“Teachers and ministers. I wanted to break windows, smoke cigars and stay up late, you know?” Dragged along to the Friends Church every Sunday by Alma, Waits yearned to break out of Chula Vista. “I wore a tie that cut off the circulation to my head,” he later recalled.“Then I discovered donuts, cigarettes and coffee when I was fourteen, and that was it for church. My mom said, ‘Don’t forget there’s nothing the devil hates more than a singing Christian.’”
