ft our happy little
family, a friend of mine called me over to the west corner of the exercise yard, where
Sherwood used to hang out, and my friend said: ‘Isn‘t that Jake, Red?‘ It was. That pigeon
was just as dead as a turd.
I remember the first time Andy Dufresne got in touch with me for something; I remember
like it was yesterday. That wasn‘t the time he wanted Rita Hayworth, though. That came
later. In that summer of 1948 he came around for something else.
Most of my deals are done right there in the exercise yard, and that‘s where this one went
down. Our yard is big, much bigger than most. It‘s a perfect square, ninety yards on a
side. The north side is the outer wall, with a guardtower at either end. The guards up there
are armed with binoculars and riot guns. The main gate is in that north side. The truck
loading-bays are on the south side of the yard. There are five of them. Shawshank is a
busy place during the work-week - deliveries in, deliveries out. We have the license-plate
factory, and a big industrial laundry that does all the prison wetwash, plus that of Kittery
Receiving Hospital and the Eliot Sanatorium. There‘s also a big automotive garage where
mechanic inmates fix prison, state, and municipal vehicles - not to mention the private
cars of the screws, the administration officers ... and, on more than one occasion, those of
the parole board.
The east side is a thick stone wall full of tiny slit windows. Cellblock 5 is on the other
side of that wail. The west side is Administration and the infirmary. Shawshank has never
been as overcrowded as most prisons, and back in ‘48 it was only filled to something like
two-thirds capacity, but at any given time there might be eighty to a hundred and twenty
cons on the yard - playing toss with a football or a baseball, shooting craps, jawing at
each other, making deals. On Sunday the place was even more crowded; on Sunday the
place would have looked like a country holiday ... if there had been any women.
It was on a Sunday that Andy first came to me. I had just finished talking to Elmore
Armitage, a fellow who often came in handy to me, about a radio when Andy walked up.
I knew who he was, of course; he had a reputation for being a snob and a cold fish.
People were saying he was marked for trouble already. One of the people saying so was
Bogs Dismond, a bad man to have on your case. Andy had no cellmate, and I‘d heard that
was just the way he wanted it, although the one-man cells in Cellblock 5 were only a little
bigger than coffins. But I don‘t have to listen to rumours about a man when I can judge
him for myself.
‘Hello,‘ he said. ‘I‘m Andy Dufresne.‘ He offered his hand and I shook it. He wasn‘t a man
to waste time being social; he got right to the point. ‘I understand that you‘re a man who
knows how to get things.‘
I agreed that I was able to locate certain items from time to time,
‘How do you do that?‘ Andy asked.
‘Sometimes,‘ I said, ‘things just seem to come into my hand. I can‘t explain it. Unless it‘s
because I‘m Irish.‘
He smiled a little at that. ‘I wonder if you could get me a rock hammer.‘
‘What would that be, and why would you want it?‘
Andy looked surprised. ‘Do you make motivations a part of your business?‘ With words
like those I could understand how he had gotten a reputation for being the snobby sort,
the kind of guy who likes to put on airs - but I sensed a tiny thread of humour in his
question.
I‘ll tell you,‘ I said. ‘If you wanted a toothbrush, I wouldn‘t ask questions. I‘d just quote
you a price. Because a toothbrush, you see, is a non-lethal sort of a weapon.‘
"You have strong feelings about lethal weapons?‘
‘I do.‘
An old friction-taped baseball flew towards us and he turned, cat-quick, and picked it out
of the air. It was a move Frank Malzone would have been proud of. Andy flicked the bail
ba

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