Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption

by Hopwood, Shon

  Finally, there it was, handed to me like it might have been any piece of mail from just anybody.

  “Here you go, bud.”

  It was not a card this time but a manila envelope, fat with a letter on stationery and several pictures, including a few professional glossies from her modeling days. It was like the fat acceptance letter you receive from the college admissions office instead of the thin rejection. I sat on my bunk and placed my headphones—the ones I had bought after Bobbie wrecked my first set—over my ears, not for music but to block out the prison chatter. I let some silence settle in before I started reading.

  The letter was an invitation deeper into her world—into her health problems, her fears about life. My letter to her had been a calculated manipulation to hook her into another letter, but after reading her thoughts and fears laid out so intimately, it was my heart that had the hook in it.

  Dear Shon,

  Okay, I want to be clear about one thing. I definitely did not write you out of sympathy. I wrote you because deep in my heart it was something I really wanted to do. I have thought about you often throughout the last few years and always wondered how you were. I have wanted to write you for a long time but didn’t have the courage to until now. I was so afraid you would be upset by my contacting you or that you wouldn’t even remember who I was. But I finally decided that was a chance I would have to take. So my intentions are pure—I am writing you simply because I want to. And I hope that we will continue to correspond.

  I find it rather funny that you said you used to follow me a couple of blocks when you would see me out running. What is even funnier is that I remember getting an adrenaline rush every time I saw you drive by when I was running. I might as well admit to you that I had the hugest crush on you from the first time I ever saw you. But I never thought in a million years that I would catch your eye.

  Ann Marie Metzner had a crush on me in high school? Right. For a second I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me. That someone had some girl write this letter to mess with my head. Maybe someone from back home who despised me?

  The letter went on to fill in some of the gaps in her story: how her NCAA Division I running days at Creighton had been cut short by a serious bone fracture caused by poor nutrition because of her anorexia; how she had studied nutrition after that; and how she was now helping her father to diversify KV from animal health supplies into human nutrition products. She said she loved visiting with my mom at the office and assured me that this was not my mom’s idea. That claim, of course, was met with some skepticism. I may never know for sure.

  I can tell you with confidence that the medium of the handwritten word is the superior one—with physical separation the walls of ego and security crumble. Also, you have the luxury of pondering your words before communicating. If we’d been face-to-face the chance of my mouth making a mistake would have been far greater.

  After a few letters, I noticed she was struggling with something, but I didn’t know what it was. Then in August of 2001:

  Shon,

  I just wanted to write you a quick note to let you know about a major decision I made this last week. As we have discussed a little, I have struggled quite a bit this last year with the anorexia. I haven’t told you much about it yet, but I promise I will. Anyway, my health has begun to deteriorate rather rapidly in the last two weeks and my osteoporosis has worsened significantly, leaving me in daily excruciating pain from several small-scale fractures in my back, pelvis, hip, and leg. With each passing day it has been harder and harder to walk. This situation combined with many other signs I have received in the past two weeks has led me to make a tough decision. I will be leaving to go to a place called Mirasol in Tucson. It has become very clear that if I continue with my life here as I have been doing, I will die, and I do not want that. I want to live.

  I was concerned that before I had the chance to really know Ann Marie she would be gone. When she had settled into Mirasol, she sent me a note:

  I have many moments of utter despair and hopelessness. And many moments where my entire body shakes as I cry from the pain, anger, sadness, and confusion I hold inside. It is very intense here at Mirasol and I am very disconnected from the world. I only get to use the phone twice a week for about 15 minutes and I do not have access to television, radio, newspaper, or magazines.

  I could relate. I later learned the reason that the clinic is so strict. Eating disorders are among the toughest mental health disorders to treat. And anorexics are notorious for ditching their food, sneaking in exercise, and doing whatever it takes not to gain weight. It takes round-the-clock supervision to force them to gain weight. Ann Marie, I would learn, had dropped to sixty-seven pounds and was on the brink of death.

  They want us to just focus on our healing. Sometimes I feel so trapped here and trapped in my own mind with all the horrible thoughts and feelings that I cannot escape. They keep telling me that the worse I am feeling is progress and I just have to work through it. And I know that is true, but moments seem almost unbearable. I stepped outside the other night and was looking at the beautiful sky filled with stars. And I thought of you, said a little prayer and felt the connection we share. In that moment, I understood what it feels like for you to be in prison. Even though I am not physically in prison, I live in the prison of my own mind.

  Annie, which is what I now called her, was worried about my state of mind, even when she should have been focused on her own recovery. In every letter, she asked if there was something she could do to make my time pass more quickly, to make life easier.

  Dear Shon,

  Thanks for sharing so much with me and for trusting me. I believe I was spiritually guided to write you. I believe that there is a special connection between us and that there is a lot we can learn from each other. Take care Shon!

  Love, Ann Marie

  Was the word “love” just the customary courtesy? Did she write it just to be nice? If it was love, what kind was it? The love of a good friend? Something more?

  I knew I shouldn’t, but it was happening anyway; I was falling in love with a woman I knew only from scrawled letters and high school fantasies, and who was now evaporating before I could ever touch her.

  I had formed two delusional ideas. Maybe I could have a life with Annie. I had eight years left in prison, but it’s possible she would wait for me. It’s possible that she would one day love me in spite of my circumstances.

  Although she said she was engaged, I shut that out. People get engaged. They also go to dentists and buy car insurance. It’s just a routine thing between birth and death. It isn’t final. People break off engagements all the time. There are Hallmark cards for it, something people from David City know because Mr. Hall of Hallmark fame was born there.

  The second impossible idea was that it would be difficult to win her if I didn’t think bigger than I had been thinking. My universe was expanding because of her. Maybe I could go to law school? Become a lawyer? Near impossible, but worth thinking about.

  I was, after all, becoming a decent jailhouse lawyer. So good, in fact, that I was in trouble with Ryan and a few other jailhouse lawyers for taking some of their “clients” away from them. Clients were a good thing to have, as they tended to be very grateful if you could help cut some years off their sentences. Some Friday nights I was up to my gills in pasta. And I was making friends across racial lines and even earning some respect from the guards.

  The idea of being a real lawyer someday just sort of blended into my Annie fantasy. So I thought about mentioning it in a letter. Or maybe I shouldn’t.

  I talked to Bobbie about it as we were working out. He understood that I was becoming fixated with these twin passions: Annie and the law.

  He asked me about her. I guess he couldn’t know what to advise me if he didn’t have a sense of what she was like.

  I told him some of what I knew, but held back certain parts, like her struggles with anorexia. I didn’t want Bobbie to judge her without knowing the
entire story, because most people don’t understand the disorder.

  “Quit being such a chump,” he finally said. “I think you really are interested in this law thing. You’re just scared. I don’t think you’re fooling yourself. Man up with her about it. But at the same time, I mean, you don’t have to oversell it.”

  “You don’t think it’s a bit of a stretch?”

  “If it is, who gives a—”

  “I do. I don’t want to lie to her.”

  “Maybe that’s what she needs. She might need someone who has cajones enough to chase after big dreams. Chicks dig that. Plus, maybe she needs that in her life, something big and inspirational.”

  We worked out in silence for a minute.

  “The thing is, maybe it’s not bull if you put it out there, even before you can say it’s a sure thing.”

  “We both know it’s nowhere close to a sure thing,” I said.

  “Then make it come true. I think you should go ahead and tell her that this is what you’re doing so she can see who you are. She’s a smart girl. I don’t think she’ll judge you based on whether or not it happens. But make sure you let her know she is your inspiration.”

  That was the truth.

  Just the same, what I wrote her was that my dream was to become a paralegal at some law firm. I didn’t want to sound like a delusional idiot.

  Shon,

  Ya know, you mentioned that you would like to get a job with a great law firm. Well, here is what I think about that. To heck with working for a firm, you are so intelligent and so good with legal work that I could see you getting a law degree and opening up your own darn firm! Whatever you decide your heart is calling you to do, I know you will always be very successful in your endeavors.

  Love, Annie

  She was always two steps ahead. As I read her letter, I suddenly believed it to my core. Just knowing she saw it made it all real, and I could see myself doing it, being it. One way or the other, my life was going to change because of her. Her contacting me was like some intervention; it felt more like a religious experience to me than anything I had experienced before. This was new for me.

  After that letter I had the nerve to ask Annie if I could call her.

  The last time I had actually heard her voice was back in high school—a lifetime ago. I knew she had a very limited ability to take calls at Mirasol, but I asked anyway. She didn’t reply.

  I started standing on the balcony during mail call to be that much closer to the stairs and not miss my name. Every time they said “Hopwood,” I shot down the stairs. Letters from family, from friends, always so welcome before, were now stained with disappointment because they were not from Annie.

  My trip down the stairs slowed a little. I settled into the idea that we were writing friends and nothing more. I had blown it by trying to break through the wall of our platonic pen pal situation.

  She was engaged after all. I was just her brother confessor—someone safe like a monk, locked away for private prayers and whispers. I was officially outcast from the world, so communication with me could be more intimate than if I had been, say, a young chamber of commerce type back in town. I was privacy itself, a fellow cave dweller. But the vision of someday having a life with her would not leave my consciousness.

  A week later—it seemed like forever—she wrote to set up a time for me to call. I called. Her voice was innocent and gentle—the ideal elixir for my world of imprisonment. The call was short but it made me all the more anxious to win her. I could not afford one wrong move. I would be the friend, the old hermit with the long beard and kind eyes. I was stuck in time and could use that time to get to know her perfectly and make her fall in love with me. I was an optimistic fool in spite of the long odds.

  My energy for everything in life increased. I expanded my college classes. I continued reading legal opinions. I encouraged her to be healthy every way I could; she was still in great danger. I wanted to be a source of hope.

  I suddenly was the only guy in Pekin with a big smile nearly all the time—other than those who smoked too much weed.

  When new guys arrived at Illinois One, I became the welcome wagon. I collected snacks and laundry soap, decent shower soaps and shampoos, so that we could sit down with new arrivals and give them something, anything, to cheer them up and make them feel human. The men closest to me knew very well that it was Annie who was doing this to me.

  I didn’t want to make a big deal about Annie, not publicly, as it could all stop and I’d look stupid. So I soft-pedaled it. Besides, she was engaged. She was not my girl. But when I taped her portrait up in my cell, guys accused me of cutting it out of a fashion magazine.

  “Well, you look happy today. You must have got a letter from your girl?” Bobbie said plenty of mornings as we worked out.

  I would joke it off with something stupid, like saying the only girls he knows are the ones who look back at him from the magazines.

  Prison conversations are childish like that, but everyone expects their friends to make dumb remarks, which is the main entertainment for the continually bored. Nobody has good comedy writers to back them up. For that matter, there are no Morgan Freemans to offer up daily wisdom. Beyond the wisecracks of friends, the best entertainment in prison is guards tripping and falling, gossip, fights, and the endless Seinfeld reruns.

  In July of 2001 Annie left Mirasol and headed home. In November she sent me a letter saying she wanted to come visit. We were all still in shock after 9/11, and there was a great emotional shift in the country. I was horrified that some inmates seemed to welcome the terrorist attack. They viewed an attack against the Twin Towers as an attack against the government that had locked them up. And yes, I know that most twelve-year-olds have higher reasoning capacity than that.

  The comments alienated me from some of them and made me realize how out of place I was, or had become. I just wanted to hug Annie and then sign back up for active service. That was my big reaction to 9/11, besides the anger and nausea of those days. Every time you looked at the dayroom televisions, it was the towers falling and three thousand people dying until you just couldn’t stand it.

  The trip to Pekin from Omaha is about an eight-hour drive. There are papers you have to fill out to visit, so I sent her everything and hoped she would go through with it.

  The plan was for her to arrive the day after Thanksgiving, which was also the day my Cornhuskers were matched against Colorado for a shot at the national title. The first half was disastrous. The Buffaloes ran the ball at will and we could not stop them. The third quarter started better, and our Heisman quarterback, Eric Crouch, was leading a comeback. Just as the fourth quarter began my name was called. I had a visitor. I backed away from the game screen, torn between two heavens. Annie won.

  I had been thinking all week about how to approach her. I could walk over to her, hug her, and thank her for the visit. She would expect that. It would be the conventional thing. The other approach involved something different—something that might end with me getting slapped. But what was there to lose? I was already in prison. No need to get scared now.

  She was seated in the visiting area when I walked in. She recognized me instantly, which was a relief—you do change after a few years. But she saw me and smiled.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Annie,” I said. I took her face in my hands and I kissed her on her mouth. It was the best five seconds I spent in prison.

  I led her to a table, pulled out a chair for her, and we visited for hours. Her engagement ring featured a large diamond. It meant nothing, I assured myself. Women receive these things all the time, and they wear them for a while and then send them back.

  She spent the night at a nearby hotel and came back to visit me the next day, Saturday.

  The diamond ring was no longer on her finger.

  The fresh little furrow in her finger was stark white and her finger looked happy to be free of the tiny shackle. She appeared more peaceful.

  “You’re not wearing your
ring today?”

  “I was supposed to be with him and his family yesterday.”

  “So why aren’t you?”

  “We have both been going through the motions. We have called off the engagement four or five times. Our relationship hasn’t been the same for a while.”

  She was quiet, studying her finger. She looked up at me with those green eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I sort of meant it.

  “It’s not fair to anyone to keep pretending,” she said. “And I can’t help the way I feel about you. I didn’t plan this.”

  “This … yes, what is this?”

  “It’s … It’s I don’t know what,” she said.

  We were quiet but then began to visit like friends. We talked about the books we had read. Annie didn’t own a TV, so books were her primary form of entertainment. I had been devouring novels, old and new, between law books. She preferred spiritual “awakening” books. My latest reads were Fight Club, Requiem for a Dream, and Blood Meridian, books that young men in prison should probably avoid.

  “What do you want to do in the next eight years?” I asked her.

  “I want to get healthy, become a better person,” she said.

  She looked away and I could tell her struggle with anorexia was an embarrassment.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  “Make these years disappear,” I said.

  She came back Sunday. Sometimes we just watched the room in silence, surrounded by armed guards, barbed wire, and baby mamas.

  “I will make you a deal,” I said.

  “What kind of deal?”

  I looked around the room. Many lies were being told around the visiting room tables. I would not do that.

  “If you are healthy when I get out, I will come find you and marry you.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  I had thought of it the night before and though it was a spur of the moment decision, I knew it wasn’t the kind of statement that people pass off as the truth. I meant it.