FROM CLINTON, THE GIFT OF FREEDOM

Derrick Curry was just 19 and a college student when he was busted for
conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. Sentenced to almost 20 years in
prison with no promise of parole, his chances at freedom seemed a remote dream.

But that was before the imprisonment of Curry and others like him became a
cause celebre -- a symbol to many of the overly harsh impact federal crack
laws have had on African Americans.

Now, eight years after entering prison, Derrick Curry is free after an
eleventh-hour pardon by President Clinton before leaving office, and he's
just beginning to get his arms around the vast expanse of life that is once
again his own.

"Right now, this is where I want to be. I feel secure here with my dad,"
said Curry, 31, smiling softly as he sat beside Arthur Curry in the dining
room of his father's Upper Marlboro home. "People keep telling me I have a
lot of time to make up for. I'm not trying to make up for lost time. That's
how guys who get out end up back behind bars."

Derrick Curry's return home ends a painful odyssey for Arthur Curry, who
has labored to win his son's release since that October day 11 years ago
when Derrick was arrested in an undercover police sting.

"I've prayed for this day," said Arthur Curry, a retired Prince George's
County principal who has made it his mission to help young black males but
struggled to save his own son. "I wasn't for sure, but I just felt like it
was going to come."

At the time of his arrest, Curry was attending Prince George's Community
College and was a former Northwestern High basketball standout, with dreams
of following in the footsteps of his buddy, Len Bias, the late NCAA star.

You wouldn't have picked him for a guy who would land in jail. He wanted
for little and had the support of two loving parents. His friends ran the
gamut -- from Sharmba Mitchell, the boxing champion from Laurel, to Brian
Tribble, a convicted drug dealer -- but his feet seemed firmly planted.

But all of that vanished with his arrest.

Convicted by a federal jury, Curry was given a sentence that would have
kept him behind bars until he was 40. It didn't help that he was a
first-time offender who said he'd never used or dealt drugs, or that the
sentencing judge was reluctant to impose such a harsh penalty. Under
federal law adopted in 1988, conviction on possession of five grams of
crack meant a mandatory five-year term, longer for greater amounts. Derrick
Curry was caught with more than 50 grams.

Critics of mandatory minimum laws note that they are too arbitrary and
allow no room for leniency. Further, they say, such laws unfairly target
black men, who statistics show are more likely to be in possession of the
less costly crack cocaine than are whites, who deal more often in the
powder form for which sentences are not as strict.

As Derrick Curry languished in prison, the chorus of critics grew, and
Arthur Curry made sure that they were aware of his son's case.

"It's absurd," said Julie Stewart, founder of the advocacy group Families
Against Mandatory Minimums, which lobbied on Derrick's behalf, along with a
bevy of area politicians, friends and former teachers who wrote letters to
the U.S. Department of Justice urging Curry's pardon.

"I remember vividly his sentencing when the judge acknowledged that Derrick
was a minor player, then gave him 20 years," Stewart said. "He had no
choice. It was the law."

It still is. But as the beneficiary of both fervent support and sheer luck,
Curry is free.

A new black sweater and khakis replacing his prison garb, Derrick Curry
sits in his father's pale yellow dining room reflecting on his life. His
father sits beside him, aglow with love and pride.

The younger Curry says he is not bitter, but shocked.

"I still can't believe I'm out," he said with a nervous laugh. "I mean, I
always dreamed of this, but now it's here. I'm out!"

But being out has not been easy. The years have passed, and he has little
to show for them. He knows that he now carries the stigma of being an
ex-con and what that might mean when he applies for a job, or even asks a
woman on a date.

He knows that the odds are against him.

For now, he'll take life one day at a time, get used to the things that
others take for granted.

Like gum.

He couldn't chew it behind bars for security reasons, so he made do by
melting taffy in the microwave. When his father came to pick him up at the
Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md., last Saturday after
learning of his son's pardon on the Internet, the first thing Derrick asked
for was gum. Now he's rarely without a stick of Big Red.

"That's all I wanted," he laughed. " I hadn't had any in eight years."

Back home, his family, including mother Darlene Curry and stepmother Sandra
Curry, were waiting with a seafood dinner of crab legs and potato salad.

Darlene Curry, a middle school teacher in Suitland, said she is still
pinching herself. "I don't think people understand how being incarcerated
hurts loved ones on the outside," she said.

Or how fast freedom can become a stranger, Derrick Curry would add.

"The first day I was home, I was sitting by the phone when it rang," Curry
said, explaining that inmates are prohibited from answering the phone. "I
just looked at it."

It feels odd, too, said Curry, to open the refrigerator whenever he wants
and to sleep in a bed wide enough to roll over in without fear of falling off.

"I couldn't sleep the first night," he said, laughing. "It was too
comfortable. The mattress was too thick, and the pillows . . . man, are
they fluffy."

At first, he locked himself in his father's home, not entirely ready to
face life on the outside. Then he made a few trips -- to the grocery store,
the Big and Tall men's shop to buy new clothes for his buffer body.

Then he scored floor seats to a Wizards game, and started shooting hoops at
a local gym.

Aside from his best friend, Sharmba Mitchell, the boxing champion from
Laurel, Curry has avoided contacting buddies from his past to focus on his
future.

"When he called me and told me he was out, I said, "For real! You're home?'
" said Mitchell, reached in Louisiana, where he is training for a fight. "I
was so surprised. I mean, the way he went in was so bad. They did him
wrong, and he had so much potential in basketball. I'm just happy he's out."

Curry hopes to get back on track to a professional or semi-professional
basketball career. He still claims to have a 43-inch vertical leap,
maintained by hitting the court every day in prison.

But he harbors no grand illusions about his chances at a pro career. He
took courses in prison through Allegany College and is thinking about
reenrolling in college.

If his basketball dreams are dashed, he figures he can build a career
counseling youths -- just like his dad, who is now a professor at Bowie State.

Arthur Curry watched his son speak, his eyes shimmering.

"In the end, though, I couldn't save my own son," he said. "I saved a
thousand young men. But I couldn't save him."

He reached over and draped his arm around his son's shoulder. Like a young
child, Derrick settled into his father's embrace.