I stood, alone, and pressed my face against the bedroom window. I looked down at the bird; so fragile, so recently a living thing - now a corpse. I closed my eyes and felt the cool kiss of the glass plant itself on the oven of my face.
I heard the crack of a match from somewhere behind me.
When I opened my eyes Tom Waits was in my room. He was lying on my bed and smoking.
There was a question that had been troubling me for some time, and I presented it to the lounging troubadour.
“What’s it all mean, Tom?”
He looked at me with a frown on his face. He took a long, meaningful drag off his cigarette.
“You mean life?” he answered as he exhaled.
“Yeah, that’s my question, Tom. It all seems so random. Is there a meaning to it all?”
“What makes you think I know the meaning of life?” he asked as he tipped the ash from his cigarette into a small metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. He sat the dish on the nightstand next to my bed.
“Well, you’re successful. People respect you - you’ve been around for a while.”
He paused momentarily in thought, and then spoke. “Well boy, so far as I can tell, the meaning of life is a warm bed, a loose woman, and a double shot o’ bourbon.” He sat back and took another satisfied drag from his cigarette.
“Well, sure. I mean, it makes sense you’d answer that way. But are you saying that because you’re Tom Waits, or because it’s the truth?”
Tom Waits sat up a bit in my bed and snuffed out his cigarette in the small metal dish on the nightstand. I seemed to have struck a nerve. He pointed at me as he spoke. “Boy, I seen shit you couldn’t even begin to…”
I cut him off. “Sure, I know. I didn’t mean anything. But after all that you’ve been through - all you’ve seen - that’s all you can come up with; a bed, a tramp, and some liquor?”
Tom Waits laughed. “Well now, boy, what else is there?”
“What about music? What about love?”
Tom Waits lit another cigarette and relaxed again in my bed. “Boy, I tell ya’, they’re one and the same.”
I said, “I know…I know. But I’m not talking about that. Seriously, what about music and love? Aren’t they the meaning of life?”
Tom Waits held up his hand. “Okay, boy, now don’t get all worked up. In regards to those two things you just mentioned, I can say this: one is God, and one is the Devil. I ain’t gonna tell you which is which, but boy, the Devil can’t carry no tune.”
“So, you think music is God, and love is the Devil?”
Tom Waits nodded as he took another drag from his cigarette. “That’s what I’m sayin’.”
“Well, what do you mean, love is the Devil?”
“Boy, there ain’t no single force greater for making people do crazy, foolish things than love. Wars have been fought over it. People have been killed and have died for it.”
I said, “But, don’t you think love can bring out the best in people; the beauty - the untapped potential for good?”
“Boy, I ain’t ever seen it yet.”
“But what about the love of a good woman? Doesn’t a man need a good woman in his life?”
Tom Waits sat up in the bed, and kicked his legs down onto the floor. “I already done told you about the love of a good woman!”
“No, no. Not some one-night stand…in the dark…with a woman you probably couldn’t stand to look at in the light. I’m talking about a deeper love; spiritual - like soul love.”
And at that, Tom Waits laughed. “Boy, what they been teaching you in that crazy, mixed-up college of yours? You’d think all that education would have knocked some sense into you.”
I looked at him. “I’m a romantic. So what? It’s in my nature. You can’t escape who you are!”
Tom Waits took a long drag from his cigarette. “Boy, you said it all!" Then he coughed. "Say, could you get me a glass of water?”
I returned a moment later with the beverage. Tom Waits sipped greedily. “Thank you, boy. Thank you. Say, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I was a little hard on you back there.”
I was taken aback. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, I mean…shit…life can get mighty lonely. And the transient comforts of a one-night stand can almost be worse than spending the night alone. I suppose we are all just searching for that special person; that person whose flaws can mingle with our own and turn two broken halves into a beautiful whole. I can’t begrudge you that. And as far as that other one is concerned - music - it IS God. I wasn’t lying to you about that. But maybe love is, too. Music is the God that fills in the cracks of life. Love is the God that makes life beautiful.”
I had moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. We were separated by the space of two pillows. I sat there silently for several moments. Slowly, I began to nod. “That makes sense to me. Thank you, Tom Waits. Thank you.”
Tom Waits smiled. “Sure, boy. Sure. But listen, that don’t mean it ain’t fun to wallow in the shadows every now and then. Shit, I’ve built a career on it.”
Suddenly, he looked towards the hall outside the bedroom. There was a knock at the front door. I left the bedroom and made my way to the front door. When I opened it, there was nobody there. I went back to the bedroom, and Tom Waits was gone. On the nightstand, his second cigarette still smoldered in the metal dish he had pulled from his pocket. I held the dish up, and saw an inscription in the small basin. Scooting the ashes aside, I read the message engraved there:
This round’s on me.
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