The following story comes from the firsthand account of my friend, BulletToothTony. It takes place during his first year of college in North Carolina. Although this story sounds unbelievable, there’s no way we could make it up – we’re not that imaginative.

The story unfolds during move-in day. Judging from our previous phone conversations, it seemed as if I’d have a normal roommate for once. While at lacrosse camp, my last roommate used to jack off when he thought I was asleep – and he was a fucking sicko, but that’s another story. Enter culprit: tall, lanky, blonde, surfer-looking dude shows up at 4 PM. Just as I had suspected, he seemed normal enough. But in a very short period of time I realized he was far from it.

He drank…normal.
His grades diminished…normal.
He smoked weed…somewhat normal.
He smoked weed at precisely 1 PM each afternoon…somewhat abnormal.
He duct-taped his alarm clock to the wall directly above his head, just so he wouldn’t sleep through his afternoon “appointment”…downright weird.

As the first semester proceeded, his BAC and THC levels rose as fast as his GPA fell. Don’t get me wrong; my roommate was a great guy, but he was just different. Here, let me show you what I mean…

Late in the second semester it was not-so-discreetly brought to my attention that my roommate was binging on mushrooms of the hallucinogenic variety. And by not-so-discreetly, I mean he was practically licking shnozberries off his desk during our political science class. After a few weeks of continuous consumption, he began acting very strangely. For example, but not limited to:

1. Our hall became an art gallery, filled with colorful Magic Eye patterns.
2. He began forcing himself through our tiny window at 5 AM instead of simply walking into our first-floor dorm room.
3. He started sleeping on the floor of our suite. The alarm clock and duct tape went with him.
4. And in perhaps the most stunning development of all, my roommate became convinced that he was a freestyle rapper on the rise to stardom.

It was in our political science class one day when he became aware of his destiny. Professor L was an old-fashioned prick, and he hated nonsense and interruptions that made class last longer than his Metamucil. I noticed that my roommate was writing, which was really strange because normally he didn’t take notes. Halfway through class he kept trying to get my attention. “Psst, BulletTooth…check this out.”

I ignored him because if Professor L sensed any monkey business, that would be the end of us.
“Yo, check out my political science rhyme,” he persisted.
“Hey Cheech, can it!”

My roommate wouldn’t rest until somebody heard his rhyme, so he raised his hand and asked Professor L if he could deliver it to the class for extra credit. Of course, Professor L crankily refused. My roommate didn’t care, so he stood up in front of our packed class and served the greatest verse of his life: “Yo, Professor L when are you gonna end this class; my car is illegally parked in the grass.”

And DJ Willy was born.

My roommate continued to ingest inspiration and gush gobbledygook. His first record contract came from our hall janitor, who had a “recording studio,” aka sound editing program on his Dell. Illy Willy ripped a 3-track CD of himself freestyling, which unfortunately was even worse than his toadstool breath. But nobody wanted to tell him since he was organizing a party for the dorm-wide release of his CD.

The day of the party, DJ Willy showed up in the dorms with an unbelievable amount of merchandise. He had maxed out his credit card at Target, buying random things such as hoses, air filters, and digital cameras. He gathered everybody on our hall and told us we could take what we wanted. After all, DJ Willy was going to be famous and we’d been such good friends.

That night, DJ Willy had his release party. Nobody showed up because nobody wanted to buy his shitty CD. DJ Willy didn’t take this too lightly, and when I woke up the next morning he was gone. As the hours went by some of us began to worry. Finally at about 5 PM I got a call.

“Yes, um, are you the roommate of a….DJ Willy?” a male voice asked.

“Maybe, who the hell are you?” I replied.

“This is the Duplin County Sheriff, son. Do you know the whereabouts of your roommate?”

“Oh, good evening sir, um, no.”

The sheriff explained that my roommate, who was still on the loose, had littered heaps of hoses, air filters, a set of golf clubs (I’ll never forgive you for that, DJ Willy), and a terrible piece of literature all over some man’s yard. It didn’t take Inspector Gadget to solve this crime – DJ Willy had written his political science rhyme on the back of a quiz, which had his name on it.

Now everybody knew there was a problem. DJ Willy had really gone off the deep end, and there was no telling where he was or what he was doing. I didn’t hear from him for three days, and again began to worry. And then I saw him; he was walking to the dorms in shackles with a police escort. I thought this would be a good scene to capture for his album cover, but I hadn’t taken one of his digital cameras from Target. Damn. Instead, I asked him what happened and where he’d been. This is what DJ Willy had been doing the previous few days…

Stunned by the no-show of his friends at the release party, DJ Willy savagely gorged himself on more shrooms and hopped in his car. Hours later, Illy Willy senselessly dumped his possessions in somebody’s yard. He donated his surfboard to a homeless black guy whom he thought was Andre 3000 from Outkast. The DJ went door-by-door attempting to promote his CD. Ever seen that Aerosmith music video where the tractor writes “Crazy” in the tilled cornfield? Yeah, well my roommate tried to write “DJ Willy” in a cornfield with his Ford Explorer, the only difference being there was still corn in the field.

Maybe his vision was obstructed by the corn stalks, maybe it was the four ounces of mushrooms he scarfed down, I don’t know. No matter the reason, DJ Willy crashed his car into an irrigation ditch while trying to carve out a fancy “W” in the field. The fact that his car was nearly totaled didn’t register to the trippy DJ - to him the car was simply out of gas. So DJ Willy walked to the nearest gas station, blatantly stole a can of gas and some munchies. The baffled attendant called the police, who arrived at the scene to find a strung-out kid eating Cheetos on the curb and smoking a cigarette right next to a gas-filled canister. Except to DJ Willy, that wasn’t the police – it was an underground freestyle rap group called the Dungeon Family who was jealous of his flow and trying to kidnap him. So, doing what anyone would do when they suspect they’re about to be kidnapped, DJ Willy fought the Dungeon Family.

After getting his ass kicked by the police, DJ Willy’s celebrity status landed him free room and board at the county jail that night. While there, DJ Willy envisioned hot and steamy encounters with Britney Spears and freestyle battles with heavyweights such as Snoop Dog and 50 Cent.

The next day, after I saw him arrive at the dorms in shackles, he was relegated to that small building behind the hospital with locked doors and 24/7 surveillance. DJ Willy remained there for several months, completing detox and endless mental evaluations. He did get a comfortable white robe out of it, lucky bastard.

Willy’s parents were devastated by their son’s rapping rampage, and gave me permission to visit him because they assumed I was upset, too. Obviously this was a mistake, because my security clearance provided me several weeks of laughter. We’d sit down on the concrete couches in the visitation room to chat. My roommate was normal up until something completely off-the-wall threw him into a rant. “Yeah, I know that I made a mistake and a lot of people were really worried about me. But my parents are just going to have to deal with the fucking fact that I’m famous now. If they don’t start calling me DJ Willy, I swear.”

“Oh…ok Will, I mean, DJ Willy. So, what’s all this hype I hear about your next album? A collaboration with Eminem?”

“Yeah. We talked earlier today. See, the cool thing about the TVs in here is that they’re two-way. So Eminem was on the TV earlier today, and we talked about our upcoming album. He’s really excited to be featured in my work.”

As the year came to a close and we all moved out for the summer, the legend of DJ Willy propagated throughout North Carolina. As it turned out, I once again had a strange roommate.