We had asked the university to leave his chair vacate until the semester was over. And they   agreed. There was never a day he was not in his chair when we came to class.

      

    Dr. Gibson was our drama coach. He was an eccentric man. Some said he was just plain weird as they come.  Dr. Gibson was in his late sixties. A rather short man with long black hair, droopy eyes and an oval red face, he was the epitome of what some would say as being out there.

          

    He usually worn blue jeans with holes in them and sometimes he wore shorts. In fact, he was the only professor who wore shorts. He also wore different colored socks. But that was Dr. Gibson. He did his own thing, his own way.

        He had been teaching drama at the University for thirty years and some of his students had went on to become successful television and stage actors. But none of that mattered to Dr. Gibson. He said when a student completed his class, he wanted them to have an understanding of something about themselves that they didn’t have or never knew before. He said he wanted all of us to know who we truly were. Our spiritual selves had to be explored in his class.

       

        Drinking coffee throughout the day was the norm for Dr. Gibson. In fact many of us brought him a cup of latte to class at different times.  After he would finish that cup of coffee, he would start dancing right there in front of us. We didn’t know what dance he was doing, nor do I think he knew, but Dr. Gibson didn’t care, he danced away until sweat poured off his face. After he finished, we would all be clapping and laughing as Dr. Gibson caught his breath.

       

        “I’m getting too old for this!” he would say out of breath. “Now what dance was that?” he would ask. But no one knew for sure. Some said the Tango, some said the Robot and so on. He never did say what dance he had just done. He would just take his seat and start the class.

     It was the one class we couldn’t wait for. We all knew Dr. Gibson would be sitting in his chair like he did every day when we entered the class. That was his routine. After the bell rung; he would take a sip of coffee, stand up and glance around the room.

       

        “Okay everyone’s here, “he would say, “Let’s get started.” And, that’s when class began. That’s when our day would be transformed forever.

 

                                  *                                    *                                    

       Dr. Gibson taught method acting. He immersed himself in Russian actor and theater director Stanislavski. He always preached we should come out of our shell because we had lived in our comfort zone far too long.

  

      “Unleash yourself!” he would say. “You must feel the character you are playing in order to become the character.” Then he would look up at the ceiling and do some Zen stuff with his hands as he chanted. We held our laughs inside, but we all knew Dr. Gibson was on another planet.

       Then that day came when Dr. Gibson called my name. “Michael Evans, “he said. He called all his students by their first and last names.

      

       “Yes sir, “I said.

       

       “I want you to be a clock.”  I didn’t know how I would or could ever be a clock. I had to think about it for some time. Then, I got up and stood in front Dr. Gibson for a while.  I spread my arms horizontal, one at the 3 o’clock position and one at the 9 o’clock position. Then, I bobbed my head from side to side like the seconds were ticking away.

       

        Dr. Gibson kicked his shoes off and laid back in his chair. He had two different colored socks on as always. He didn’t say anything for some minutes. Then, he got up, looked at his wrist watch stared at the class and asked, “What time is it?”

         

       One of the students shouted 2.45. Dr. Gibson glanced at me and smiled. He wasn’t asking the real time, but my time as I stood at the 2.45 position.

        

       “Very good Michael Evans.”  I sat down and minutes later Dr. Gibson went back to his desk kick his feet up, and took a nap. We laughed because we knew that was Dr. Gibson. He woke up minutes later and dismissed class.

        

       This was the best class any of us had ever had since we had enrolled in college.

                                      *                               *                                       

       It was a Tuesday, we walked in class, and the chair was empty. Dr. Gibson’s chair was never empty. He was always seated in that chair before we had gotten to class. When we didn’t see him in his chair, we knew something was wrong. We sat quietly awaiting his entrance. But, he never showed up.

       

       His office door was closed. “Check his office,” a student name Corey asked me.

    

       I knocked on the office door but there was no answer. I knocked again, but there was still no answer. I gently turned the knob and pushed the door opened. I found Dr. Gibson that day hanging from a neck tie around his neck. There was a paper taped to his shirt that read Final Act. 

   

       Dr. Gibson had always said there was a fine line between genius and insanity. He said one sometimes loved the other, but often times one hated the other. He said there was this void in a genius that could never be filled within a thousand years. He said Van Gogh suffered from it and so did Hemingway and Robin Williams and even Basquit. We all knew he suffered from it too. We all knew genius and insanity constantly fought inside him.

  

       We would come to class and stare at the empty chair until the semester was over. This was our Final Act.