ely, someone has died... or committed suicide.
But this time, they found a mystery instead of a sick man or a dead man. They found no
man at all. There were fourteen cells in Cellblock 5, seven to a side, all fairly neat -
restriction of visiting privileges is the penalty for a sloppy cell at Shawshank - and all
very empty.
Gonyar‘s first assumption was that there had been a miscount or a practical joke. So
instead of going off to work after breakfast, the inmates of Cellblock 5 were sent back to
their cells, joking and happy. Any break in the routine was always welcome.
Cell doors opened; prisoners stepped in; cell doors closed. Some clown shouting, ‘I want
my lawyer, I want my lawyer, you guys run this place just like a frigging prison.‘
Burkes: ‘Shut up in there, or I‘ll rank you.‘
The clown: ‘I ranked your wife, Burkie,‘
Gonyar: ‘Shut up, all of you, or you‘ll spend the day in there.‘
He and Burkes went up the line again, counting noses. They didn‘t have to go far.
‘Who belongs in this cell?‘ Gonyar asked the rightside night guard.
‘Andrew Dufresne,‘ the rightside answered, and that was all it took. Everything stopped
being routine right then. The balloon went up.
In all the prison movies I‘ve seen, this wailing horn goes off when there‘s been a break.
That never happens at Shawshank. The first thing Gonyar did was to get in touch with the
warden. The second thing was to get a search of the prison going. The third was to alert
the State Police in Scarborough to the possibility of a breakout
That was the routine. It didn‘t call for them to search the suspected escapee‘s cell, and so
no one did. Not then. Why would they? It was a case of what you see is what you get It
was a small square room, bars on the window and bars on the sliding door. There was a
toilet and an empty cot. Some pretty rocks on the windowsill.
And the poster, of course. It was Linda Ronstadt by then. The poster was right over his
bunk. There had been a poster there, in that exact same place, for twenty-six years. And
when someone - it was Warden Norton himself, as it turned out, poetic justice if there
ever was any - looked behind it, they got one hell of a shock.
But that didn‘t happen until 6.30 that night, almost twelve hours after Andy had been
reported missing, probably twenty hours after he had actually made his escape.
Norton hit the roof.
I have it on good authority - Chester, the trustee, who was waxing the hall floor in the
Admin Wing that day. He didn‘t have to polish any keyplates with his ear that day; he
said you could hear the warden clear down to Records & Files as he chewed on Rich
Gonyar‘s ass.
‘What do you mean, you‘re "satisfied he‘s not on the prison grounds"? What does that
mean? It means you didn‘t find him! You better find him! You better! Because I want
him! Do you hear me? I want him!‘
Gonyar said something.
‘Didn‘t happen on your shift? That‘s what you say. So far as / can tell, no one knows when
it happened. Or how. Or if it really did. Now, I want him in my office by three o‘clock
this afternoon, or some heads are going to roll. I can promise you that, and I always keep
my promises.‘
Something else from Gonyar, something that seemed to provoke Norton to even greater
rage.
‘No? Then look at this! Look at this! You recognize it? Last night‘s tally for Cellblock 5.
Every prisoner accounted for! Dufresne was locked up last night at nine and it is
impossible for him to be gone now! It is impossible! Now you find him!"
But at six that evening Andy was still among the missing, Norton himself stormed down
to Cellblock 5, where the rest of us had been locked up all of that day. Had we been
questioned? We had spent most of that long day being questioned by harried screws who
were feeling the breath of the dragon on the backs of their necks. We all said the same
thing: we had

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