4بخش

Andy was right. I finally got the joke.

It would take a man about 600 years to tunnel under the wall with one of these.

Book?

Not today.

Book? No.

Hey, Brooksy.

Delivery for Dufresne.

Book?

Dufresne…

Here’s your book.

Thanks.

Dufresne! We’re running low on Hexlite.

Get on back and fetch us up some.

If you get this in your eyes, it blinds you.

Honey…hush.

I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight,

and the Sisters let him be.

I wish I could tell you that.

But prison is no fairy-tale world.

He never said who did it.

But we all knew.

Things went on like that for a while.

Prison life consists of routine…

and then more routine.

Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises.

The Sisters kept at him.

Sometimes he was able to fight ‘em off. Sometimes not.

And that’s how it went for Andy.

That was his routine.

I do believe those first two years were the worst for him.

And I also believe,

if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.

But then, in the spring of 1949,

the powers that be decided that…

The roof of the license-plate factory needs resurfacing.

I need a dozen volunteers for a week’s work.

As you know,

special detail carries with it special privileges.

It was outdoor detail…

..and May is one damn fine month to be working outdoors.

Stay in line there.

More than a hundred men volunteered for the job.

Wallace E Unger.

Ellis Redding.

Wouldn’t you know it?

Me and some fellows I know were among the names.

Andrew Dufresne.

It only cost us a pack of smokes per man.

I made my usual 20 per cent, of course.

So, this big-shot lawyer calls me long-distance from Texas.

I say, “Yeah?”

He says, “Sorry to inform you, but your brother just died.”

Oh, damn, Byron. I’m sorry to hear that.

I’m not. He was an asshole.

Ran off years ago. Figured him for dead, anyway.

So, anyway, this lawyer fella says to me, “Your brother died a rich man.”

Oil wells and shit. Close to a million bucks.

A million bucks?

Fucking incredible how lucky some assholes get.

Jeez-Louise! Are you gonna see any of that?

35,000. That’s what he left me.

Dollars? Yeah.

Holy shit! That’s great. That’s like winning the sweepstakes.

Isn’t it?

Dumb shit. What do you think the government’s gonna do to me?

Take a big, wet bite out of my ass, is what.

Poor Byron! Terrible **ing luck, huh?

Crying shame.

Some people really got it awful!

Andy, are you nuts?

Keep your eyes on your mop, man. Andy!

Well, you’ll pay some tax, but you’ll still end up…

Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe enough to buy a new car. Then what?

I’ve got to pay tax on the car.

Repair, maintenance, goddamn kids pestering me to take them for a ride…

And at the end of the year, you figure the tax wrong, you pay them out of your own pocket.

I tell you…Uncle Sam!

He puts his hand in your shirt and squeezes your tit till it’s purple.

Andy! Andy! What’s he doing?

Getting himself killed. Keep tarring.

Some brother! Shit.

Hey!

Mr. Hadley…

do you trust your wife?

Oh, that’s funny.

You’re gonna look funnier sucking my dick with no teeth.

I mean, do you think she’d go behind your back, try to hamstring you?

That’s it. Step aside, Mert.

This **er’s having an accident.

He’s gonna push him off.

Cos if you do trust her, there’s no reason you can’t keep that 35,000.

What did you say? 35,000.

35,000? All of it.

All of it? Every penny.

You’d better start making sense.

If you want to keep the money, give it to your wife.

The IRS allows a one-time-only gift to your spouse for up to $60,000.

Bullshit! Tax-free?

Tax-free. The IRS can’t touch one cent.

You’re the smart banker what killed his wife.

Why should I believe a smart banker like you? So I can end up in here with you?

It’s legal. Ask the IRS.

They’ll say the same thing. But I feel stupid telling you this.

I’m sure you would have investigated the matter.

Yeah, I don’t need no banker to tell me where the bears shit in the buckwheat.

Of course not, but you do need someone to set up the tax-free gift.

It’ll cost you; A lawyer.

A bunch of ball-washing bastards.

I suppose I could set it up for you. That would save you some money.

If you get the forms, I’ll prepare them for you.

Nearly free of charge.

I’d only ask three beers apiece for each of my co-workers.

Co-workers! Get him! That’s rich, ain’t it?

I think a man working outdoors feels more like a man

if he can have a bottle of suds.

That’s only my opinion…sir.

What are you jimmies staring at?

Back to work!

Let’s go. Work.

And that’s how it came to pass… that on the second-to-last day of the job,

the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in the spring of ‘49…

wound up sitting in a row at ten o’clock in the morning,

drinking icy-cold, Bohemia-style beer…

courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison.

Drink up while it’s cold, ladies.

The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous.

We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders, and felt like free men.

Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses.

We were the lords of all creation.

As for Andy, he spent that break hunkered in the shade…

a strange little smile on his face,

watching us drink his beer.

Hey…

Want a cold one, Andy?

No, thanks.

I gave up drinking.

You could argue he’d done it to curry favor with the guards.

Or maybe make a few friends among us cons.

Me, I think he did it just to feel normal again.

If only for a short while.

King me.

Chess. Now, there’s a game of kings.

What? Civilized, strategic.

And a total **ing mystery.

I hate it.

Maybe you’ll let me teach you someday.

Yeah. Sure.

I thought of getting a board together.

Well, I’m the right man. I’m the guy that can get things.

We might do business on a board.

But I want to carve the pieces myself.

One side in alabaster, the opposing side in soapstone. What do you think?

I think it’ll take years.

Well, years I got. What I don’t have are the rocks.

Pickings are pretty slim in the yard.

Pebbles, mostly.

Andy, we’re getting to be kinda friends, aren’t we?

Yeah, I guess.

Can I ask you something?

Why did you do it?

I’m innocent, Red. Just like everybody else here.

What are you in for?

Murder.

Same as you.

Innocent?

Only guilty man in Shawshank.