That's right, wanting to drive it, wanting to learn to drive on it, for Chrissake,' Byron said
with a shudder. 'Then what happens at the end of the year? If you figured the tax wrong
and you don't have enough left over to pay the overdraft, you got to pay out of your own
pocket, or maybe even borrow it from one of those kikey loan agencies. And they audit
you anyway, you know. It don't matter. And when the government audits you, they
always take more. Who can fight Uncle Sam? He puts his hand inside your shirt and
squeezes your tit until it's purple, and you end up getting the short end. Christ.'
He lapsed into a morose silence, thinking of what terrible bad luck he'd had to inherit that
$35,000. Andy Dufresne had been spreading tar with a big Padd brush less than fifteen
feet away and now he tossed it into his pail and walked over to where Mert and Hadley
were sitting.
We all tightened up, and I saw one of the other screws, Tim Youngblood, drag his hand
down to where his pistol was bolstered. One of the fellows in the sentry tower struck his
partner on the arm and they both turned, too. For one moment I thought Andy was going
to get shot, or clubbed, or Then he said, very softly, to Hadley: 'Do you trust your wife?'
Hadley just stared at him. He was starting to get red in the face, and I knew that was a
bad sign. In about three seconds he as going to pull his billy and give Andy the butt end
of it right in the solar plexus, where that big bundle of nerves is. A hard enough hit there
can kill you, but they always go for it. If itdoesn't kill you it will paralyze you long
enough to forget whatever cute move it was that you had planned.
"Boy," Hadley said, I'll give you just one chance to pick up that Padd. And then you're
goin' off this roof on your head.'
Andy just looked at him, very calm and still. His eyes were like ice. It was as if he hadn't
heard. And I found myself wanting to tell him how it was, to give him the crash course.
The crash course is you never let on that you hear the guards talking, you never try to
horn in on their conversation unless you're asked (and then you always tell them just what
they wanting to hear and shut up again). Black man, white man, red man., yellow man, in
prison it doesn't matter because we've got our own brand of equality. In prison every
con's a nigger and you have to get used to the idea if you intend to survive men like
Hadley and Greg Staminas, who really would kill you. just as soon as look at you. When
you're in stir you belong to the state and if you forget it, woe is you. I've known men
who've lost eyes, men who've lost toes and fingers; I knew one man who lost the tip of
his penis and counted himself lucky that was all he lost. I wanted to tell Andy that it was
already too late. He could go back and pick up his brush and there would still be some
big lug waiting for him in the showers that night, ready to charlie-horse both of his legs
and leave him writhing on the cement. You could buy a lug like rat for a pack of
cigarettes or three Baby Ruths. Most of all, I wanted to tell him not to make it any worse
than it already was.
What I did was to keep on running tar onto the roof as if niching at all was happening.
Like everyone else, I look after n? own ass first. I have to. It's cracked already, and in
Shawshank there have always been Hadleys wiling to finish the job of breaking it.
Andy said, 'Maybe I put it wrong. Whether you trust her or not is immaterial. The
problem is whether or not you believe she would ever go behind your back, try to
hamstring you.'
Hadley got up. Mert got up. Tim Youngblood got up. Hadley's face was as red as the side
of a firebarn. 'Your only, problem,' he said, 'is going to be how many bones you still get
unbroken. You can count them in the infirmary. Come on, Mert We're throwing this
sucker over the side.'

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