Late one night I got it in my head that I would find where he lived.  I had looked several years for his address but always came up with the wrong one.  Then I found it, as if it had never been difficult.  I put his name in search and there he was, a website, an address-everything.  Excited, I emailed him and the next day I got a response.  Only it wasn’t what I expected. He is gravely ill, a friend of his family responded, too ill to check his mail, but I will give him the message. 

He taught me a lot of things-that guy, about art.  Probably didn’t even know I was listening.  He always seemed to know all the gossip and kept his eye on us.  This person told this person and they told Mr. Davidson.  He had an underground circle.  He cared more than people thought.  I heard him tell a student once, when they questioned why he didn’t have children, “My students are my children,” he said.  I thought for a moment he was being sarcastic, but then I thought about how he encouraged our art and laughed and joked with us like we were the same.  Sometimes he showed concern about what was going on in our crazy artist heads.  He saw what we painted, he knew us.

Sitting there watching the boys laugh and stand awkwardly on the stage while we looked on in pride and familiarity my mind wondered back to a time and place not far from now.  Mr. D was sitting across from me explaining an art assignment for the coming week.  He said something and I laughed and we shared another joke.  I realized something that night, as the Varsity coach rambled on about the Tiger’s past season. 

Art is my football.  I didn’t get letters or a special number assigned to me, nor did I get the whole school to support me, most of them outcaste me.  But I did get 4 years of training and hours on end of practice; I got a couple of shows, a couple of meaningless awards.  And I got a coach.  He was about 6’ 3” and threw objects across the room when we didn’t listen, he yelled louder to make sure we heard him and I’m sure he even cussed a little.  He scribbled all over our work with chalk and pushed us to be the best we could. 

And we played a good game.

Maybe I waited too long; maybe I just didn’t wash my paintbrushes out properly. 

But it gave me peace to see him well, just one more time.  And in the days to come, as I frantically hurry to get some more globs of paint on the canvas before the deadline for the show arrives, I will sense him looking over my shoulder, as I always have, ready to tell me what’s wrong with it. 

I will examine it and then speak for him.