See part 1 and part 2 of my Worst Roommate saga.

His name was Wes. He was bone thin and had hair like Jesus. He carried all of his belongings in a bulky backpack. Except for his bongo drums, which he kept tied around his neck with a leather thong.

Our house was less than a mile from a homeless camp by the river. Drifters lived there for most of the year, only packing up to move down to Albuquerque when winter made camping dangerous. I think our worst roommate was one such drifter, although I was never exactly clear on where he came from; he just appeared in our living room one day and lingered there.

Unlike Chuck, he made his substance abuse clear from the beginning. He had no job, but he had money, probably from selling pot or worse. I never knew much about the man except that he was the most annoying person I have encountered before or since.

Let’s start with the bongo drums. Since he didn’t have a job, he had nothing better to do than get stoned, put on a Yes album, and invite other drifters over for a drum circle. They played Yes at full volume so they could hear it over the drums. The windows shuddered, the floor vibrated, and the room stank of a dozen homeless men. They had drug-induced stamina and could play all night. I could often hear these drum circles from blocks away as I walked home from work. Wanting nothing more than to rest my feet and sleep after a long shift, I hated to hear that sound because I knew that neither of those things was likely to happen.

I could try asking him to stop, but that meant turning off Yes, which meant tripping over several leering dudes to reach the stereo and being treated to lectures about how I was such a Libra. Yes, among his other absurd traits, Wes was obsessed with the zodiac and mentioned it as often as possible. It was the lens through which he viewed ever social interaction, from meeting a woman at a bar to purchasing a soda at Kwik Mart, to having a conversation about paying a little rent once in awhile. The first time he met me, he immediately asked my birthday. When I answered, he sneered, “I hate Libras.” I laughed, but he was serious. From that moment forward, he viewed me with eyes narrowed in suspicion.

A frequent LSD user, Wes enjoyed dropping acid in the morning. When everyone else was getting ready for work or enjoying a cup of coffee, he’d be tripping. He would sit on the living room floor, listlessly petting his bongo drum with his mouth hanging open. During one such trip, my roommate and I made the mistake of trying to speak to him about a housekeeping matter (late bill). He cried that we were sending off bad vibes and insisted that he could see our black, nasty auras swirling all around the room. He pulled frantically at his Jesus hair and said, “Uh oh. Now you’ve done it. I am having a bad trip.” He backed away from us, his dilated eyes shining with terror. “Get away from me, Libra!” He diverted all conversations about rent and utilities in this manner.

Perhaps it was the effect of working constantly and struggling to save up a little money, but I was becoming less amenable to all the lazy drifters who showed up to eat up our food, congregate in our space, and disturb our sleep. Wes was always gone, in one way or another, when conversations about money were afoot. But when a meal was prepared, he could sense it from miles away. He would skulk around the sidelines of the kitchen, rubbing his stomach and discussing his acute case of munchies. If I didn’t offer him a plate, he sulked and complained that Libras were bastards.

What catapults Wes to VERY WORST ROOMMATE status is the company he kept. He invited many drifters into the house. Most of them were of the same cut as Wes: Rank young men with long, musty beards, greasy backpacks, and big black boots.

There was his leering, thick-necked friend with a bald head and a foot long beard. He was easily six and a half feet tall and incredibly stupid. He thought I was cute and went into flirtation mode, regaling me with stories that were geared to impress. For example, he told me that he had acquired some rohypnol (aka the date rape drug) and had gone downtown to the bars. After a few hours of drinking, he got bored and tried to get high off of the rohypnol. He dosed himself, blacked out immediately, and woke the next morning in a municipal flowerbed. I could only be thankful that he was too dull-witted to follow through with his horrible plan. Since I couldn’t really get away from him, I told him he was a jackass and went upstairs to my room.

I woke from a deep sleep to the putrid smell of rotting socks. I felt the weight of another person in the bed. My heart froze in my chest. When I felt a heavy arm wrap around me, I screamed out in terror. I was sleep-addled and it was dark. I had no idea who it was, only that there was an intruder and I thought he was trying to hurt me. In a fit of pure adrenaline, I kicked. My foot connected, and he flew backward, hitting the wall. I ran across the hall and shook my roommate awake. I hid in his room while he investigated. It was Mr. Date Rape. He first denied that he had been in my room at all, but recanted and said I’d invited him when my roommate discovered his foul boots sitting next to my bed.

Wes had other crappy friends who made us feel unsafe. One specimen was a young hippie who had a wolf for a pet. Of course he named her Luna. Luna was not a domesticated animal. She was lanky, she was clever, and she had a set of razor sharp fangs set in a jawbone as long as my forearm. She put up with being walked on a hemp leash and tied to a park bench, but Luna was only biding her time. The wolf and her owner started squatting at our house on invitation from Wes. I am usually passive, but I couldn’t let that slide. “Why do you have this animal?” I asked. “You don’t even have a home! How are you going to take care of her? Can’t you tell she thinks you’re an asshole and wants to eat you?” Wes rose up, his eyes dilated, his hair swishing around, his skinny finger poking in my face. “How dare you talk to one of my friends like that,” he screamed. “You are so close-minded!” A few days later, he banned Luna from the house himself because she had taken a nice acrid wolf piss on his backpack.

Another awful Wes friend was a popular downtown beggar. He could always be found sitting on a bench downtown, strumming random chords and taking handouts. He had a rough mane of red hair, a bushy beard, and a heavy leather jacket.  Wes invited him to the house, and he soon became a regular. This one also thought I was cute and would not accept no for an answer. After a particularly frightening encounter with him, I fled the house. For days, I either slept in a booth at my restaurant or at my boyfriend’s place because I was scared to go home.

At last, I was able to talk to my other roommates. We voted to ban the creep from our house. Wes thought this was highly unfair. Wes discredited me, saying that I had probably given his friend mixed signals since that was a classic Libra trait. It was all I could do not to strangle him and smash his bongo drums over his head.

It was not long after this incident that we jettisoned Wes. He had never paid rent or utilities, and his bongos wore on everybody’s nerves. His guests were dangerous and had made us all feel uncomfortable. I never felt safe at the house again. I took a few trips around the country and moved to Iowa for awhile. When I came back to town, I rented a nice apartment and enrolled in college. Life moved on, and I rarely thought about Wes, or the house, or any of it.

I saw him a few summers ago. I was walking around downtown during a sidewalk sale. I was rummaging through a bin of nails in front of a hardware store when he approached me. His Jesus hair was shorn, but his face was unmistakable. He still had the same wide, superstitious eyes. He looked at me hard, but he didn’t remember me. “You have great legs,” he said.

“I’m a Libra,” I told him as I walked away.

The End