The Story of William -by Siren

I don’t know where William came from, and I don’t know where William is now, but I do know that William was lying on the carport roof outside my bedroom window one chilly December morning.

William was illegally staying with the guys who lived in the dorm next door to me in my first year of college. He had a long, dyed black ponytail with three inch blonde roots. His daily attempt to include all of his hair into one single rubber band was usually thwarted by a wayward strand of unruly locks that preferred to roam free rather than be confined to his scrunchie. His entire wardrobe consisted of grey Marilyn Manson t-shirts that one could only assume were black in a past life. The drab colors of his shirt along with his faded black acid washed jeans helped bring out the shine in his pale, pimply complexion and pointy features.

William was notorious around the dorms for being loud, obnoxious and rude. He started showing up at our dorm one night, watching TV with everyone, each of us thinking that someone ELSE had invited him. Later we found out that no one had any clue as to who he was. On one occasion when everyone was engrossed in a movie on television, William grabbed the remote and started flipping channels, exclaiming, “Man, that movie sucked!”

One of my roommates, Sarah, had her heart set on being in a band and had a couple guys over in an attempt to play music. William caught wind of her idea and showed up, drunk as a skunk. He stumbled around the living room singing under his breath. Had he possessed a bucket, he still couldn’t have carried a tune. When the “band” took breaks, William trudged around the room singing under his foul breath. “I git noked dowwn! But I get up aggin!” Seeing a guy in a Marilyn Manson tee singing Chumbawamba is not a daily occurrence, I assure you. Nor should it be.

I’m not sure whether or not William was actually enrolled in school. I saw him there a couple times but never in an actual classroom. He spoke freely about all the drugs he was presently taking and didn’t care who heard him. He drank every night and seemed quite proud of himself after he passed out and dropped an entire bottle of vodka in the swimming pool. This story progressed every time he told it, and the last version consisted of not only the vodka being put into the pool, but a vast assortment of bodily fluids as well.

The last time I saw William was the night before I went home for Christmas break. Actually, “saw” isn’t really the right word. I was the only one left in my dorm room, and I planned to get up early at 7 the next morning to make the long trek home. I was sound asleep by 2 am, and then I was jolted awake by pounding on the wall. There was a voice, which I assume belonged to William, barging through the walls and launching an assault on my eardrums. His speech was slurred and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I was able to pick out the phrases “I hate myself” and “I just wanna DIE!!!” This went on for at least an hour. I made my way to their door and knocked about fifty times, to no avail. I scoured my room for the phone number of the student housing director but came up empty. The yelling continued. I banged on the wall and yelled back, but nothing seemed to phase him. It continued for another hour or so, and then I heard a deafening bang outside. Since I like my room completely dark, I have think blankets over the windows, limiting my outside viewing access. I went to sleep and got up the next morning to go home.

Upon my return to school, the dorms were abuzz with questions. The guys who lived next door weren’t there anymore, and William was nowhere to be found. Time passed, and one day William’s friend came over to return a book and gave me the real story. It turns out that William, drunk and tripping on acid, had decided that he was going to commit suicide. He’d opened the window, torn off the screen, stared up into the cold black night with tears in his eyes.... and jumped. Out of the second story window. Onto the carport roof three feet below. The corrugated metal bent under his weight and he slid off feet-first into the parking lot. The carport is still dented to this day, and serves as a reminder to students that, no matter how low you get, there’s always someone lower than you.