COLUMN: "Casual Murder"

From Bill Madison's "Crackers In My Soup," Spring '92.From Bill Madison's "Crackers In My Soup," Spring '92.· Yeah, my Buppy fantasy. Nothing elaborate, just my piece of the pie. I remember when I met Chris freshman year -- he had a discernible limp in one of his legs. In the time he was here, that limp never went away. Whenever he was asked about it, Chris would say that it was a football injury from high school. I jokingly would say that it looked as if he had been shot. I found out later on that he was. Sometime during the summer before his freshman year, Chris had been shot in the leg, and it had never been treated properly. But Chris reflected more on the fact that he had not been killed. For that, he was happy. But Chris never dwelled on the incident, so I didn't press him. Chris had seen other people shot, people who would gladly have traded his bum leg for their mortuary body tray. As different as we were, we could still identify many ways in which we were the same. Ironically, though, we became friends during an episode that I would rather forget. One evening during freshman year, Chris, Keith -- my roommate -- and I decided we were going to watch the "Faces of Death" trilogy on the VCR in the Van Pelt Lounge. I decided this gory endeavor required a strong drink to settle my stomach -- you know, freshman logic -- so I went about making one. Taking a squeeze bottle, I filled it half with grain alcohol and half with Coke. When I arrived, I was definitely feeling no pain, or anything else. Somewhere between the end of the first movie and the beginning of the second, I told Keith and Chris that I was going to lay down on the couch behind us. You can guess what happened next. As I drifted in and out of consciousness between vomiting, someone decided to call HUP. The paramedics came, saw that I somewhat coherent and determined that I wouldn't have to spend a night in the hospital if someone volunteered to watch me through the night. So Chris became my nursemaid, for which I am forever grateful. Yes, we were different, but we were still able to connect. In the spring of 1990, I found out that Chris had been arrested for crack cocaine possession in a Bronx apartment. As soon as I heard the story, something about it didn't ring true. First of all, Chris didn't have an apartment in his name in New York. Secondly, Chris objected to drugs in general and said that my ambivalence toward drugs was the result of never having seen anyone killed over them. People on campus felt that if Chris were dealing drugs, shouldn't his friends have known about it? Well, I know Chris did not deal drugs. That's something that's relatively hard to keep away from close friends. Hell, I know of at least ten people here now who would technically classify as dealers, and we aren't more than acquaintances. Also, when's the last time you saw someone use crack at Penn? The DP published a picture that showed Chris with an array of weapons. Chris had shown me that same picture the previous semester, and I inquired about its authenticity. Chris said they were toys -- but he knew I didn't believe him. Chris did say who they belonged to, and it wasn't him. He also said whose apartment it was, and it wasn't his either. Now if I knew all this, I would assume the New York Police Department would also be able to find out. But somehow, I get the feeling it didn't matter. Chris was immediately expelled from the University essentially because of the negative publicity they received in The New York Post. Then there were protests on campus, civil rights attorney William Kunstler took his case and the University eventually allowed him to return. The last time I saw Chris was at his preliminary hearing in New York City during our sophomore year. He was brought out in handcuffs, and he appeared to have lost about twenty pounds. Kunstler, although he pledged to handle Chris' case personally, relegated it to a lawyer on his staff. The attorney was unprepared, and the judge's anger clearly reflected this. I found out later that while he was in jail, Chris was stabbed sixteen times by another inmate for refusing to get off the phone. Now Chris must serve sixteen years in jail before he can begin to get his life together. People ask me why I talk so much about societal concerns. People ask me why I am so critical. People tell me that tolerance begets tolerance. People tell me that racism is definitely a residual blemish from our nation's shameful past. People need to look around and see the world they are about to enter, instead of choosing to simply ignore reality. When the war on drugs targets someone like Christopher Clemente as a threat to our society, there is something wrong. When one out of every two black males passes through the criminal justice system sometime during their lives, there is something wrong. When a school expels a student prior to any court decision determining his innocence or guilt, there is something wrong. When students assume another student is guilty based on a picture and a news report in a student paper, there is something wrong. I know of a student who was arrested this year trying to sell five sheets of LSD at a Grateful Dead concert. When someone asked him what his chances were of getting off, he replied, "Well, I don't know, but I have good lawyer." When this student went to court, he refused to shave or cut his shoulder-length hair, looking every bit the dealer. But he was acquited -- the judge cited the incident as a first offense and said there was no need to put him in jail. I listened to this while Chris continued to rot away in jail, trying to keep hold of his sanity. I too hope to live in a color-blind society, where one's race is not the key factor in evaluating another human being, but we do not. As long as certain people in our society are considered expendable or unimportant, we cannot pretend that we do. · Bill Madison is a senior International Relations major from Alexandria, Virginia. Crackers in My Soup appeared alternate Tuesdays.

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