The Seventh Most Important Thing Read online

  What the heck had he stumbled upon?

  It looked like a shimmering shrine inside the garage, like something you’d see on a Hollywood movie set or in an Egyptian temple or something. There were glittering tables, silver pillars, gilt pedestals, and throne-like chairs. Arthur couldn’t believe his eyes. Radiant gold-and-silver objects filled almost half of the room—the pieces piled so high they nearly touched the low ceiling lights.

  It was unreal.

  Arthur wondered if he was having a hallucination or some kind of crazy dream. Was he really standing inside Mr. Hampton’s garage in Washington, D.C.? He closed his eyes and opened them again just to check if everything was still there.

  It was.

  And that’s when he noticed something else.

  There were wings everywhere. They were attached to the sides of the tables, the backs of the chairs, the pedestals and pillars. Everything he could see had its own pair of sparkling wings.

  Arthur remembered what Mr. Hampton had said about his dad’s hat. I took it for the wings.

  Was this what he’d meant?

  Still trying to grasp the unbelievable scene in front of him, Arthur stood motionless by the door. His leaky boots made two moist prints like wings on the cement. Where had Mr. Hampton found all of these things? And what was the mysterious creation supposed to be?

  Arthur might have stayed frozen in the same spot forever, lost in the vision of the shimmering world, if it hadn’t been for the sound.

  From the opposite side of the garage, Arthur heard a low moan.

  His eyes darted toward the far corner of the garage, where there didn’t seem to be much light—only pools of darkness and shadow, and piles of stuff he couldn’t really identify in the gloom. Except for one thing.

  A man lying on the floor.

  He wore a familiar tan coat. His shoes were still on his feet, and a pair of shattered glasses rested on the floor in front of his head.

  Arthur’s heart dropped.

  James Hampton.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Later on, Arthur couldn’t remember everything that happened. It was like the night his dad died. He could only recall certain sights and sounds: the rain on the officers’ shoulders, the word instantly….

  Arthur remembered running over to James Hampton and picking up his broken glasses from the cement floor. He remembered the bitter smell of urine and vomit around him. And he remembered crouching down next to the old man, desperately praying, begging, hoping he was still alive.

  “Who are you?” Mr. Hampton said, suddenly opening his eyes and scaring the heck out of Arthur.

  “A-Arthur Owens,” he stammered.

  The man’s dark eyes looked distant and unfocused, as if they didn’t actually see Arthur but someone else. “I don’t know you,” he mumbled. “Tell me where I am, saint.”

  Arthur swallowed, unsure what to answer. “Your garage,” he replied finally. “And I’m not a saint,” he added. “I’m Arthur Owens, the kid doing the probation sentence for you.”

  He couldn’t bring himself to mention the brick.

  “Oh yes, Saint Arthur,” the man murmured, his eyes sliding closed again. “Now I know exactly who you are. You’re the one who saved me.”

  “I didn’t save you,” Arthur started to explain, but stopped when he saw Mr. Hampton’s closed eyes and rasping breaths. He could feel panic rising in his throat. He didn’t know if Mr. Hampton had fallen or had a heart attack or what. With his face crumpled against the cold cement floor, the old man looked like he was dying.

  Arthur glanced toward the side door of the garage, desperately hoping someone would arrive. If Mr. Hampton died while he was there, nobody would believe it wasn’t his fault.

  But no one came.

  Arthur shook the old man’s shoulder, begging him to wake up.

  “Can you hear me, Mr. Hampton? I have to go and get some help for you, okay?” Arthur’s panicked voice echoed through the garage, but the man didn’t move or answer. At the other end of the room, the dozens of gold-and-silver wings remained motionless too. Nothing stirred.

  Arthur felt as if he was about to explode with fear. He was afraid to stay with Mr. Hampton, and he was afraid to leave.

  He’d already deserted Mr. Hampton once. He’d left him lying alone on a city sidewalk and run away like a coward. If he left to get help, would he look like a coward again?

  Arthur decided he had to take the chance. He couldn’t stay there and watch the guy die. Standing up, he took one last look at the motionless man and ran to get Groovy Jim.

  —

  The rest of what happened was a blur to Arthur. He remembered bursting into Groovy Jim’s shop, shouting things that probably didn’t make much sense, about finding Mr. Hampton on the floor and calling the police. He remembered Groovy Jim running up the gravel alley in his slippers, with his burly customer following him. And he remembered almost crying with relief when Groovy Jim kneeled down next to Mr. Hampton and he opened his eyes again.

  “What happened to you, buddy?” Groovy Jim said, trying to sound calm as he tucked the man’s coat tighter around him and patted his arm. “You take a fall and hit your head or something?”

  “No.” Mr. Hampton’s head moved almost imperceptibly. “I’m ready to go,” he whispered.

  “Go where?” Groovy Jim asked, just to keep him talking, Arthur could tell.

  “Heaven,” replied Mr. Hampton, closing his eyes again.

  Looking startled, Groovy Jim glanced back at Arthur and his customer. “Well, I don’t think heaven is ready for you yet, buddy,” he said loudly. “You need to stay right here with us until help gets here. You’ve got a lot of years left to live. You can’t get rid of us that easily.”

  He pointed toward the dazzling display at the other end of the garage. “Man, that’s a pretty cool collection of stuff you’ve got over there. Why don’t you tell us about it?”

  Surprisingly, this question seemed to bring James Hampton back to the real world again. His eyes opened and he focused them directly on Groovy Jim. “Not stuff,” he corrected, sounding irritated. “It’s heaven. Saint Arthur and I have been busy building heaven.”

  Groovy Jim’s eyes darted toward Arthur, who stared at Hampton uneasily. What in the world was the guy talking about?

  “I’ve been helping you collect junk, remember?” he blurted out, as if that might jog Mr. Hampton’s memory. “Remember the list of the Seven Most Important Things? Foil, cardboard, glass…” He stumbled through the simple list of items he’d been collecting since December.

  “Exactly,” James Hampton said, sliding his gaze slowly toward Arthur. “What else do you think heaven would be made out of?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  All the way to the hospital, Arthur kept thinking about what Mr. Hampton had said.

  It seemed like forever before the ambulance had arrived for him. Once Mr. Hampton had been loaded into it, Arthur got into one of the cop cars to ride along to the hospital. Groovy Jim stayed behind to finish working on his customer.

  “You sure you don’t mind going by yourself?” Groovy Jim had asked before Arthur left.

  He nodded, even though he wasn’t really okay with it. He had no idea what he was supposed to do once they got to the hospital. Or how he’d get home. He didn’t even have a dime to call someone.

  When the cop got into the car, he turned to Arthur and said, “Bet this is your first ride in a police car, isn’t it, kid?”

  Arthur said, “Yeah.”

  He resisted adding that it was his first ride without handcuffs, anyhow.

  As the officer backed the car down the alley and sped down the block, siren blaring, Arthur kept going over and over in his mind what James Hampton had said.

  Had he really made all the gold and silver pieces in the garage himself? And had he really meant they were supposed to look like heaven—the place—with angels and pearly gates and all that?

  After his dad died, Arthur had spent a lot of time thinking abou
t heaven. Wondering if it was real and what it was like. Wondering if his dad was there—despite what his stupid aunt had said at the funeral home.

  Sometimes in juvie when he couldn’t sleep, he would try to picture the perfect heaven for his dad. He would imagine a place full of motorcycles and lots of things to fix, because his dad always liked to tinker with stuff. A place that was sunny and warm year-round, so his dad would never have to put his Harley away.

  Mostly, he pictured heaven being kind of like Florida with motorcycles.

  But he’d never imagined finding heaven in a garage in Washington, D.C.

  He still couldn’t quite believe what he’d seen. Had the whole thing really been made of junk he’d collected?

  Arthur closed his eyes, trying to recall what the arrangement had looked like. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the pieces, but it didn’t seem possible that the fancy tables and chairs and pillars were made of stuff from the trash. Nobody was that good an artist.

  But there were all those wings. How could you explain the wings? Mr. Hampton had taken his father’s hat for the wings, and he’d signed all his notes St. James. The grocery cart was a chariot, Hampton had told Arthur’s sister. The week before, he’d sent Arthur to find a throne.

  Thrones, chariots, wings, saints…heaven?

  Arthur shook his head.

  It made sense—and didn’t make any sense, at the same time.

  But the more puzzling question was why.

  Why was Hampton building heaven? And—Arthur glanced anxiously over his shoulder at the ambulance screaming through the rain behind them—what if Hampton died before he found out?

  THIRTY

  They wheeled James Hampton through the whooshing doors of the emergency department, and a young nurse took Arthur to the waiting room. Arthur wasn’t sure what happened to the cop, but he never returned after dropping him off at the door.

  “We’ll come and get you once we have him stabilized,” the nurse said kindly as she steered Arthur toward a row of empty seats. She reminded him of a pretty nurse you’d see on television. “What’s your name?”

  “Arthur Owens.”

  “Is the man they brought in a friend of yours?”

  “No,” Arthur replied uncomfortably. “He’s just someone I help out sometimes.” He knew this sounded kind of weird, but what else could he say?

  The nurse pressed her lips together, as if this wasn’t the answer she was hoping for. She seemed unsure of what to do next, and Arthur wondered if maybe she hadn’t been on the job very long. “Do you know if he has any family we could contact?”

  Arthur shook his head, remembering what Mr. Hampton had told his sister: No kids. No house. “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay.” The nurse patted Arthur’s shoulder, making him feel even more embarrassed. “We’ll see what we can find out, don’t worry. Can I get you some juice or cookies while you’re waiting? We have some in the back.”

  Arthur wanted to say yes. His throat felt like the Sahara. His stomach grumbled. It seemed like hours since he’d left home that morning.

  Despite this, he heard himself answer, “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” He didn’t know why he had to appear tough and strong in front of the nurse, but he did.

  “All right.” The nurse smiled at him, and Arthur could tell his face was getting warmer. “Just sit tight and I’ll let you know when we have some news, okay?”

  Arthur watched the nurse turn and disappear through a set of doors marked STAFF ONLY as if she were his last connection to the outside world. He’d never been in a hospital by himself before.

  Sagging into one of the uncomfortable chairs, he gazed around the waiting room. It had a pay phone, two small televisions showing only static, and a magazine rack with almost no magazines in it. The people in the room looked like they had been there for weeks.

  Some people dozed, leaning on their arms. A few read. Arthur had no idea what to do. He was miles away from his neighborhood, with no way of telling anyone where he was. He wished he had Squeak’s phone number. At least Squeak would have been someone to talk to.

  “Peppermint?” An old woman with rumpled hair and a lint-covered coat leaned toward him, holding a piece of striped candy in her hand.

  Arthur shook his head. “No thanks.” He didn’t want to make friends with anybody here, or for anyone to try to make friends with him.

  —

  There were no clocks in the waiting room. Arthur had no idea how much time passed before the same nurse finally came back to get him. All he knew was that his head was pounding and he felt a little dizzy when he stood up.

  “He’s doing better now, so you can see him for a few minutes,” the nurse said as she led him down a hallway where he was the only nonmedical person around. “He called you a saint for saving him.” She glanced at Arthur over her shoulder. “Isn’t that sweet?”

  “Yeah—yeah, he calls a lot of people that,” Arthur stammered, hoping that was all Mr. Hampton had told the nurse about him.

  “Well, you got him here in time. That’s the main thing.” She gave Arthur another one of her dazzling smiles, and he couldn’t imagine how a person this nice could also stick people with needles.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Arthur asked, because it seemed like something he ought to ask, even though he didn’t know Mr. Hampton that well—or at all, really.

  “I’ll let him talk to you,” the nurse answered. “And here we are.” She stopped by a green curtain.

  Arthur couldn’t help noticing how the curtain was the same shade of olive-green as the uniforms they had in juvie.

  “Mr. Hampton, I have a visitor to see you,” the nurse called out before they entered. “It’s the saint you were asking about,” she added, giving Arthur a wink.

  “Well, bring him in,” a shaky voice replied.

  The nurse pushed the curtain aside, and Arthur took a deep breath to calm down before he stepped into the small space—trying not to be afraid, trying not to look afraid.

  He had no idea what to expect. Until he’d found Mr. Hampton on the floor of the garage that morning, Arthur hadn’t seen him face to face since the day in the courtroom. He wasn’t even sure he was allowed to be face to face with him.

  When Arthur came in, Mr. Hampton was propped up in a hospital bed, covered in blankets. He didn’t resemble the neat, brown-suited man from the courtroom or the crazy Junk Man either. Mostly, he looked tired and old. His skin reminded Arthur of the cardboard he’d been collecting for months—but cardboard that had been left out in the rain. Rain-soaked and sagging cardboard. That was what Arthur thought at first.

  Mr. Hampton lifted his hand from the blankets in a small wave, and Arthur noticed for the first time that he was no longer wearing the cast and sling on his arm. “So, we meet again,” the old man said with a weak smile.

  “Yes.” Arthur nodded, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He tried not to look at all the tubes and wires around the man. “Are you feeling better?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t an impolite question, hoping his voice wasn’t too loud in the small space. Mr. Hampton wasn’t deaf, he reminded himself. Just sick.

  “Better is a relative term,” the man replied with a tired sigh. “I’m better than I was an hour ago, but not as good as I used to be.”

  Arthur wasn’t sure if he should ask him what was wrong. Fortunately, a buzzer in the hallway interrupted the conversation.

  “You can visit for a little while longer, if you’d like,” the nurse told Arthur. “I need to leave for a minute, but I’ll take you to the waiting room once I get back.” She pointed to a red buzzer near the bed. “There’s an alarm if you need anything, Mr. Hampton, okay?”

  Arthur was relieved that the nurse talked extra loudly to him too.

  After the nurse left, Mr. Hampton motioned to Arthur. “Come here and let me shake your hand, young man.”

  Arthur was startled. Didn’t the guy remember who he was and what he’d done?

  “I won’t bite,�
� the old man said, waving again.

  Reluctantly, Arthur stepped toward the bed. For some reason, it seemed wrong to shake hands with the man he’d almost killed. He half expected a big lightning bolt to come down and zap him, or the police to barge in and arrest him on the spot.

  But it was just an ordinary handshake. For as tired as he looked, Mr. Hampton’s grip was still pretty strong, Arthur noticed.

  “I want to thank you for saving me twice,” Mr. Hampton said, pulling himself higher on the pillows and rearranging the blankets.

  Arthur was confused. “Twice?”

  “The brick?” the old man said with a sharp look. “Surely you haven’t forgotten that?”

  Arthur swallowed. “No.”

  “Well, that was the first time you saved me.”

  What? Arthur thought maybe Mr. Hampton didn’t remember exactly what had happened. “No, I was the one who threw the brick that hit you in the shoulder,” he tried to explain. “You fell on the sidewalk and broke your arm. Then someone else stopped and helped you, remember?”

  “Nope. That’s where you’re wrong, young man,” Mr. Hampton replied in a determined voice. “I needed assistance with my project, and your brick falling out of the sky and breaking my arm is what brought the two of us together. That way, I could keep building my masterpiece while you collected the Seven Most Important Things for me. So it was you who saved me.”

  Arthur shook his head slowly. The guy was nuts.

  “It’s true,” Mr. Hampton insisted. He stuck two fingers in the air. “Second time you saved me—this morning. I could’ve been lying there for days if it hadn’t been for you finding me.” The old man closed his eyes. “Twice. Like I said.”

  “Okay,” replied Arthur, feeling a little guilty for agreeing with the guy. But he didn’t know what else to do. He knew he hadn’t thrown the brick to help anybody—especially not Mr. Hampton.

  After a minute or two of silence, the man’s eyes opened again. “So, how much do you know about my work?”

  “Uh, not much,” Arthur mumbled, wondering how much he could know about it. He’d only seen it once—that morning.