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You wondered if I made it, of course. Heading south to a place I barely believed in, after spending my best years behind bars, could I even make it across the border? I wondered, myself, so I can't say that I blame you. I had no doubt that Andy could do it, had done it, even, but Andy was a hell of a go-getter.
I'll tell you this: McNary, Texas is a tiny little town, barely a dot on the map, and not even big enough to have a Greyhound station. The driver let me off at the single gas station, a big red Conoco that looked newer than anything else in town. The woman behind the counter had soft brown eyes, and I looked straight in them when I asked about the best way to cross the border. I was somewhere between brave and terrified out of my mind, but it had gotten me this far, and I'd be damned if I quit before I saw the end of it.
I guess there was something about the way I looked at her, but the brown-eyed girl leaned out the back door and called across the dusty back lot to the trailer hunched there. A young man, probably younger than my ex-boss at the FoodWay, came over, shutting the door behind him before they had a conversation in rapid-fire Spanish, casting a couple of glances over at me. “I can get you across the border,” he told me in heavily accented English. “No problemo. Fifty dollars.”
“Forty,” I countered, because it seemed like the thing to do.
He nodded. “Deal.”
He not only got me across the border, he put me on a bus headed south. I put the fifty in his hand and told him to keep the change. It was a couple of very long legs before the driver announced Zihuatanejo, a little town as beautiful as the name suggested, but I was content to stare out the window and doze. Maybe I was a worn-out old man, but I was one who was tasting freedom. The Pacific was every damned bit as blue as I'd imagined, and a sweet little señorita in a dress of almost the same color pointed down the beach to where the new hotel was.
Andy Dufresne himself, in a very fine linen suit and that air of easy dignity, is behind the desk in the lobby. He stands as I enter, and gives me a look of sheer delight. “Look what the cat dragged in,” and he laughs as he pounds me on the back.
“Goddamn, but it's good to see you,” I tell him. “Nice place you've got here.”
“Let me give you the tour.”
It's as beautiful as the picture he'd painted me. Six cabanas on the beach, six more further back, a deep-sea fishing boat with a set of poles sweet enough to make you cry – and his own little cabin, just past the last cabana on the other side of the dune. He's got a spare room that he's been saving for me, and a handyman/jack-of-all trades sort of job that he swears I'll be fantastic at. I'm not sure if he's right, but I'm willing to take a swing at it. It sure as hell beats bagging groceries at the South Portland FoodWay.
Andy – or, rather, Peter – looks good with a tan. He sleeps with his windows open every night, even when it's raining. This close to the equator, it doesn't really ever get cold, which is a hell of a nice change from Maine. The freedom, the responsibility of the hotel, suits him right down to the ground.
I'm slowly getting used to it, the freedom. I walk down to the beach every morning, first thing, and just stare out at the Pacific. After thirty-eight years of living in a cage, having nothing in front of you but open ocean does a lot to remind a man that he's a man. Andy's good for that, too. He treats me with respect, probably more than I deserve out here, but it's enough to remind me that I'm more than just a cringing ex-con.
There's no shortage of women here in Zihuatanejo, but both of us are more than a little gun-shy, for pretty obvious reasons. I'm not much to look at these days, anyway, so Andy and I are content to live side-by-side, comfortable old bachelors keeping house together. I doubt it'll ever be any more than that; certain kinds of behaviors are too entrenched in our memories of the time we're happier having left behind. But we're close, close in the way that men are who've shared a foxhole, a tour in hell together, and that's more than anyone else could understand.
And after all that, if you're still wondering, well, flights to Zihuatanejo are pretty easy to come by, and most anybody could point you in the direction of the little hotel on the beach. Maybe I'll carry your bags for you.