The Seventh Most Important Thing (15 page)

T
he first Saturday in May was a perfect kind of day.

The turquoise sky reminded Arthur of the teardrop lamp he'd collected for Mr. Hampton way back in December. The warm air made it feel like the start of summer. It was the kind of day when his dad would have taken his motorcycle out for a spin, Arthur thought. (And then he wished he hadn't thought about it.)

It was so nice outside that Arthur would have liked to stay home and shoot some baskets in the driveway instead of going to work for Mr. Hampton all day.

But the end of his probation was still a long way off. If he'd done the math right, he wouldn't be done until the middle of July. (And then he wished he hadn't figured that out.)

Surprisingly, Mr. Hampton was sitting outside in his office chair when Arthur finally arrived. He had no idea how the guy had managed to roll his chair across the gravel and weeds by himself, but there he was, in a small square of sunlight outside the garage, with his eyes closed and his hands folded in his lap.

Of course, Arthur's first panicked thought was that something bad had happened to him again. He kicked the gravel in the alley as he hurried toward the guy, hoping the sound might wake him up.

Thankfully, Hampton's eyes opened as he got closer. Arthur tried not to let him see his big sigh of relief.

“Beautiful day, isn't it?” Mr. Hampton said, waving a shaky hand at the sky. “Thought you might not want to show up today because it's so nice.”

“No, I'm here,” Arthur replied, doing his best to hide the fact that the old man had guessed right. He pointed toward the garage. “So what are we working on today?”

“Well, first, I was hoping you'd go and buy me an orange soda over at the grocery across the street.” Mr. Hampton pulled a crumpled dollar bill from his gray sweater pocket. Arthur couldn't imagine how the guy could stand to be wearing a sweater in the hot sunshine. No wonder he needed a drink. “I've got such a taste for an orange soda this morning,” he said.

“Sure,” Arthur answered, taking the money. “I can get that for you. Any certain kind?”

Mr. Hampton nodded. “Nesbitt's, if they have it. That's what I always used to drink. Buy one for yourself too. And don't worry about bringing me back the change,” he called out as Arthur left.

Luckily, the shop across the street had plenty of bottles on ice. Arthur brought back three, letting his shirt get soaked as he carried them. It felt good.

Mr. Hampton watched him as he returned. “You got three bottles with you? Who's going to drink all that?”

“It's a warm day,” Arthur said as he handed an open bottle to Mr. Hampton.

“Well, yes, I suppose you're right.” Hampton nodded.

Arthur pulled another chair out of the garage, sat down, and picked up a bottle for himself. He tilted the soda back and took a big gulp. He'd never tried Nesbitt's before, but it wasn't bad. However, Mr. Hampton only took a tiny sip, he noticed.

“Something wrong with it?”

“Just enjoying it, that's all.” The old man put down the bottle and closed his eyes again. Something about the scene seemed odd to Arthur. The guy was sitting in the sunshine in a heavy sweater, not looking warm at all. He'd only taken a small sip of the nice cold soda. Then he'd tucked the bottle carefully beside him in the chair.

“You feeling okay?”

“Much better now, thank you.” Mr. Hampton pretended to smile—although Arthur wasn't really convinced—and then he changed the subject. “You know, I used to catch crawdads to buy soda pop when I was your age. You know what crawdads are?”

Arthur shook his head. He was a city kid. He'd never seen a crawdad.

“Well, it doesn't matter.” The old man waved one hand. “Where I grew up in the South, people used to eat them. They were a delicacy. So I'd catch a whole bucketful of crawdads in the river and take them to the fellow who ran the market in town. He'd give me a free soda pop for every bucketful. Then he'd sell those crawdads for three times what I got. But it wasn't a bad deal.” He chuckled. “Not for the time. Not for a kid.”

Arthur kept looking at the old guy hunched in the office chair in front of him, trying to imagine what he might have been like as a kid. It was almost impossible. He wondered what Mr. Hampton's family had been like. Did he have any brothers and sisters? What sort of place had he grown up in?

“You polished off that bottle pretty quick, young man,” Hampton said, interrupting Arthur's thoughts. He pointed to the almost-empty Nesbitt's bottle Arthur was holding.

“Yeah, I guess,” Arthur agreed, wishing he hadn't finished it so fast, since he didn't think it would be polite to burp in front of Mr. Hampton.

“What you should do now is go and stick your empty bottle on that tree over there.” The old man nodded in the direction of a straggly shrub next to the garage.

“What?” Arthur turned to squint at it over his shoulder.

“That's what we used to do when I was a kid,” Mr. Hampton continued. “Every spring, my mother used to have each of us—my sister and my brothers and me—stick a soda bottle on a tree we had in the backyard. I don't know if it was a Southern thing or a family tradition or what. My mother always said it was a way to empty out the things we weren't proud of from the year before. Bad grades or lying or being prideful or whatever it was. You put the bottle on the end of a branch in the springtime, she used to say, and everything you'd been bottling up inside you would pour out onto the ground and disappear forever.”

Mr. Hampton looked sideways at Arthur. “So what would you choose as the thing you're least proud of, Saint Arthur?”

“Throwing the brick at you,” Arthur answered, without even pausing to think. He felt guilty he hadn't apologized yet. He'd started to say something a couple of times when they'd been working in the garage together, but then he'd chickened out.

“I told you that you saved the project,” Mr. Hampton said.

“I still feel bad.”

“Well, then go and put your soda bottle on the tree. That way all the guilt you're still carrying around inside you will flow out and be gone for good.”

Arthur said he'd probably cause a flood.

“I wouldn't worry about that,” Hampton replied with a wry smile. “Well, go on.” He waved one arm. “And here.” He dumped the rest of his soda on the ground beside his chair. “Take mine. Lord knows I've done some things I'm not proud of this past year.”

Although it seemed silly, Arthur took the bottles over to the shrub and stuck them on the ends of two half-dead branches. They looked ridiculous—two empty Nesbitt's bottles wobbling on the ends of a straggly bush.

But he had to admit it kind of helped. He pictured all the anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, and everything else he couldn't deal with pouring out and hissing as it hit the ground, the way rain does on hot pavement.

“So how long do you keep the bottles on the tree?” he asked Hampton when he got back to his chair.

He laughed. “Till they run out.”

Well, that was never gonna happen, Arthur decided.

He pointed at the third, unopened soda and asked Hampton, “You want the last one?”

“No, I've had plenty. You can have it, young man.” Mr. Hampton tugged his sweater tighter around his shoulders, as if he was getting chilled. The square of sunlight had moved away from their spot. “And after you're done with it, you can leave it on the tree for the Throne of the Third Heaven,” he added.

Arthur looked at Mr. Hampton in surprise. “Why?”

The old man sighed and squinted upward. “For all the regrets I have about it. See, I wasted too much time in life before doing what I was meant to do. That's the mistake I made. I didn't start soon enough.” He pointed a shaky finger at Arthur. “Take it from me: Don't wait for a better time. I waited too long, and now the people aren't going to get to see everything I want them to see.”

Arthur had no idea what Mr. Hampton was talking about. “Who won't get to see everything?”

“The people who are coming.”

Arthur looked around the empty alleyway. “What people?”

“You'll see,” Mr. Hampton insisted mysteriously, closing his eyes again.

There was a long silence. Arthur wasn't sure if Hampton had fallen asleep or what, but he kept quiet. The guy seemed like he needed to rest.

Mr. Hampton's eyes opened again. “If something happens to me, I want you to promise me something.”

“All right,” Arthur said uneasily. “What is it?”

“I want you to promise me that you'll be the next Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity.”

Arthur thought he was kidding. “I don't think you'd really want me to direct any project for you,” he said with a half-joking laugh. “I'm not very good at the state of anything, let alone eternity.”

“No, this is very serious. It is not a joke, young man.” Mr. Hampton leaned forward, his dark eyes gazing hard at Arthur. “I want you to promise me that if something happens to me, you will be the next Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity and save my creation”—he pointed at the garage—“for the people who are coming.”

“All right.” Arthur shrugged. “Sure.”

“No, I want you to say you promise me.”

“Okay, I promise,” Arthur agreed, just so Hampton would calm down and stop talking about crazy stuff like invisible people coming down the alley and states of eternity.

“I'm counting on you, Saint Arthur,” Hampton told him. He squinted up at the sky. “Now I think we'd best get busy working before it gets too late.”

After putting the last bottle on the tree, they went into the garage. Arthur helped Hampton move his office chair across the gravel because he said he wasn't feeling up to it. “A little tired, is all,” he said.

They spent the rest of the afternoon cutting out cardboard stars to decorate the base of a new table Mr. Hampton was putting together.

Although Arthur didn't know it, those were the last stars he'd make with him.

Three days later, James Hampton was dead.

O
fficer Billie came to Arthur's house on Tuesday afternoon to tell him what had happened—that Mr. Hampton had been taken to the hospital on Monday night and despite everything they did, the doctors weren't able to save him. He had died early that morning.

The whole time Officer Billie was talking, Arthur kept thinking about what Mr. Hampton had said on Saturday.
If something happens to me…

He'd never imagined those words would come true so soon. Not in a million years. Maybe Mr. Hampton had seemed more tired than usual on Saturday and had said some odd things, but they'd made a bunch of stars and Mr. Hampton had started to design a new table for his masterpiece. It wasn't possible that he was dead.

When Arthur didn't say anything, Officer Billie patted his shoulder awkwardly and said if he needed to talk about his feelings, he could call anytime. “I realize this is tough news to hear.”

Even though he was afraid to ask, Arthur knew he had to find out about the garage and Mr. Hampton's project.

“He kind of put me in charge of some things in his garage,” he managed to say in an almost-steady voice before the officer left. “What do you think is going to happen with everything?”

Of course, Officer Billie didn't have any idea what he was talking about. “Don't worry about your probation,” she said, patting his shoulder again. “We can decide all of that later. I'll be back in touch in a week or so. Call me if you need anything.” And then she was gone.

Arthur waited until the next day at lunch to tell Squeak what had happened.

“I'm awfully sorry,” Squeak kept repeating about every five minutes as his glasses steamed up with tears. “I liked Mr. Hampton a lot too.”

“I know. Thanks,” Arthur would answer each time, and then try to change the subject to a homework question or something stupid like that.

Arthur's family wouldn't leave him alone after they heard the news. Officer Billie had called Arthur's mom at work on Tuesday to tell her. She came home early—a rare occurrence.

“I can't believe all of this happened so suddenly. You just saw Mr. Hampton on Saturday, didn't you?” Arthur's mom said, giving him a hug when she got home.

Which didn't help much.

On Friday, Roger invited him to a Washington Senators baseball game to take his mind off things. When Arthur turned him down, he suggested bowling, then a movie.

“I really don't want to do anything, no matter what it is,” Arthur finally told Roger. “Thanks.”

Barbara left a bunch of rainbow drawings on his bed and insisted on giving him the silver bead from Mr. Hampton to keep. “So you can remember your friend,” she said.

Which was really sweet of her, Arthur thought, even if seeing the silver temperature knob from the toaster almost made him bust up and start crying.