Chapter 5

There was a trusty, name of Kendricks, who was into me for some pretty heavy money back in the fifties, and it was four years before he got it all paid off. Most of the interest he paid me was information - in my line of work, you're dead if you can't find ways of keeping your ear to the ground. This Kendricks, for instance, had access to records I was never going to see running a stamper down in the goddam plate-shop.
Kendricks told me that the parole board vote was 7-0 against Andy Dufresne through 1957,6-1 in '58, 7-0 again in '59, and 5-2 in '60. After that I don't know, but I do know that sixteen years later he was still in Cell 14 of Cellblock 5. By then, 1976, he was fifty-eight. They probably would have fatten big-hearted and let him out around 1983. They give you life, and that's what they take - all of it that counts, anyway. Maybe they set you loose someday, but ... well. Listen: I knew this guy, Sherwood Bolton, his name was, and he had this pigeon in his cell. From 1945 until 1953, when they let him out, he had that pigeon. He wasn't any Birdman of Alcatraz; he just had this pigeon. Jake, he called him. He set Jake free a day before he, Sherwood, that is, was to walk, and Jake flew away just as pretty as you could want. But about a week after Sherwood Bolton left 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.

　　有个名叫肯德里克斯的模范犯人，在一九五年代向我借了不少钱，后来足足花了四年才付清。他付给我的利息大部分是用情报来抵。干我这一行，如果消息不灵通，就是死路一条。肯德里克斯能看到一些我绝对看不到的纪录和档案。他不像我只在那个该死的车牌工厂里操作压板机器。
　　肯德里克斯告诉我，在一九五七年以前的假释听证会上，反对安迪假释的投票纪录是七比，一九五八年是六比一，一九五九年又是七比，一九六年是五比二，以后的我就不知道了。我只知道，经过十六年后，他还在第五区的十四号牢房。到了一九七五年，他已经五十七岁了。他们很可能到一九八三年时，才会大发慈悲放了他。
　　他们饶你一命，但是却夺走你生命中所有重要的东西。也许有一天，他们会放你走，但是……
　　听着：我认识一个叫波顿的家伙，他在牢房里养了一只鸽子。从一九四五年到一九五三年，当他们放他出来走走时，他都带着这只鸽子。他叫鸽子“杰克”。波顿在出狱前一天，也放杰克自由，杰克立刻姿态漂亮地飞走了。但是在波顿离开我们这个快乐小家庭一个星期之后，有个朋友把我带到运动场角落，波顿过去老爱在那里晃来晃去。有只小鸟像一堆脏床单般软趴趴地瘫在那里，看起来饿坏了。我的朋友说：“那是不是杰克啊？”没错，是杰克，那只鸽子像粪土一样躺在那儿。