It was Warden Norton who instituted the 'Inside-Out' programme you may have nike heelsread about some sixteen or seventeen years back; it was even written up in Newsweek. In the press it sounded like a real advance in practical corrections and rehabilitation. There were prisoners out cutting jordan heelspulpwood, prisoners repairing bridges and causeways, prisoners constructing potato cellars. Norton called it 'Inside-Out' and was invited to explain it to damn near every Rotary and Kiwanis club in New England, especially after he got his picture in Newsweek. The prisoners called it 'road-ganging', but so far as I know, none of Red Bottom Heels them were ever invited to express their views to the Kiwanians or the Loyal Order of the Moose.
Norton was right in there on every operation, thirty-year church-pin and all, from cutting pulp to digging storm-drains to laying new culverts on state highways, there was Norton, skimming off the top. There were a hundred Red Bottom Shoesways to do it -men, materials, you name it. But he had it coming another way, as well. The construction businesses in the area were deathly afraid of Norton's Inside-Out programme, because prison labour is slave Nike High Heelslabour, and you can't compete with that. So Sam Norton, he of the Testaments and the thirty-year church-pin, was passed a good many thick envelopes under the table during his fifteen-year tenure as Shawshank's warden. And when an envelope was passed, he would either overbid the project, not bid at all, or claim that all his Inside-Outers were committed Nike Heels elsewhere. It has always been something of a wonder to me that Norton was never found in the trunk of a Thunderbird parked off a highway somewhere down in Massachusetts with his hands tied behind his back and half a dozen bullets in his head.
Anyway, as the old barrelhouse song says, My God, how nike heelsthe money rolled in. Norton must have subscribed to the old Puritan notion that the best way to figure out which folks God favours is by checking their bank accounts.
Andy Dufresne was his right hand jordan heelsin all of this, his silent partner. The prison library was Andy's hostage to fortune. Norton knew it, and Norton used it. Andy told me that one of Norton's favourite aphorisms was One hand washes the other. So Andy gave good advice and made useful suggestions. I can't say for sure that he hand-tooled Norton's Inside-Out programme, but I'm damned sure he processed the money for the Jesus-shouting son of a whore. He gave good advice, made useful suggestions, the money got spread around, and ... son of a bitch! The library would get a new set of automotive repair manuals, a fresh set of Grolier Encyclopedias, books on how to prepare for nike high heelsthe Scholastic Achievement Tests. And, of course, more Erie Stanley Gardeners and more Louis L'Amours.
And I'm convinced that what happened happened because Norton just didn't want to lose his good right hand. I'll go further: it happened Jordan Heelsbecause he was scared of what might happen - what Andy might say against him - if Andy ever got clear of Shawshank State Prison. I got the story a chunk here and a chunk there over a space of seven years, some of it from Andy - but not all. He never wanted to talk Nike Heels about that part of his life, and I don't blame him. I got parts of it from maybe half a dozen different sources. I've said once that prisoners are nothing but slaves, but they have that slave habit of looking dumb and keeping their ears open. I got it backwards and forwards and in the middle, but I'll give it to you from point A to point Z, and maybe you'll understand why the man spent about ten months in a bleak, depressed daze. See, I don't think he knew the truth until 1963, fifteen years after he came into this sweet little Nike High Heelshell-hole. Until he met Tommy Williams, I don't think he knew how bad it could get.
Tommy Williams joined our happy little Shawshank family in November of 1962. Tommy thought of himself as a native of Massachusetts, but he wasn't proud; in his twenty-seven years he'd done time all over New England. He was a professional thief, and as you may have guessed, my own feeling Nike Heelswas that he should have picked another profession.

Posted by: jimes at 09:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 755 words, total size 5 kb.