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Friends of Billy Hornsby have reported that ever since he declared a semester-long leave, the junior economics concentrator has been acting like counterculture icon and Beat-era novelist Jack Kerouac.
“It’s not like he’s on a cross-country road trip with a ragtag crew of poets, but he’s certainly acting like that’s the case,” Hornsby’s roommate said as the .5er crouched over a ragged notebook, scribbling stream-of-consciousness lines of prose about his newfound bohemian lifestyle. “He keeps talking about ‘finding America’ even though he never leaves our house except to pick up food, and he won’t stop listening to jazz and drinking straight bourbon. It’s starting to get unbearable."
“Yesterday he told me he’s converting to Buddhism, but it doesn’t seem like he knows what Buddhism even is,” Hornsby’s roommate continued, shaking his head as he caught a glimpse of the mid-year graduate putting on a turtleneck and picking up a copy of Howl. "Then I saw him lugging an old typewriter up to his room and chain-smoking cigarettes on the porch. I get that he has less of a schedule now, but just because he’s taking a single semester off from Brown doesn’t mean he gets to act like he’s best buddies with Allen Ginsberg.”
At press time, Hornsby bid his friends farewell to lead a reclusive life in New Hampshire, much like famed American author J.D. Salinger.
