The Jazz-Man

He wasn´t really annoying to me, but he was very loud, that for sure. He was an old man, he had had a hard life, that´s what I figured out.
He just sat down, no one had asked him to, but I guess he didn´t really think about others that much. He started talking immediately, banging with his flat hand on the table to emphasize his opinions. He played the bass-guitar in his own jazz-band. In his mind, that is.
He sang a lot, too. He was scatting away, too. And, as I said, all very loud. I liked him. I didn´t ask his name. I started scatting with him, he looked surprised and joined in. We had fun. He was nice and harmless. He knew a lot and was a master of the English language. He sang, he yelled, he banged on the table. The group I was with just wanted to be left in peace, and told him so, more than one time. I really didn´t mind, to spend ten minutes of my life with this guy. So he ignored them, and focused on me and my friend.
He said, after the war, his parents became very careless, spending more time inside their heads, ignoring him, their only child. His father grew to dislike him, his mother ignored him. He was sad.
But, he told me, in 1961, he discovered beat music, and from then on, it was music and only music that gave him, what he felt was missing in his life. He made a lot of mistakes, he said. Experementing with drugs, drinking too much, he soon had problems with his head.
But, he was an excellent musician. And he knew a few very important things, rules, that he obeyed to and lead his life by. His first rule was love. He said, he knew it was all crap and invented, but once you figured that out, you could play the game and believe it. And that was, why love was the number one rule. Love, just love and you know for certain the meaning of life.
His second rule was to not hurt anyone. And his third rule was, honesty. If you have friends, or really, really like someone, you have to be honest, always.
And he said, to learn all these things and live them, you first had to suffer, and by god, he said, I suffered. And he told me, he knew he was strange, but that was alright, he had his music, and he was content, nonetheless. He made a few more noises, banged the table a couple of times, and scatted..doobidoowaah. And stood up and left, already aiming towards the next table. I just wondered, was he telling the same stuff to the other strangers? And still I think about him.