In 1966 Andy Dufresne escaped fromShawshank Prison. All they found was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar ofsoup, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I rememberthinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall withit. Old Andy did it in less than twenty.

Oh, Andy loved Geology. I imagined itappealed to his meticulous nature. An ice age here, million years ofmountain-building there. Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s allit takes, really, pressure and time, that and a big goddamn poster.

Like I said, in prison, a man will doanything to keep his mind occupied. Turns out Andy’s favorite hobby was totinghis wall out into the exercise yard, a handful at a time.

I guess, after Tommy was killed, Andydecided he’d been here just about long enough.

Andy did like he was told, buffed thoseshoes to a high mirror-shine. The guard didn’t simply notice, neither did I. Imean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes?

Andy crawled to freedom through fivehundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I justdon’t want to. Five hundred yards. That’s the length of five football fields,just shy of half a mile.