that. I’ve played it over and over in my mind and I know. It was man against man, and Andy simply forced him, the way a strong man can force a weaker man’s wrist to the table in a game of Indian rasseling. There was no reason, you see, why Hadley couldn’t’ve given Mert the nod at that very minute, pitched Andy overside onto his head, and still taken Andy’s advice.
No reason. But he didn’t.
“I could get you all a couple of beers if I wanted to,” Hadley said. “A beer does taste good while you’re workin.” The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous.
“I’d just give you one piece of advice the IRS wouldn’t bother with,” Andy said. His eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Hadley’s. “Make this gift to your wife if you’re sure. If you think there’s even a chance she might double-cross you or backshoot you, we could work out something else—”
“Double-cross me?” Hadley asked harshly. “Double-cross me? Mr. Hotshot Banker, if she ate her way through a boxcar of Ex-Lax, she wouldn’t dare fart unless I gave her the nod.”
Mert, Youngblood, and the other screws yucked it up dutifully. Andy never cracked a smile.
“I’ll write down the forms you need,” he said. “You can get them at the post office, and I’ll fill them out for your signature.”
That sounded suitably important, and Hadley’s chest swelled. Then he glared around at the rest of us and hollered,
“What are you jimmies starin at? Move your asses, goddammit!” He looked back at Andy. “You come over here with me, hotshot. And listen to me well: if you’re jewing me somehow, you’re gonna find yourself chasing your own head around Shower C before the week’s out.”
“Yes, I understand that,” Andy said softly.
And he did understand it. The way it turned out, he understood a lot more than I did—more than any of us did.
That’s how, on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in 1950 ended up sitting in a row at ten o’clock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison. That beer was pisswarm, but it was still the best I ever had in my life. We sat and drank it and felt the sun on our shoulders, and not even the expression of half-amusement, half-contempt on Hadley’s face—as if he were watching apes drink beer instead of men—could spoil it. It lasted twenty minutes, that beer-break, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men. We could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses.
Only Andy didn’t drink. I already told you about his drinking habit. He sat hunkered down in the shade, hands dangling between his knees, watching us and smiling a little. It’s amazing how many men remember him that way, and amazing how many men were on that work-crew when Andy Dufresne faced down Byron Hadley. I thought there were nine or ten of us, but by 1955 there must have been two hundred of us, maybe more ... if you believed what you heard.
So yeah—if you asked me to give you a flat-out answer to the question of whether I’m trying to tell you about a man or a legend that got made up around the man, like a pearl around a little piece of grit—I’d have to say that the answer lies somewhere in between. All I know for sure is that Andy Dufresne wasn’t much like me or anyone else I ever knew since I came inside. He brought in five hundred dollars jammed up his back porch, but somehow that graymeat son of a bitch managed to bring in something else as well. A sense of his own worth, maybe, or a feeling that he would be the winner in the end ... or maybe it was only a sense of freedom, even inside these goddamned gray walls. It was a kind of inner light he carried around with him. I only knew him to lose that light once, and that is also a part of this story.
By World Series time of 1950—this was the year the Philadelphia Whiz Kids
No reason. But he didn’t.
“I could get you all a couple of beers if I wanted to,” Hadley said. “A beer does taste good while you’re workin.” The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous.
“I’d just give you one piece of advice the IRS wouldn’t bother with,” Andy said. His eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Hadley’s. “Make this gift to your wife if you’re sure. If you think there’s even a chance she might double-cross you or backshoot you, we could work out something else—”
“Double-cross me?” Hadley asked harshly. “Double-cross me? Mr. Hotshot Banker, if she ate her way through a boxcar of Ex-Lax, she wouldn’t dare fart unless I gave her the nod.”
Mert, Youngblood, and the other screws yucked it up dutifully. Andy never cracked a smile.
“I’ll write down the forms you need,” he said. “You can get them at the post office, and I’ll fill them out for your signature.”
That sounded suitably important, and Hadley’s chest swelled. Then he glared around at the rest of us and hollered,
“What are you jimmies starin at? Move your asses, goddammit!” He looked back at Andy. “You come over here with me, hotshot. And listen to me well: if you’re jewing me somehow, you’re gonna find yourself chasing your own head around Shower C before the week’s out.”
“Yes, I understand that,” Andy said softly.
And he did understand it. The way it turned out, he understood a lot more than I did—more than any of us did.
That’s how, on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in 1950 ended up sitting in a row at ten o’clock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison. That beer was pisswarm, but it was still the best I ever had in my life. We sat and drank it and felt the sun on our shoulders, and not even the expression of half-amusement, half-contempt on Hadley’s face—as if he were watching apes drink beer instead of men—could spoil it. It lasted twenty minutes, that beer-break, and for those twenty minutes we felt like free men. We could have been drinking beer and tarring the roof of one of our own houses.
Only Andy didn’t drink. I already told you about his drinking habit. He sat hunkered down in the shade, hands dangling between his knees, watching us and smiling a little. It’s amazing how many men remember him that way, and amazing how many men were on that work-crew when Andy Dufresne faced down Byron Hadley. I thought there were nine or ten of us, but by 1955 there must have been two hundred of us, maybe more ... if you believed what you heard.
So yeah—if you asked me to give you a flat-out answer to the question of whether I’m trying to tell you about a man or a legend that got made up around the man, like a pearl around a little piece of grit—I’d have to say that the answer lies somewhere in between. All I know for sure is that Andy Dufresne wasn’t much like me or anyone else I ever knew since I came inside. He brought in five hundred dollars jammed up his back porch, but somehow that graymeat son of a bitch managed to bring in something else as well. A sense of his own worth, maybe, or a feeling that he would be the winner in the end ... or maybe it was only a sense of freedom, even inside these goddamned gray walls. It was a kind of inner light he carried around with him. I only knew him to lose that light once, and that is also a part of this story.
By World Series time of 1950—this was the year the Philadelphia Whiz Kids
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