Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [31]
One Christmas, when he was just a little boy, Tucker begged me for a “My Buddy” doll. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to buy it for him. Money was tight and the doll was really expensive. Even so, I didn’t want to disappoint my son, so I spent all of Christmas Eve that year bounty hunting so I could earn enough money to buy the doll. I sat on the guy I was chasing for hours, just waiting for the right moment to get him. The cops wanted him as much as I did, but if they got him first, I wouldn’t make a dime, which meant I wouldn’t be able to bring home the doll for Tucker.
The cops drove by me from time to time over the course of the day and asked, “Are you going to get him?”
“I’ll get him.” I said. And then one of the cops said to me, “Why? Is he your buddy?”
I knew right then the Lord was going to let me catch this guy so I could get Tucker his My Buddy doll just in time to open it on Christmas Day. Sure enough, I caught my jump. I sang the jingle from the doll commercial all the way to the jail. The poor bastard probably thought I was nuts. By the time I handed him over, I barely had enough time to make it to the store before they closed for the holiday. When I got there, there was only one doll left. I took the box off the shelf as fast as I could so no one else would swoop in. I couldn’t wait to give My Buddy to Tucker and see the look on his face knowing that his old man had come through.
I had a lot of great times with Tucker over the years. When he got out of prison, I knew he was feeling a little left out of the mix because he wasn’t on our show. One of the last episodes we shot before going on break for the season was when Duane Lee, Leland, and I taught Tucker how to drive. We set up bright orange pylons in an empty parking lot so he could take serpentine turns through them. We put that boy through all sorts of torturous drills, but it was all in the name of family fun, brotherly bonding, and togetherness. When we finished, Duane Lee and Tucker were walking away, when I heard Duane Lee say, “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“How about I drive you home?” Tucker asked.
“No way! I’m not letting you drive my car.”
We all laughed, but it was a really touching moment between my boys I’ll never forget. It was probably the last good time we all had together.
I hung up the phone after going off on Tucker, somehow knowing that I would pay for losing my cool. I hoped and prayed he wasn’t going to be my Judas, the one to sell me out, but deep down, I knew that he was capable of it. I wanted to believe it was because of what the drugs he was hooked on had done to him, and that he wasn’t acting out of pure malice. That’s an awful feeling for a father to have about his son.
Family is everything to me. I will defend my children to the bitter end against anyone or anything that I deem dangerous or harmful. I spent the rest of the day secretly fearing that I would now be in a position where I would have to defend myself against a member of my own family. I knew the bomb would eventually drop. I just didn’t know when.
From that day forward, I became enemy numero uno to my son. Tucker had it in for me. He was angry about our conversation and harbored a lot of resentment toward me for demanding he dump his girlfriend. According to sources, he recorded the call in March 2007 but didn’t make the deal with the National Enquirer until May, and didn’t turn over the tapes until October.
By the time Tucker finally did turn over the tapes, his anger toward the entire family had grown out of control. It was like a time bomb waiting to explode. He’d spent years believing he was mistreated. He didn’t get a lot of love from his mom, and as much as I wanted to be there for him, I was something