You Can Run but You Can't Hide (24 page)

biker brother, but it had been years since I felt that way. Skip opened

a door that had been slammed stone cold shut since Huntsville.

Skip was the first to introduce me to Aloha, the spirit of love and

welcome.

My ten days at the Mastery Seminar solidified my need for

brotherhood. For the first time in years, I belonged to an organiza-

tion where everyone around me was a brother or a sister. I met lots

of interesting people who felt the same way. I met Martin Sheen and

the well-known film producer Peter Guber. I knew Martin Sheen

from television. He liked to ask me a lot of questions. He was one

of the most positive thinkers I have ever met. He also has an un-

canny skill to prophesy. In 1989, he predicted I would someday have

my own television show.

I had no idea who Peter Guber was. He and I didn’t get along

too well at first. I challenged him to climb a sixty-foot pole. Now,

I’m afraid of heights, but I wanted to show this guy that I wasn’t

afraid of anything. Turns out Peter was afraid of heights too. I

made it up the pole as fast as I could, but only a little more than

halfway before I shimmied back down.

144

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

“This guy’s no bounty hunter.” Peter was taunting me. I was a

convict turned bounty hunter in a circle full of rich, powerful

celebrities and businessmen. I felt out of place, but I was there to

push myself to places I never dreamed were possible. That’s why I

came to Hawaii—to master my skills.

I had to do the climb again. I had to complete the task, challenge

myself to go further than before. I closed my eyes and began visual-

izing myself as a hamster going through a tube. I kept thinking it

would be fine if I fell because Tony Robbins was so rich, the lawsuit

filed by my family would ensure they’d be set for life! I kept my

mind occupied the entire climb until I reached the top. I already

knew I could do anything I set my mind to. This climb was just an-

other challenge I had to get through.

Now it was Peter’s turn. He began to climb up the pole. I could

see he was as panicked as I was. He stopped a few feet off the ground.

I started screaming at him, “Close your eyes! Tony Robbins is

rich. If you die, you’ll own a lot of shit!”

All of a sudden, Tony walked over to where we were. He was

amused by our exchange. I had no idea Peter was already a very rich

man. I also didn’t know how heavy he was in Hollywood. I should

have been a lot nicer to him!

I was filled with a glow that I’d been waiting for all my life.

Hawaii felt like home. I felt like I had been searching all my life for

a place that had these values, these ideals. The islands took hold

of me—the smells, the ocean, the flowers, everything growing and

growing and growing—and I realized this was the place I’d always

been searching for.

It finally occurred to me why I came. If life is but a struggle, like

Tony and my mom said, why not struggle in paradise?

The last day of the seminar, everyone goes around a circle and

says what they plan to do, now that they have completed the Mas-

tery program. When my turn came, I looked at the group and

said, “I’m moving to Hawaii!” I had it all figured out. I would

start a bail bonds business and hunt bounty in the Pacific for a

while. I was paid five grand for speaking at the seminar, so I had

the money to get started right away. I didn’t see any reason to

leave the island.

Later that day, a couple of the seminar trainers took me aside.

“You know, Dog, you don’t have to take it this serious.”

A l o h a F r o m H awa i i

145

“I’m staying.” My mind was made up.

That night I called my mom. “I’m not coming back.”

“But Duane, what about your life here in Denver? What about

your home, your kids?”

“For the first time in my life, I feel like I
am
home.” I cried as I

shared my truth.

“Are you drunk, Duane?”

I just laughed and said, “No, Mom. I’m not drunk. I’m just

happy.” She could tell I was serious, and she knew I wasn’t coming

back.

“Just watch the kids for me for a few weeks. Let me get the ball

rolling here. I’ve got a foot in the door. I have to take this chance,

Mom.”

I thought my affiliation with Tony Robbins would make it easy to

get my bail bonds license. But as always in my life since Huntsville,

that murder-one rap defined me. It has always been and will always

be something I will need to overcome. I was rejected, considered un-

suitable to write bonds in Hawaii. It was an unexpected setback.

I went before the judge to explain my situation. As ammunition,

I even held up a copy of Tony Robbins’s book
Awaken the Giant

Within.
I pointed to the two or three paragraphs where Tony uses

my story to illustrate how a man can turn his life around. I used the

book like a résumé. My story was compelling enough for the judge

to give me special permission to get my license.

Once the judge gave me the green light, I had barely enough

money left over to pay for food and a rental car for another month.

With the rest, I had a thousand business cards printed and bought

my mobile phone.

I’ll never forget that first September living in Hawaii. It was the

month that Hurricane Aniki hit. It caused massive damage through-

out the islands. And while it raged, I was sleeping and working in a

rental car parked under a freeway overpass. I’d spend every precious

day at the jail and courts from the minute they opened until after they

closed, handing out my cards, trying to get business. Things were a

lot tougher than I expected. My Denver offices were very lucrative. I

thought I’d be up and running in no time. But Hawaii isn’t Denver.

The bail bonds business was locked up by a couple of bondsmen who

were here long before me. They wanted nothing to do with Dog or my

unorthodox methods.

146

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

As the month drew to a close, I was down to eating one bowl of

Vietnamese
pho
noodle soup a day. I began to wonder if Hawaii

was a dream that was just out of my reach or a nightmare that was

about to implode.

Within a year, my marriage to Tawny had fallen apart. I was di-

viding my time between Denver and Hawaii. I had moved Tawny

and the kids to the island, but I wasn’t happy to be married to her.

If we got into an argument, I’d get drunk and find myself a whore.

Eventually, I told her to pack her bags and go.

I traveled back and forth between Honolulu and Denver a couple

of times during my first year. I was trying to get settled in my new

environment and get the business off the ground. Thank God the

Denver offices were doing well, because I needed all the help I could

get to subsidize the new Honolulu office. After my first few months,

I barely had enough money to pay for the minimal overhead.

I was down to zero. I bought a Charlie Brown Christmas tree for

the family that year because it was all I could afford. The kids and I

were sharing a bottle of ketchup, pretending it was spaghetti sauce.

And then my phone rang. It was a guy named Folia. He needed a

bond for fifty thousand, and he had a cousin named Malcolm Flores

who needed one for a hundred grand. Blam. I made fifteen grand on

the spot. The timing couldn’t have been better. It saved my life and

my business was off the ground.

C h a p t e r Tw e n t y - s e v e n

MIRROR IMAGE

I was li ving
in Hawaii when I won the 1991 Hero of the Year

award from the
Rocky Mountain News
in Denver. Life was pretty

good. I had just finished my first Tony Robbins Mastery Seminar

and was trying to live my life in a righteous and proud way. Tony’s

wisdom and words flowed through me, inspiring a new perspec-

tive on life. I was eager to get my office set up in Oahu. The prom-

ise of paradise kept me motivated to make a name for myself in

Hawaii.

Just as I began to get settled, I received a phone call that I

wasn’t expecting from the mother of one of my first girlfriends. I

hadn’t thought about Patty Coffee in years. We began dating when

I left home in 1968. She was nineteen when we met. Patty had one

eye that was a little bit crooked, but she was beautiful to me. I was

working for my dad in metal fabrication, slaving my ass off to

make four hundred bucks a week. She was a stripper. I’ve always

had a thing for strippers. I knew a little about sex when we met

but not enough to truly satisfy a woman. I’d screw any girl with

big tits who’d take her top off. I had no idea they had to have a

brain, too.

Patty taught me where to touch a woman, how to touch her

body, and all sorts of other wild things I never knew I could do. She

read sex books to me out loud so I could remember everything. I

148

Yo u Ca n R u n , b u t Yo u Ca n ’ t H i d e

wasn’t even sixteen years old. For the first time in my life, I was a

very eager student. Her approach was a little mechanical at first,

but once I got the hang of it, sex was better than I had ever imag-

ined it could be.

When I turned sixteen, I started screwing every woman I met. I

loved making love. Patty understood I wanted to see other women.

I was young and sowing my oats.

I met a girl named Debbie White, whose family owned a suc-

cessful florist shop in Denver. The last time I saw Debbie I noticed

her tits were a little bit bigger and her tummy was a little rounder

than usual. I didn’t think anything about it at the time.

By then I needed to leave Denver for a few reasons. For one, I

had too many girlfriends. I heard Debbie committed suicide just

before I got out of prison in 1979.

It had been more than twenty years, so as you can imagine, I was

rather surprised to hear Debbie’s mother’s voice on the other end of

the phone. She always hated me. When I was a kid, she chased me out

of her yard, telling me to get my biker ass off her property. There was

no love lost between us.

“Duane Lee, I have something to tell you.” My heart stopped.

I knew what she was going to say. I was certain she was going

to tell me I had AIDS. I thought about it for a moment and real-

ized it had been too long. I would have known by now if I had

AIDS.

Just then, Debbie’s mother said she had to call me back.

“Wait. Stop.” She hung up before I could hear why she called.

Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

The next day, she called me back. She was direct and to the

point. “Duane, you have a son.”

“Oh, my God!” It was the last thing I expected to hear. But then I

remembered my mother once telling me about bumping into Debbie

after I moved to Illinois. If Mom would have told me about Debbie

while I was with LaFonda, I probably would have wanted to be with

Debbie. I loved both women. Mom knew I would never have left

Denver if I had known about the baby.

“One day you’re going to be very happy, son.” That is all she

said. Mom knew a kid would heal me from my wrong ways. But she

also knew Debbie wasn’t the right girl. Debbie and I shared drugs

M i r r o r I m a g e

149

together. She tried to keep me away from hard drugs but couldn’t

do it.

“Shut up and sit on the back of the bike, bitch.” Like Patty, she

was also a stripper. I never met a stripper who was filled with self-

esteem, and Debbie was no exception. We shot pure crank—speed,

methamphetamine—together. All us bikers shot crank back then.

We were outlaw bastards. We’d get into wild, crazy fights and

wouldn’t care. I never felt a thing from being on that stuff. I never

got hooked, thank God.

“His name is Christopher Michael. He’s in jail for committing a

hate crime.”

My heart sank thinking about Christopher. After all these years,

I finally discovered I have another son, and he’s behind bars. It was

more than I could bear. I knew what it felt like to be a young man

who made foolish choices. Prison is no place for a boy.

I called Tawny to give her the good news. She didn’t see it that

way. I asked her to go with my mom to the jail to meet Christopher.

She called me right away. “Oh, my God, Duane. His hands,

his features, he’s exactly like you.” In a way, I was hoping she might

come back saying there was no resemblance, but I love kids so much

it wouldn’t have mattered. I was so happy to have another son.

“Mom, did you see him too?” I asked.

“He’s your kid, Duane. No doubt about it.” Whenever Mom used

words like “might have” or “must have” she was lying, but in a Chris-

tian way. She never wanted to hurt me. When I asked her one final

time if she’d known about Christopher, she said, “Well, I might have

had my suspicions.”

I saw the addition of Christopher to my family as a blessing.

The Lord was smiling on the Chapman family. I had a brand-new