You Can Run but You Can't Hide (16 page)

one of the best gifts ever. She literally handed me back my life. I

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found faith, regained self-esteem, and found the courage to forgive

Jim Darnell for what he had done.

I no longer wanted to run with the Disciples, but I had to earn a

living. Finding a job after prison was hard. No one wanted to hire an

ex-con—especially one who looked like me. I was a mean-looking,

long-haired biker who wanted to change my life,
not
my looks. Sell-

ing vacuums was an easy way to satisfy my need to remain myself. I

was my own boss.

Back in my biker days, I’d ride my Harley through town, and

grandmas would roll up their car windows. But I was always polite.

I’d pull up and ask, “Is the bike too loud?”

They’d respond by saying I looked scary.

“Ah, ma’am, it’s just the way I look. I’m really a nice guy.”

I’d always smile a big toothy grin before pulling away.

It just goes to show you can’t always judge a book by its cover.

When it came to selling vacuums, no one seemed bothered by how

I looked. It was great. I was emerging from a darkness that had

shrouded my life for close to two years. I was rediscovering who I

really am. I felt reborn.

C h a p t e r S i x t e e n

SHOTGUN WEDDING

When I got
back to Colorado, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find an-

other girl I loved as much as LaFonda. After my self-induced pity

party, I wanted to go out and meet some girls. I’m the kind of guy

who always has to have a woman in his life. I had a pattern of pick-

ing women who are very volatile and high-strung. This time around,

I wanted someone different, someone easier to get along with.

I went to a party at a local motel with some biker buddies. I

walked into the room and saw Ann sitting by herself. I fell for her

on the spot. They ought to teach prisoners to ignore all women for

a certain period of time after being released, because, as I can now

admit, at that moment, any woman would have looked good.

Ann and I hit it off right away. I asked if she wanted to leave the

party and take a ride to the mountains in my truck. I hadn’t been

with a good girl since I got out. I paid the whore in Texas and called

up a few old girlfriends when I got home, but I was looking for a

nice girl. Ann appeared innocent, sweet, and very inviting. We drove

up I-70 for two hours until we got close to Vail. The sexual tension

built as we talked and drove. I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled

over and we did the wild thing. It was intense. I hadn’t felt like this

in over two years. I wasn’t sure this would be a long-term thing, but

Ann was right for the moment.

I smiled all the way back to Denver. I turned up the car radio

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while Ann sang along to “Bad Girls,” by Donna Summer. She had a

sweet, childlike voice.

When I asked where she wanted to be dropped off, Ann said,

“You know I can’t go back home now.”

I couldn’t imagine why she said something like that. “Why not,

honey?”

Ann wouldn’t make eye contact at all. She mumbled something

that sounded like she said, “I’m only seventeen.”

Oh, my God. I hadn’t been out of jail more than a month, I was

on parole for murder, and I just screwed an underage girl.

As the saying goes, “Seventeen gets you thirty.”

As far as I could tell, the only way out of this was to marry Ann

that day. When I asked her about her family, she told me her mom

was a Mormon who had been married and divorced five times. I

could tell she was a professional divorce artist. Ann explained that

she lived with her grandmother, who was her legal guardian.

We could get married that day if I got permission from her

grandmother. So I called her to ask permission to marry Ann.

“Well, I don’t know.” The old woman didn’t have a clue who I

was. She’d never heard Ann speak of me. We had only met the night

before. Why would she let me marry her granddaughter? I begged

and pleaded until she gave me permission. We got our blood tests,

filled out some paperwork, and then the judge married us in his

chambers.

I called my mom to tell her the excellent news. I don’t think she

thought it was very good. She was quiet as I pretended I was thrilled

to be married again. I didn’t love Ann. I married her out of desper-

ation, to keep my freedom.

The hardest call I had to make that day was to my parole officer,

Charlie Moss. In the short time I knew him, Charlie had become

like a big brother. When he took me on, Charlie told me Colorado

only had two murderers on parole. That made me a high profile

parolee in the eyes of the state. Charlie worried he might lose his

job if I screwed him around. My mother talked him into taking me,

so I didn’t want to do anything to let either of them down. Every

mistake I made, large or small, my first phone call was always to

Charlie. I told him everything—probably to a fault. I thought his

job was to be there for me, to listen when I needed someone to talk

to, and to give me advice. Charlie was quick to remind me that his

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job was to revoke my parole if I messed up. I thought of him as a

friend. He was, but he was also my parole officer. I was praying he

would be happy for the good news. Let’s just say it didn’t go over as

well as I had hoped.

He completely freaked out. First, he yelled at me for leaving the

county. We had driven to Limon, just over the Denver county line,

to tie the knot. I wasn’t allowed to freely go anywhere I wanted. I

had to check in and get permission to leave the county. My bad.

Second, one of the conditions of my parole was that I couldn’t

get married. I didn’t know that.

Charlie said no one ever asks about that condition until the day

they get married. I could tell he was unhappy about my careless ex-

ecution, but he sincerely wished us well. I was so relieved.

What was done was done. There was no turning back. Turned

out Ann got pregnant the first night we met. She moved in, and we

tried to make things work. We didn’t know each other at all. We

were both so young and probably wouldn’t have gotten married if

she hadn’t been underage the night we met. When Ann began show-

ing her pregnancy, everything sort of changed. There’s something

quite magical about a woman carrying your baby, but although I

tried to love her and make it work, that magic just wasn’t there.

Note to self: Don’t marry the first woman you sleep with after

prison. In fact, you probably shouldn’t marry the second, third, or

fourth one, either.

It was only later that I found out: Seventeen was legal in Colorado!

C h a p t e r S e v e n t e e n

SELLING KIRBYS

A year after
Herman got me started selling Kirby vacuum

cleaners, business was so good, I decided to break off on my own. It

didn’t take me long to really start kicking ass. I got up at five in the

morning and didn’t come home until eight or nine at night. I set

goals for myself, and when I reached those goals, I set the bar even

higher. I’m competitive by nature, but selling vacuums brought out

the animal in me. If the other guys were selling one a day, I had to

sell two. While the other guys were aiming to win the free trips

to Mexico, I set my sights on becoming the head of the company.

Every couple of months, there was a contest in which you could win

a car, a boat, a trip, or whatever. I’d ask how many Kirbys I needed

to sell to get the prize.

They’d say twenty-five.

Blam. Done. The boat was mine.

I went on free trips every couple of months. I started taking

Zig Ziglar seminars, learning how a millionaire puts his pants on

in the morning, so I could imitate every move. I began studying

The Power of Positive Thinking
and reading other inspirational

books to help me excel and sharpen my sales skills. Despite my un-

orthodox appearance and aggressive sales pitch, I rapidly worked

my way up the company ladder.

Within a year of leaving Huntsville, I had completely turned

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my life around. I had money, a new car, a happy parole officer,

and a job that made me happy to get out of bed each and every

morning.

For the first time in my adult life, I no longer felt like a criminal.

I was a legitimate and respected businessman. I liked the way that

made me feel. People saw me as Duane, the salesman, not Dog, the

killer. I had newfound confidence in everything I did. I fully be-

lieved I had paid my debt to society and that my past was in the

past. Huntsville would always be a part of my history, but it didn’t

have to dictate my future. I wanted to get as far away from being

#271097 as I could.

When LaFonda found out I was making a pretty good living, she

decided to take me to court for back child support that I couldn’t

pay from before I went to prison until the day I got out. She took my

boys away from me and never let me see them. She never asked for

money until she discovered how well I was doing. I didn’t even know

where my boys lived. So why would I give her a penny? I didn’t think

she deserved the sweat off my brow. The courts disagreed.

I had been fighting LaFonda’s request for child support for sev-

eral months with zero success. When the time came to see Judge

Levi again, I asked my mom to drive me to court. If that dumb bas-

tard ordered me to pay up, I was prepared to flat-out refuse. I was

pretty sure my decision would land me back in jail. I went to court

holding a pair of faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and some rolled-up

tube socks, all tied together with my three-inch-wide, worn-out

black leather belt.

Jude Levi addressed me firmly and directly.

“Tell me, Mr. Chapman, are you here with that payment I asked

you to provide the last time I saw you in my courtroom?” He

doubted that I had complied with his last request.

“No, sir, I do not have the money,” I stubbornly answered as

firmly and directly as he had asked.

The judge took a deep breath as he closely examined my file. I

could see him crunch his eyebrows trying to absorb all of the infor-

mation. I had a long history, which meant we stood silent in the

courtroom for what felt like an insanely uncomfortable amount of

time. I could hear the second hand on the courtroom clock ticking.

It was making me nuts. My future was at stake.

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“Mr. Chapman, I see here that you were responsible for the re-

covery of an escaped convict while incarcerated in Texas. Warden

Horton praises your efforts for helping with the capture. That’s

rather unusual for a man with your history. Would you say you’re

good at tracking down criminals?”

I didn’t know what to say. I thought about Judge Levi’s question

for a minute. “Well, I’ve hunted practically my entire life, your

honor. I guess I could hunt anything if I had to.”

I had no idea where this was going. I was in court to talk about

child support payments. Why was Judge Levi asking me about

tracking down criminals?

“Have you ever heard of a bounty hunter, Mr. Chapman?”

I had. I knew that a bounty hunter is someone who seeks es-

caped fugitives in return for money. Unlike traditional law enforce-

ment, a bounty hunter can enter a private home without a warrant.

Where I come from, that was called breaking and entering.

I had to laugh because this was the third time I’d heard that

term. The first time I heard it was from the man I once met in

Pampa who’d left a hundred dollars on my kitchen table after I let

him stay the night. Turns out he was a bounty hunter looking for a

fugitive. I heard it for the second time at Huntsville after I helped

run down Bigfoot. And now, here was Judge Levi bringing it up

again in his courtroom.

I was trying to figure out where this was all going before I finally

answered the judge. “Yes sir. I have some idea of what a bounty

hunter does. If you don’t mind me asking, what does this have to do

with child support?”

The judge laughed and said, “I’ve got an idea, Mr. Chapman.”

He showed me a mug shot of the guy he was looking for.

“You think you can find this guy?”

I looked at the photo. I didn’t recognize the punk, but I thought it

couldn’t be that hard to find him. He didn’t look smarter than me.

“Yeah, sure. What the hell.” I knew the surest way to create a be-

lief that you can do something, anything, is to do it. Just once. If

you succeed that first time, it’s far easier to form the belief that

you’ll succeed again. You can choose beliefs that limit you, or you

can choose beliefs that empower you. One thing I knew for sure: I

wasn’t paying no damn child support if I didn’t have to.