was furious.

I later learned from old Chester, who was waxing the floor of the administration building that day, that he didn't have to stick his ear to the keyhole on the day of the incident, because he could hear Norton's snarl clearly.

"What do you mean? What do you mean? He's not in prison, does that mean you haven't found him? Are you satisfied? You'd better find him! Because I'm going to get him! Do you hear? I Get him!"

Gao Ya muttered a few words.

"Didn't it happen while you were on duty? That's what you said, and as far as I know, no one knows when or how he got out, or if he really got out Go. I don't care, I limit you to bring him back to my office before three o'clock this afternoon, otherwise someone will be killed. I will do what I say, and I always do what I say. "

Gao Ya didn't know what to say again, which made Norton even more furious.

"No? Look at this! Look at this! Do you recognize this? This is the roll call from the Fifth Ward last night. Every prisoner is in his cell. At nine o'clock last night, Dufresne was still in the cell." In the cell, it is impossible for him to disappear like this! Impossible! Find him immediately!"

By three o'clock that afternoon, Andy was still on the missing list.A few hours later, Norton rushed himself into the fifth block cell.All the prisoners in District [-] were locked in their own cells that day, and were interrogated by the panic-looking jailers for a whole day.Our answer was the same: we saw nothing and heard nothing.As far as I know, everyone is telling the truth, and I know I'm not lying, let's just say that Andy did go into his cell last night when all the prisoners went back, and he did when the lights went out an hour later. still.

One witty surmises that Andy may have slipped through the keyhole, and that remark earns him four days in solitary confinement, with the guards all tense.

So Norton came to check the room himself, and stared at us fiercely with his blue eyes. Under his gaze, the iron bars of the cage seemed to be about to burst into sparks.There was suspicion in his eyes, maybe he really thought we were all accomplices.

He walked into Andy's cell and looked around.The cell was still the same as when Andy left. The quilt on the bed didn't look like someone had slept in it, and the stones were placed on the windowsill...but not all the stones were there, and he took away a few favorite stones.

"Stones." Norton said resentfully, sweeping all the stones off the window sill, Gao Ya shrank aside, silent like a cicada.

Norton's eyes fell on the Linda Ronstadt poster.Linda put her hands in her back pockets, looked back and smiled, she was wearing a vest with an open back, her skin was tanned bronze.Norton, who is a Baptist, must have been very angry when he saw this poster. I saw him staring hard at the poster, and I remembered Andy once said that he often felt as if he could step in and be with the girl on the poster. Together.

He did exactly that, and a few seconds later, Norton found out too.

Norton tore off the poster. "Damn stuff!" he yelled.

A hole appeared in the concrete wall behind the poster.

Gao Ya refused to go in.

Norton ordered him so loudly that the entire prison must have heard it clearly.But Gao Ya refused to go in.

"Do you want to lose your job?" Norton screamed, hysterical like a woman in menopausal hot flashes.He had long since lost his usual composure, his neck was swollen deep red, and two blue veins on his forehead were exposed and kept beating. "I'll do what I say, you .

Gao Ya silently took out the pistol, pointed the handle at Norton, and handed the gun to him.He had had enough, two hours past his off-duty time, and he was about to work three hours overtime.Norton was maddened that night, as if Andy's defection had finally revealed a side of his irrationality that had been hidden for so long.

Of course, I didn't see his irrational side, but I knew that that night, as the winter gloom grew dark, the 26 long-term offenders in Shawshank who had experienced many regime changes were listening. We all know Norton is experiencing what engineers call "fracture strain."

I can almost hear Andy Dufresne sniggering somewhere.

At last Norton found a skinny guard on the night shift to slip into the hole behind the poster. His name was Lori Treman.He's not usually a smart guy, maybe he thought he'd get a Bronze Star for it.Luckily for Norton, he happened to find someone who was about the same size as Andy.Most of the prison guards are big guys, and if they sent a big guy, he'd be stuck halfway up the climb and couldn't get out until now.

Cui Men tied a nylon rope around his waist when he entered, and held a large flashlight with six dry batteries in his hand.At this time, Gao Ya had changed his mind and did not intend to resign, but he seemed to be the only person on the scene who was still sober, and found a set of blueprints for the prison.From the sectional view, the prison wall looks like a sandwich. The entire wall is ten feet thick, the inner wall and the outer wall are each four feet thick, and the two-foot gap in the middle is the channel for laying pipelines, just like the sandwich Same as mincemeat.

Cui Men's voice came from the hole, and it sounded hollow and dead. "Warden, it smells bad inside."

"Leave it alone and keep climbing."

Cui Men's legs disappeared into the hole, and for a while, he couldn't even see his feet, only the light of the flashlight flickered faintly.

"Warden, the smell inside is really bad."

"I said leave it alone," cried Norton.

Cui Men's voice floated over sadly. "Smells like poop, oh my god! It's really poop, wow! It's poop! My god, I'm about to throw up, wow..." Tremend can then be clearly heard talking about everything he ate that day. Spit it out.

Now it's my turn, I can't hold it anymore, the whole day -- oh no, the repression of the past 30 years finally broke out, I started laughing, I couldn't help it, since I lost my freedom, I Never smiled so heartily.I never expected that I would be able to laugh so happily when I was trapped in the gray wall. It was really enjoyable.

"Get this man out!" Norton screamed, not knowing whether he was referring to me or Trim because I was laughing so hard.I just stomped my stomach and laughed so hard I couldn't control it, and even if Norton threatened to shoot me, I couldn't stop. "Get him out!"

Ok!Friends and family, it turned out he was referring to me.They dragged me all the way to the brig, where I spent fifteen days in solitary confinement, and although the days were long, I wasn't bored, and I often thought of that poor, not-so-bright Tremon yelling "It's shit ", and then thought of Andy driving a new car and straight to the south in a suit, he couldn't help laughing again.During those fifteen days, I laughed a lot, maybe because my heart had flown to Andy.Andy Dufresne once struggled forward in the cesspit, but he came out of the mud unstained, climbed out from the other end innocently, and ran to the blue Pacific Ocean.

What happened later that day, I heard from six or seven people.I guess when Triman threw up his lunch and dinner that day, he decided he had nothing to lose anyway and decided to keep climbing.He didn't have to worry about falling through the passage between the inner and outer walls, because it was too narrow, and Cui Men had to push hard to move forward.He later said he had to almost hold his breath to get down, and that he didn't know what it was like to be buried alive until then.

He found a main drain pipe at the end of the passage. It was the sewage pipe leading to the fourteen toilets in the fifth block cell. It was a porcelain pipe installed 33 years ago and it had been broken. Andy's stone hammer.

Andy is finally free, but it's not easy.

This pipe is narrower than Cui Men's crawling passage.Tremon didn't go in, and neither did anyone else, so far as I know, and I think it must have been almost indescribably dire.While Triman was inspecting the gap in the pipe and the stone hammer, a mouse jumped out of the pipe, Triman later swore the rat was as big as a beagle.He slowly climbed back to Andy's cell like a monkey climbing a pillar.

Andy escaped through that pipe.Maybe he knew that the sewer pipe led to a creek five hundred yards away from the prison, because the blueprints of the prison were found in many places, and Andy must have found a way to see the blueprints.He is a method freak. He must have discovered that only the sewage pipes in the fifth district of the entire prison have not been connected to the new wastewater treatment plant, and he also knows that if he does not escape at this time, he will have no chance in the future, because when he arrives at a In August [-], even the sewage pipes in our area were going to be connected to the new wastewater treatment plant.

Five hundred yards, the length of five American football fields, nearly half a mile.He crawled such a distance, maybe with a small flashlight in his hand, maybe with nothing but a few boxes of matches, I just don't want to imagine, I can't imagine, how dirty the place he crawled is, and Fat squeaking rats ran about in front of him, and even rats, being so daring in the dark, attacked him.There is almost no room for him in the passage, there may only be a very small gap that is enough for him to squeeze through, and at the joint of the pipe, he may have to push his body desperately to get through.If it were me, the claustrophobic atmosphere would have driven me crazy, but he managed to escape.

They found some muddy footprints at the end of the sewage pipe that led to the stream where the prison discharges sewage. The search team found Andy's prison clothes two miles away, and that was the next day.

It made a lot of noise in the papers, but no one within a fifteen-mile radius reported a stolen car or lost clothes to the police, or saw anyone running naked in the moonlight, and never heard of the dogs on the farm. bark.After Andy climbed out of the sewage pipe, he disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

But I dare say he must have disappeared in the direction of Buxden.

Three months after that memorable day, Warden Norton resigned.I'm happy to report that he walks like a beaten rooster with no strength at all.He left Shawshank dejectedly, like an old prisoner weeping at the infirmary to beg for medicine.He was replaced by Gao Ya. For Norton, this was perhaps the coldest blow.He went back home and went to the Baptist church every Sunday, and he must have often wondered how Andy beat him.

I can tell him that the answer lies in "simplicity."Some people just have it, Warden, and some people just don't, and they never will learn it.

That's what I know; now I'm going to tell you what I think.Maybe I'm not quite right in the details, but I bet you're pretty much on the same page.Because people like Andy can't use these two methods.Whenever I think about it, I always think of what that crazy Indian, Normaden, said.Normanden said after living with Andy for eight months: "He's a good guy. I'm happy to get out of there. The air in the cell is so bad and it's cold. He doesn't let anyone touch his stuff, that's okay. It's all right. He's nice and never cracks a joke, but the air is so bad." Poor Normanden, he knew more than anyone else, and earlier.It took Andy eight months to get Norman transferred to another cell and return to solitary confinement.If Normanden hadn't lived with him for eight months, I believe Andy would have escaped long before Nixon resigned.

I believe Andy started his project in [-], not when he asked me to buy a stone hammer, but when he asked me to buy a Rita Hayworth poster.I told you that he seemed anxious, fidgety, and very excited.At that time, I thought he was embarrassed and didn't want others to know that he wanted women, especially dreamy sexy goddesses, but now I realized that I was wrong, and there was another reason for his excitement.

How did the prison authorities find that hole in the back of the pin-up girl (the girl on the poster wasn't even born when Rita Hayworth, the first pin-up girl, was pictured now)?Of course, the main reason is Andy Dufresne's perseverance and hard work, but there are two other factors that cannot be ignored: luck and WPA concrete [9].

Regarding the favor of the god of luck, I guess there is no need to explain it at all.As for WPA concrete, I checked the information carefully.It took me a lot of time and a lot of postage.I first wrote to the University of Maine history department and they gave me someone's address, and I wrote to the guy who had been on the WPA project and who was at the same time building the most heavily guarded section of Shawshank Prison as a foreman.

Blocks [-], [-], and [-] in this area were constructed between [-] and [-].Today, most people don't think of cement and concrete as a great "technological development," just as we don't think of cars or heating furnaces as great technological advances these days, but they aren't.Modern cement was not developed until around [-], and concrete did not appear until the early [-]th century.The process of mixing concrete is as delicate as making bread. There may be too much water or not enough water, and the ingredients of sand and gravel may be too thick or too thin.In [-], however, the science of concrete was far less advanced than it is today.

From the outside, the walls of the cell in Block [-] are solid, but not dry enough. In fact, these concrete walls are quite permeable.After a period of rainy days, these walls become very damp and even seep water.Cracks have appeared in places, some as deep as an inch.They regularly apply mortar to seal the cracks.

Andy was later locked up in the fifth block cell.A graduate of the University of Maine Business School, he had taken two or three courses in geology, which, in fact, became a major hobby of his, because it suited his extremely patient, meticulous nature so well. The 1-year ice age, the million-year orogeny, and the thousand-year bedrock squeeze each other at the bottom of the formation. "Pressure," Andy told me once, "all geology is the study of pressure."

Of course, there is also the factor of time.

Andy has a lot of time to study the walls.When the prison doors were closed and the lights were extinguished, there was nothing to look at but the gray wall.

People who are new to prison have difficulty adapting to this life of deprivation of freedom at first. They will suffer from a kind of prison fever, and some even have to be dragged into the infirmary to be given sedatives.It is common to hear the new inmates slamming on the iron fence and yelling to get out. The shouting did not last long, and the other prisoners sang in harmony: "Fresh fish is here, fresh fish is here, hey, little one!" Little fresh fish, some fresh fish came in today!"

When Andy first came to prison in [-], he didn't feel this out of control, but that didn't mean he didn't feel the same way.He may have also been on the verge of madness.In an instant, the happy life that has always been familiar is gone, and there is a long nightmare in front of me, like being in purgatory.

So what is he going to do?I ask you.He must try to find something to do so that he will stop thinking about it.Oh, and even in prison, there are still plenty of distractions.The potential of human beings is infinite, as I told you once, there was a prisoner who engraved the three periods of Jesus, some criminals collected coins, some collected stamps, and some collected postcards from 35 countries.

Andy was interested in stones, and by extension the walls of his cell.

I think his original idea was to engrave his name on the wall, or engrave a few lines of poems on the wall where posters of beauties were pasted later to encourage himself.Unexpectedly, I found that the concrete wall was unexpectedly loose. After only a few words were carved, a large piece fell off.I can imagine him lying on the bed, playing with the concrete block in his hands, looking at the peeling concrete in thought.Don't keep thinking that your life is ruined, and don't keep thinking about how you can be so unlucky.Forget all that and take a good look at this concrete!
Likely, in the months that followed, he thought it would be fun to try and see how far he could go in the wall.Of course he can't dig walls like that, you can't do that when the guards do their weekly inspections (or raids, they always turn up something interesting like booze, drugs, pornography, weapons, etc.) , said to him: "This? It's just a small hole in the wall, nothing to worry about."

No, Andy couldn't do that, so he thought of asking me to buy Rita Hayworth posters, not small ones, but big ones.

And, of course, his stone hammer.I remember when I got that little hammer for him in 600, I thought it would take about 27 years to dig through the walls of the prison with this hammer.That's right, but Andy only had to dig through half the wall - and it took him [-] years to do it with two hammers, even though the concrete was so soft.

Of course, a lot of time was wasted by living with Normanden.He could only work at night, and it was after everyone fell asleep in the middle of the night, including the guards on night shift who also fell asleep.The biggest problem slowing things down, though, was what to do with the knocked-off concrete blocks.He can wrap the hammer head with a molar cloth to silence the sound, but what to do with the broken pieces?
I think he must have broken the concrete block into tiny pieces and shipped it in his sleeves.

I still remember watching him walk across the field on a Sunday after I helped him get the stone hammer, bruised and bruised from a fight with his sister.He bent down, picked up the pebble...and the pebble disappeared into his cuff.Cuff or trouser cuff pockets are an old prison trick.There is another thing that stands out in my memory, and I may have seen it more than once, that is, Andy walks across the sports field in the stifling air of a hot summer afternoon. Dust flying from Dee's feet.

So, maybe his trousers still have a lot of tricks hidden.You fill the pouch with bits and pieces to throw away, and you walk around with your hands in your trouser pockets all the time, and when you feel safe, you yank the pouch unnoticed.Of course, there must be a very tough line in the trouser pocket to the hidden pocket at the bottom of the trousers.So as you walk, the debris from your pockets cascades between your feet, a trick used by World War II prisoners of war digging tunnels to escape.

Year after year, Andy just carried the concrete debris in bags to the playground for disposal.After one warden after another, countless springs and autumns, he served the warden. They all thought he was doing this to expand the library. I have no doubts about this, but deep down he really wants to fight for It is the special treatment of living alone in a room.

I doubt that he really had any concrete escape plans or hopes in the first place. Maybe he thought that the ten-foot-thick wall was solidly filled with concrete, or that even if he succeeded in digging through the wall, he would only be able to escape. Flee to the playground thirty feet away.But, like I said, I don't think Andy's worried about that because he's gotta think: I only advance a foot every seven years, so it might take 70 years to dig through this wall, and by then I am one hundred and one years old.

If I were Andy, my second assumption would be: I would eventually get caught, put in solitary confinement for a long time, and get a cross on the record.After all, they come in every week for routine inspections, and there are surprise inspections—usually at night.He must have thought he couldn't dig long enough, that sooner or later the guards would check for sharpened spoon handles behind Rita Hayworth posters, or tape joints to the walls.

And his reaction to the second hypothesis must have been: Fuck it!Maybe he even thought of it as a game.How deep can I dig before they find out?Prison was a very dull place, and the possibility of being raided in the middle of the night before the posters were put up might have added a little spice to his life in the early years.

And I do think he couldn't have gotten away with luck alone, at least not for 27 consecutive years.Still, I have to say that he was lucky enough not to get caught in mid-May [-], two years before he started helping Harry with his inheritance tax matters.

It is also possible that besides good luck, he has other magic weapons.Anyway, money makes money, maybe he sneaks a few bills every week to the guards so they don't bother him.Most guards will cooperate if the price tag is good.As long as the purse is profitable, it is not too much for the prisoner to have a poster of a beautiful woman or a pack of cigarettes. Besides, Andy is a model prisoner. He is very quiet, well-organized, courteous, and will not throw fists at every turn.Usually, those who cannot escape the prison's semi-annual inspection are those prisoners who are crazy or act impulsively. At this time, the guards will search the entire cell thoroughly, lift the mattress, disassemble the pillow, and even carefully poke the drain pipe of the toilet. One poke.

By [-], in addition to being a model prisoner, Andy had also become a valuable asset. He could help them with their tax refunds, guide them for free on how to plan real estate investment, make good use of tax-free programs and apply for loans, more than professional accountants Be smart.I still remember him sitting in the library, patiently checking the terms of the car loan agreement with the captain of the guard, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the agreement for him, teaching him how to find the most cost-effective loan plan, and guiding him Steer clear of the blood-sucking financial firms that lend usury almost under cover of legality.When Andy finished explaining, the captain of the guard held out his hand for a handshake...and quickly pulled it back.For a moment he forgot that he wasn't dealing with normal people.

Andy has been paying attention to the dynamics of the stock market and changes in the tax law, so despite being in prison for a period of time, his usefulness has not been diminished in the slightest.He started fighting for library grants, the war between him and the sisters had ceased, the guards stopped checking his cell so seriously, he was a model prisoner.

Then one day, probably around October [-], Andy's long-time hobby suddenly looked different.One night, when he lifted the posters, his upper body plunged into the hole, and the Raquel Welch poster covered his hips, the point of the stone hammer must have suddenly sunk entirely into the concrete.

He had been about to remove some of the knocked-out concrete, but probably at this moment he heard something fall, bouncing and clanging back and forth between the vertical pipes.Did he know in advance that he would dig that tunnel?Or was it a surprise?Then I don't know.He may or may not have seen the blueprints for the prison.If not, I bet he must have managed to find the blueprints later.

It must have dawned on him that he wasn't just playing a game, that he was gambling by doing it, that he was betting big, that he was betting his life and his future.Even if he wasn't quite sure at the time, he should have been pretty sure, because it was around that time that he first talked to me about Zihuatanejo.Digging a hole in the wall was supposed to be just for fun, and suddenly that stupid hole could dictate his fate—if he knew that the bottom of the tunnel was a sewage pipe, and that the sewage pipe would lead all the way outside the prison walls.

Now, in addition to worrying about the key under the Buxton Stone, he also has to worry about some new guard trying to show off that he will lift the poster and discover this great project, or a new roommate will suddenly move in, or After staying here for so many years, he was suddenly transferred to another prison.With so much going on in his head for the next eight years, I can only say that he was one of the calmest people I've ever met.I would have gone crazy with everything so uncertain, but Andy kept betting.

Ironically, there's one more thing that makes me shudder just thinking about it is what if Andy gets parole?Can you imagine?Prisoners released on parole are sent to another location three days before they are released, where they undergo a full medical and skills test.During these three days, his cell will be thoroughly cleaned, so that his parole will not only be in vain, but in exchange for a long period of solitary confinement in a confinement cell, plus a longer sentence... But Move to a different cell to serve your sentence.

If he had already dug the tunnel in [-], why didn't he escape until [-]?
I'm not sure - but I can take a guess.

First, he will become more careful than before.He's too smart to push blindly at speed and try to get out in eight or even eighteen months.He must have only widened the passage a little at a time.When he drank on New Year's Eve that year, the hole might have been the size of a teacup, and when he celebrated his birthday in [-], the hole might have been the size of a saucer.By the time the [-] baseball season began, the hole might have been dug to the size of a pallet.

For a while, I guessed that after he dug the passage, the speed of digging should be much faster, because he only needs to let the knocked concrete block fall directly from the passage, instead of breaking it like before, and then use the same method as I said earlier. He used a trick to deceive the sky and cross the sea, and transported it out of the cell and threw it away.But since it's taken him so long, I'm sure he's afraid to do it.He may have thought that the sound of concrete falling would arouse suspicion in others.Or if he had known at the time that there was a sewer pipe underneath, as I guessed, he might have worried that the falling concrete blocks would break the sewer pipe before he was ready, messing up the prison's drainage system and causing investigation.Needless to say, in this way, disaster will be imminent.

But I guess, anyway, by the time Nixon was sworn in for a second term, Andy could have squeezed his way into that hole...or earlier, and Andy was very small.

Why didn't he leave then?

Ladies and gentlemen, at this point, my rational reasoning will no longer work, and I can only guess wildly.One possibility is that the crawling area is filled with trash and he has to clean it up before he can get out.But that doesn't have to take that long either.So what is the reason?

I thought maybe Andy was starting to feel scared.

I have tried to describe what it is like to be gradually conditioned by the prison system.At first, you can't stand the feeling of being trapped by four walls, then you gradually can bear this kind of life, and then you accept this kind of life... Then, when your body and mind gradually adjust, you even start to like this kind of life .When you can eat, when you can write letters, when you can smoke, all are well regulated.If you work in a laundry or a license plate factory, you are allowed 5 minutes per hour to go to the bathroom, and everyone takes turns going to the bathroom at a scheduled time. For 35 years, I went to the toilet every time the minute hand hit 25. After 35 years, I only wanted to go to the bathroom at that time: 25 minutes after the hour every hour.If I was unable to go to the toilet for any reason, after 5 minutes, my urge to urinate or defecate will disappear, and I will not want to go to the toilet until the minute hand of the clock points to 25 minutes again in the next hour.

I think Andy is also trying to overcome this institutionalized syndrome—and at the same time, he has a deep fear that after years of hard work, it will all be for naught.

Imagine how many nights he lay awake under the poster pasted on his bed, thinking about the problem of the sewage pipe, knowing that this was his only chance?The blueprint in his hand can only tell him how big and how long the pipe is, but it can't tell him what will happen inside the pipe-can he climb all the way through without suffocating?Are the rats inside so fat and big that they attack him without fear?The blueprints wouldn't tell him what was going on at the end of the sewer pipe.What would be more comical than Andy being granted parole: What if Andy crawled down the sewer pipe, barely breathing for five hundred yards in the darkness and stench, only to find that the end was a thick iron fence, ha, Ha, isn't it too funny!
He must have envisioned this scenario.If he did struggle to get out, would he be able to change into ordinary clothes and escape the vicinity of the prison without being detected?Finally, suppose he climbed out of the pipe, escaped from Shawshank before the alarm went off, got to Buxton, found the rock...and found that there was nothing underneath?It doesn't have to be as dramatic as finally finding the right spot, only to find a tall apartment building standing there, or a supermarket parking lot; Come here, saw the safe key, took home both the key and the volcanic rock as souvenirs; or maybe a november hunter kicked the rock, and the key was revealed, and a squirrel or crow that loves shiny things snatched it away or one spring, when the flood surged, the wall was washed away, and the key was lost.All in all, accidents of any kind can happen.

So whether I'm guessing or not, there was a time when Andy didn't dare to act rashly.After all, if you don't bet at all, you can't lose.What else does he have to lose, you ask?The library was one thing, the conditioned, poisoned peace of prison was another.In addition, he may have lost the opportunity to start again with a new identity in the future.

But he finally succeeded, as I told you earlier.He finally took the plunge...and, oh my!It's amazing how he succeeded!
But, you ask, did he really escape?What happened?When he got to the pasture and turned the stone over... assuming the stone was still there, what happened?

I have no way to describe the situation at that time, because the institutionalized person I am still living in the prison system, and I expect to live in prison for several years.

But I can tell you that in the late summer of [-], on September [-]th, I actually received a postcard from a small town called McNary in Texas.McNairy is right on the U.S.-Mexico border.There was a blank space for the message on the back of the card, but I knew it when I saw it, and I knew in my heart who it was from, as if I knew that everyone will die one day.

He just crossed the border from McNary.McNairy of Texas.

Well, this is my story.I can't believe it took so long and so many pages to write this story.After I received the postcard, I started to write the whole story, and I didn't stop writing until January [-], [-].I have used three pencils and a whole book.I carefully hid the manuscript, but not many people could recognize my handwriting.

As I write, it reminds me of more memories.Writing your own story is like inserting a branch into a clear river and stirring up the mud at the bottom.

I've heard people say, you're not writing your own story, you're writing Andy's story, and you're just a small character in your own story.But you know, this is not the case, the words and sentences in it are actually a portrayal of myself.Andy represents that part of me deep inside that they'll never be able to lock up and it's a joy when the prison doors finally open for me and I walk out the door in a cheap suit and $20 that part.No matter how old, wretched, and scared the rest of me was at the time, that part of me would still be jubilant.But I think Andy has a lot more of that part than I do and knows how to use it better than I do.

There are many people here, like me, who remember Andy.We're all glad he's gone, but also a little sad.Some birds just can't be kept in captivity, their plumage is too bright, their song is too sweet, and their song is too wild, so you have to let them go, otherwise they will find a way to grow when you open the cage to feed them and go.You know it's wrong to shut them up, so you're happy for them, but then the place you live will still feel darker and emptier because they're gone.

I'm happy to write this story, and even though it doesn't seem to have an end, it brings back memories (like a branch turning up the mud in a river) and I can't help but feel a little sad and old.Thank you for your patience in listening to this story.And, Andy, if you do get to the south, please, after the sun goes down, look at the stars for me, touch the sand, play in the water, and feel completely free.

It never occurred to me that this story could go on, but I am now sitting at my desk adding another three or four pages, this time in a new book.I bought this book from a store, I walked into a store on Congress Street in Portland and bought it.

Thought I'd finished this story on a gloomy January day in [-], but now it's May [-], and I'm sitting in a cheap hotel room in Portland writing about this Added a new page to the story.

The window was open, and the noise of cars outside could be heard from time to time, which was deafening and scary.I kept looking at the window to make sure there were no iron bars on it.I often don't sleep well at night because despite the cheap rent, the bed is still too big and luxurious for me.I wake up every morning at 06:30, dazed and scared.I often have nightmares, and the feeling of regaining freedom is like a sudden drop in free fall, which is both scary and exciting.

What is wrong with me?Can't you guess yet?They granted me parole.After 38 years of hearings and denials, my parole application was finally granted.I guess the main reason they let me out is that I'm 58 years old, so old that I'm not likely to do anything wrong anymore.

I almost burned the story you just read.Prisoners who were about to be released on parole were searched as carefully as newcomers.My "memoirs" contained enough explosive material to get me another six to eight years in prison, along with my guesses about Andy's whereabouts.The Mexican police would be more than happy to work with the American police, and I don't want to end up sacrificing Andy for my own freedom—and on the other hand, I don't want to give up a story I've worked so hard to write.

At this time, I remembered how Andy smuggled five hundred dollars into prison, so I smuggled out these few pages of stories in the same way.To be on the safe side, I have carefully rewritten the pages that mention Zihuatanejo.So even if this story is found and I have to go back to jail, the police will go to a small town called Las Inchud on the coast of Peru to search for Andy.

The parole board got me a job as a "warehouse assistant"—that is, as an elderly errand boy—at a supermarket in South Portland.You know, there are basically only two types of people who can run errands, or they are very young, or they are very old.But no matter which one you belong to, no guest will ever look you in the eye.If you've ever shopped at Sbrules, I've probably helped you get your groceries out of the trolley and into your car... but you'd have to be there in March and April of [-] Buying stuff just hits me because I've only been working there for a little over a month.

At first, I didn't think I could adapt to the outside world at all.I pictured the prison as a microcosm of the outside world, but I didn't expect the outside world to change so much. People walked and talked faster and even spoke louder.

It was difficult for me to adapt to all of this for a while, and I haven't fully adapted to it yet. Let's take women as an example.Nearly 40 years in prison, I have almost forgotten that women make up half of the world's population.All of a sudden, my workplace was filled with women—old women, pregnant women (with an arrow pointing down on their t-shirts and a large line that said, "Here's the baby"), and scrawny, undressed women. Bras, women with faintly protruding nipples (before I went to prison, if a woman dressed like this, she would be arrested in the street and thought she was crazy), and all kinds of women, I found myself walking on the street. Physiological reaction, I can only secretly curse myself as a dirty old man in my heart.

Going to the bathroom was another thing I couldn't get used to.When I want to go to the bathroom (and I always want to go to the bathroom 25 minutes after the hour), I always have a strong urge to ask my boss to let me go to the bathroom, and I can't bear it every time. It was hard not to do this, knowing that in this bright outside world, if you want to go to the toilet, you can go there anytime.After being locked in prison for many years, every time I go to the toilet, I have to report to the nearest guard. If I am negligent, I will be locked up for two days. Therefore, after I get out of prison, although I know that I don’t need to report everything again, I know in my heart that it is a time. It's another thing to fully adapt to it.

My boss doesn't like me, he's a young man, 26 seven years old.I could see that in his eyes I looked like a nasty old mangy dog ​​crawling up to beg for mercy, when I actually hated myself.But... I couldn't help myself, I really wanted to tell him: Young man, this is the result of spending most of my life in prison.In prison, everyone with power becomes your master, and you become a dog beside the master.Maybe you also know that you are a dog, but the other prisoners are dogs anyway, so there seems to be no difference, but the difference in the outside world is very big.But I can't make someone so young understand how I feel.He would never understand, not even my parole officer could understand how I felt.I report to my parole officer every week. He's an ex-army veteran with a big red beard and a load of Polish jokes. He sees me for five minutes a week. After each Polish joke, he asks, "Red , didn’t go to the bar to hang out?” I replied no, and we will see you next week.

And music on the radio.Before I went to jail, jazz played by big bands was just beginning to catch on, and now every song seemed to be about sex.There are so many cars on the road, and every time I cross the street, I feel terrified and break into a cold sweat.

Everything was weird and scary anyway.I began to wonder if I should do something bad again so that I could go back to the place I was familiar with.If you're a parolee, almost any small mistake could land you back in jail.I'm ashamed to say this, but I did start to wonder if I could steal some money at the supermarket or just walk away and then go back to that quiet place where, at least at the end of the day, you know exactly when to do things.

If I hadn't known Andy, I probably would've done it, but the thought of all the work he's put into, years of patiently beating cement with a little stone hammer just to get his freedom I couldn't help but feel ashamed, so I dismissed that idea.Or you could say that he has more reasons to want to be free than I do—he has a new identity, and he has a lot of money.But you also know that it's wrong to say that, because he can't be sure that the new identity still exists, and if he can't change to the new identity, he won't be able to get the money.No, what he pursued was that simple freedom.If I casually discard the hard-won freedom, it will undoubtedly be in front of Andy, spurning everything he has worked so hard to get back.

So I started hitchhiking into the small town of Buxden on vacation, early April [-].In the fields of early spring, the snow has just begun to melt, the weather has just warmed up, and the baseball team is heading north for the new season.Every time I go, I carry a compass in my pocket.

I remembered what Andy said: There is a large pasture field north of the town of Buxton, and there is a stone wall on the north side of the pasture field, and there is a stone at the bottom of the stone wall, and that stone has nothing to do with the pasture field in Maine , that is a piece of volcanic rock glass.

You will say, this is really stupid behavior.How much pasture land would there be in a country place like Buxton?Fifty?one hundred?Probably more than that.Even if I did find it, I wouldn't necessarily recognize it, because I might not have seen the black volcanic glass, or, more likely, Andy would have put it in his pocket and carried it away.

So I agree with you that my actions are really stupid, there is no doubt about it.What's more, for a parolee, this trip is undoubtedly a big adventure, because many grasslands have "Do not trample" signs.If you step in by mistake, you may not be able to eat and walk around.I'm stupid, but spending 27 years banging in concrete walls is equally stupid.But now that I'm no longer the know-it-all guy in prison, just an errand-runner, I have something to do to make me forget about my new life after getting out of prison for a while, and my hobby is to find The stone where Andy hid the key.

So I used to hitchhike to Buxton and walk along the road, listening to the birds, looking at the babbling water, checking the empty bottles that had been exposed by the snowmelt - all useless bottles that couldn't be returned.I have to say with regret that the world seems a lot more profligate now than it did before I went to prison - and then keep looking for that pasture.

There are quite a few ranches along the road, most of which could be crossed off the list in no time.Some have no stone walls, others have stone walls, but they are in the wrong direction.In any case, I walked on those pastures, and it was very comfortable to walk in the country. At these times, I felt real freedom and peace.One time I was followed by an old dog, and another time I saw a deer.

Then came April 23rd, a day I will never forget even if I live another 58 years.It was a pleasant Saturday afternoon, and as I was walking, the boy fishing on the bridge told me that the road was called Old Smith Road.It was almost noon at this time, I opened the lunch bag I brought, and sat on a big rock by the roadside to eat.After eating, take care to clean up the trash, a rule my dad taught me when I was around the boy's age.

When I walked around two o'clock, a large lawn appeared on my left. There was a wall at the end of the lawn, which continued to the northwest. I stepped on the wet grass and walked towards the wall.A squirrel babbled at me from an oak tree.

About a quarter of the way to the end of the wall, I saw the big rock.That's right, the black glass, as shiny as satin, is a stone that shouldn't appear in the meadows of Maine. I stared at it for a long time, feeling like crying.The squirrel followed me, still chattering.My heart was pounding non-stop.

After I calmed down a little, I went to that stone, squatted beside it, and touched it with my hand, it was real.I picked up the stone, not because I thought there would be anything hidden in it, in fact I probably just walked away without finding anything under the stone.I certainly didn't intend to take the stone, because I didn't think I had a right to take it, and I felt that taking it from the pasture would be the worst kind of theft.No, I just picked up the stone, touched it, felt its texture, and proved that the glass stone really existed.

I looked at the thing under the stone for a long, long time, my eyes had already seen it, but it took a while for my brain to really realize what was going on.There was an envelope beneath it, and the envelope was carefully wrapped in a transparent plastic bag to avoid getting wet.It has my name on it, in Andy's neat handwriting.

I picked up the envelope and put the stone back where Andy and his deceased friend had left it.

Dear Red:
If you see this letter, it means you have also come out.No matter how you got out, you got out anyway.If you have already found this place, you may be willing to go a little further. I think you must remember the name of the town, right?I need a good helper to help me put my business on track.

Grab me a drink and think about it in the meantime.I will keep an eye on your situation.Remember, "hope" is a good thing, maybe the best thing in the world, and good things never die.I hope this letter finds you, and when it does, you are doing well.

Your friend
peter stephen

I did not open the letter on the spot.A wave of fear set in and I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible before anyone saw me.

After returning to my room, I opened the letter to read, and the smell of the old man cooking dinner wafted from the stairs—it was nothing more than some flour and noodles, which almost every low-income old man in the United States ate at night. .

After reading the letter, I burst into tears, and there were twenty new 50-yuan bills in the envelope.

I'm in the Brewster Hotel now, a fugitive again- parole violation is my crime.But I guess no policeman would go to the trouble of setting up a barricade to arrest a prisoner like this—I was thinking, what am I going to do now?
I have this manuscript in hand, and a duffel bag about the size of a doctor's medicine bag, with all my belongings in it.I have nineteen fifty-dollar bills, four ten-dollar bills, one five-dollar bill, three one-dollar bills, and some change.I took a 50 yuan bill to buy this notebook and a pack of cigarettes.

I'm still thinking, what should I do?
But make no mistake, there are only two ways to go.Live hard, or die hard.

First, I'm going to put this manuscript back in the duffel bag.Then I'm going to button my bag, grab my coat and go downstairs, check out and leave this cheap hotel.Then I'd go into a bar, put a five-dollar bill in front of the bartender, and ask him to bring me two whiskeys, one for myself and one for Andy.This will be the first time I've drank as a free man since my imprisonment in [-].After drinking, I will tip the bartender one yuan, thank him well.After leaving the bar, I headed to the Greyhound bus stop to buy a ticket to El Paso via New York.Once in El Paso, buy another ticket to McNairy.Once I get to McNairy, I guess I'll figure out a way to see if an old crook like me can find a way to cross the border and into Mexico.

Of course I remember the town's name, Zihuatanejo, which is too beautiful to forget.

I found myself so excited that I could barely hold the pen with trembling hands.I think only a free man can feel this excitement, a free man embarking on a long journey into an uncertain future.

I wish Andy was there.

I hope I can successfully cross the US-Mexico border.

I wish I could meet my friend and shake his hand.

I wish the Pacific Ocean was as blue as it was in my dreams.

I hope……

(End of this chapter)