The Seventh Most Important Thing (6 page)

A
rthur decided to ask Groovy Jim if he'd ever heard the saying before. Just in case there was some hidden point he was supposed to get.

Arthur was never good at finding the hidden points in things—especially not if it was in his English class. He'd missed most of
Romeo and Juliet
while he was in juvie, but he got back in time to find out that almost everyone in the play dies at the end. This was the only hidden point he'd gotten from
Romeo and Juliet:

Everybody dies.

Groovy Jim didn't seem to mind the interruption.

“Hey, kiddo, you're back,” he said when Arthur pushed open the door of the shop. “Come on in.” He waved a tattooed arm. “I could use some company here. I'm turning into a block of boredom.”

Arthur glanced around the empty shop, which smelled faintly of peppermint this time. It looked like Groovy Jim had added a couple new posters of tattoo designs on the walls. One of comic-book characters. Another of sailing ships. There was a string of droopy tinsel across the front of the counter where he was sitting. Arthur had no idea how the guy stayed in business. He never seemed to have any customers, although Arthur guessed that getting a tattoo in the middle of winter probably wasn't very popular.

As Arthur closed the door behind him, he realized he hadn't planned out exactly what his story would be. What would he give as a reason for being there two Saturdays in a row? And how would he explain why Mr. Hampton was leaving him bizarre quotes on pieces of cardboard?

“So, what can I do for you?” Groovy Jim asked as Arthur stood awkwardly just inside the door. “You looking for Mr. Hampton again?”

“Yeah, kind of.” Arthur reached into his pocket for the scrap of cardboard, still debating what to ask. “He left me this note and I have no clue what it means.” Slowly, he read the words to Groovy Jim. “Have you ever heard that saying before?”

Groovy Jim laughed. “Sure, I've got the same one right here.” He tapped his finger on a piece of paper taped to his counter. “Hampton likes to hand it out a lot. Grocery guy across the street has the same quote taped on his counter too.”

Arthur stepped closer to see. It was written on an old, creased note card. Same blue pen as on his cardboard note. Same square printed letters.

“What does it mean?”

Groovy Jim shrugged. “Beats me. Hampton, he's deep, man.”

“Deep?”

“Smart. Philosophical. Way beyond ordinary folks like you and me.” Groovy Jim leaned back in his chair and rested his feet on top of the counter. He was wearing bedroom slippers, Arthur noticed. In the middle of the day.

“See, most people don't get the guy at all,” Groovy Jim continued. “All they see is some far-out dude going around town with a cart full of junk. They think he's nuts. But I'm telling you, Hampton is way deeper than people realize. Trust me, he's got a good reason for everything he says and does.”

“What reason?”

“Well, that's a question you'll have to ask him yourself. Can't help you with that one, kiddo.”

Arthur couldn't tell if Groovy Jim was avoiding the question or if he really didn't know anything more about Mr. Hampton.

Groovy Jim tapped his finger on the note card. “Now, if you want my opinion of what the quote means, I think it is trying to say if you don't have vision—if you don't look deeper and see the possibilities in things—your spirit, your soul, will die.” He squinted at Arthur. “Get it?”

No, Arthur didn't really get it—and he especially didn't get what his spirit had to do with collecting garbage. How was he supposed to look deeper at a coffee can, for instance?

But he pretended he understood. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Thanks.”

“Well, I hope you find what you're looking for this morning.” Groovy Jim nodded and picked up a magazine from the counter. “Stay warm.”

It was only later, after Arthur left, that he realized he hadn't actually told Groovy Jim he was looking for anything that morning.

A
fter all the talk about vision and looking deeper for things, it was ironic that the first thing Arthur spotted after he left Groovy Jim's was a mirror.

It was leaning against some garbage cans at a house a few doors down the street. Arthur was trying to get the grocery cart to move through the slush—he'd cleared out the stuff from the week before and decided to bring the cart along just in case he needed it—when he saw the corner of something catch the reflection of a passing car. He sprinted toward the trash pile as if it might suddenly vanish.

Yes, it really was a mirror.

As Arthur tugged it out of the wet, snow-covered pile, he couldn't believe his good luck. One corner had a long, diagonal crack, and there were a few specks of tarnish on the surface, but the rest was perfect. A slam dunk. He felt like pumping his fist in the air or doing some kind of victory dance. He had scored a mirror in the first five minutes—no, the first five seconds—of his search.

Then he realized how totally nuts it was to be celebrating a
broken mirror.
What in the world was he thinking?

Quickly, he jammed his hands in his coat pockets and pretended to be interested in something down the street. A cop had stopped to help a VW Beetle with a flat. Arthur waited until the cop had his back turned and some other cars had passed by before he grabbed the mirror, stuck it under his right arm, and hurried to the cart.

On the next street, things got even better.

Arthur found a nice polished table—the kind you'd put at the end of a sofa—sitting by someone's curb. It had curved legs and some gold leafy designs painted on the top. The only thing it was missing was a drawer in the front.

Since the Junk Man hadn't liked the straggly branches he'd left the week before, Arthur thought maybe he hadn't really wanted “pieces of wood” like branches. He'd meant pieces
made
of wood. Like furniture. Which made more sense when Arthur thought about all the broken furniture the Junk Man used to haul around the neighborhood in his cart.

In which case, the table would be perfect.

Carefully, Arthur lifted the square table and set it sideways in the cart. It was too big to carry, so he was glad he'd brought the cart. He only hoped its stubborn wheels would keep working.

Pulling the black knit cap down farther over his head, he tried not to notice all of the cars slowing to check out what he was doing. He was sure it probably looked as if he was stealing stuff from half the neighborhood as he started down the street again with the big mirror and table legs sticking out of his cart.

The wet snow was falling harder, which he was glad about. Maybe people would pay more attention to the snow than him.

Foil. Coffee cans. Lightbulbs. Those turned out to be a lot more difficult. Arthur began to realize he could keep his eyes open all day and probably never spot any of them lying around outside, waiting to be picked up as a Most Important Thing.

It would be easier to find a discarded toilet—he had seen several of those already.

Eventually, Arthur knew he had no choice. If he wanted to find everything on the list, he would have to look
inside
a few garbage cans.

The first garbage can was the worst.

Arthur chose a house where nobody seemed to be home. It was a block away from Mr. Hampton's garage. There was a green tinsel wreath on the door, but all the windows were dark. There were no cars in the driveway.

Arthur waited until there were no cars coming down the street either. He tried to look like he was just passing by the empty house. With an old grocery cart. Checking out the neighborhood garbage cans. For fun.

The trash can he chose to open appeared to be pretty new—which Arthur thought was a good thing—but the metal lid was slick from the wet snow. The suction created by the water and metal meant he had to work to get the lid free.

Using just one hand to pull wasn't enough. Gloves didn't help—they slipped too much. He had to use his bare hands. He grabbed the handle and tugged. Hard.

With one sudden pop, the lid came off. Water splattered across the front of Arthur's coat. A lot of curse words splattered out of his mouth.

As he stood there with who-knows-what all over him, Arthur tried to tell himself there were worse things in life. Being covered in trash water wasn't as bad as having a rusty razor held to your neck, right?

Sure.

Arthur exhaled slowly. He said a few more swearwords to make himself feel better. Then he forced himself to take one step forward and peer into the disgusting depths of the garbage can. He would find something useful inside it, no matter what.

And right there on top, like they were waiting for him, were some foil TV dinner trays. Not too clean, but the list didn't say
clean
foil, did it?

He pulled them out one by one. Three Hungry Chef TV dinner trays. The sight of them put a familiar lump in Arthur's throat. He used to eat Hungry Chef dinners with his dad in front of the television whenever his mother worked late at the waitressing job she had.

Turkey and mashed potatoes with extra stuffing had been their favorite. Usually, they'd eat one each and split a third.

“Hungry Chef and a half,” his dad used to joke.

Arthur had tried them again, not too long ago. He'd cooked two when his mom was working late and he was watching Barbara. But he couldn't finish more than a few bites.

“You want to have this one?” he'd asked Barbara, holding out the second steamy tray, which he hadn't even touched.

“No,” she'd said, turning up her nose. “I don't.” For some reason, it really bugged him. He'd told Barbara that she was a spoiled little brat, and the whole night kind of went downhill from there.

Arthur tossed the trays into his cart and slammed the lid back on the trash can. He needed to stop remembering things and do his work. Checking his watch, he sighed. He still had three hours to go.

The last things he collected that Saturday were the lightbulbs. He'd just found two coffee cans and decided it was time to give up. He hoped the nice wooden table and the big mirror and all the foil trays—people had eaten a lot of TV dinners that week—would make up for not finding Most Important Thing #1: Lightbulbs.

But then, as he was heading back to the garage, he noticed a tangled knot of discarded Christmas lights next to someone's trash can. A few of the bulbs were missing, but the string still had more than enough left. The Junk Man could even choose from two different colors: white or green. Arthur tossed the Christmas lights on top of his pile.

Done.

As he pushed and pulled the stubborn cart back to Mr. Hampton's garage, he decided nobody could accuse him of not following directions this Saturday. Of not having “vision.” He'd found everything on the list, including a pretty decent table.

What he really wanted to know was why. That's what kept circling through his mind. Groovy Jim had said the guy always had a reason for what he did. So what was it? Why did Mr. Hampton want coffee cans but not ginger ale cans? Or lightbulbs but not lamps?

The list seemed totally random and pointless, but Arthur was beginning to think maybe it wasn't.

“
H
ow did it go?” Arthur's mom asked cheerfully when he got home, as if he'd been out doing something fun, instead of serving four hours of his probation sentence. “Was Mr. Hampton nice to you?”

“Sure.” Arthur shoved his coat into the back of the closet, hoping his mom didn't notice anything different about it. Hoping it didn't smell.

“What did you do today?”

“Just moved some furniture and helped find some Christmas tree lights. Nothing big,” he said, keeping his eyes down as he tugged off his boots.

Too late, he realized the mistake he'd made.

His mom smiled and wiped her hands on her apron. “Good. Let's get
our
Christmas tree down from the attic now that you're back.”

So Arthur had no choice, really. He couldn't exactly tell his mom he was still hoping his dad's accident had been a bad dream and maybe, if they waited, he would be there to put up the tree for them. That would sound crazy and sad, and it would probably make her cry.

“Sure,” he said, keeping his voice as normal as he could. “No problem, Mom. I can do it.”

“I'll help you pull down the steps.”

After the two of them had unfolded the narrow ladder that led to the attic, Arthur climbed up, while his mom stood at the bottom with a pencil-sized flashlight giving completely unhelpful advice.

“Be careful,” she kept saying. “Your dad would always hit his head going up. And watch out for nails in the floor. You don't want to get a rusty nail in your hand. There should be a light once you get up there. Look for the chain. There should be a chain to pull. But watch out for your head. You don't want to hit your head.”

“I got it, Mom!” he yelled, probably louder than he needed to.

A lump rose in Arthur's throat as he pulled on the light and saw all the stuff from their past piled in the attic: The cans of paint his dad had used when Arthur's mom wanted the kitchen painted a bright banana yellow. Racks of clothes. Boxes of Arthur's old Matchbox cars and racetracks.

Arthur remembered how his dad used to spend hours with him when he was a little kid, playing with those cars. Putting the black plastic tracks all over the living room. Figure eights around the coffee table. Ramps on the sofa cushions.

Did that kind of thing count at all in heaven? Would God care that his dad had been perfect at playing Matchbox cars, even if he'd had a lot of other faults?

And then Arthur got mad at himself for wondering about such stupid things.

“Are you doing okay up there?” His mother's worried voice drifted up from below. The little dot from her flashlight flitted on the ceiling above him like an irritating bug. “Can you see the tree box and the lights?”

Arthur dragged his attention back to looking for the tree. He finally spotted the box in the far corner of the attic. It said
ULTRA-REAL ARTIFICIAL TREE
and had a cartoon of a dancing elf on it.

Arthur resisted the urge to kick the box.

Instead, he hollered, “Got it, Mom!” and began pushing the big box toward the steps. He had no clue how he would get it down the narrow stairs. Probably his dad had carried it on his shoulder like a real man.

Arthur knew there was no way he could do the same thing. His shoulder muscles were about as real as the ultra-real Christmas tree.

He decided to try sliding it down the stairs. He told his mom to stay out of the way. One step at a time—with his arms grasping the slick sides of the box—Arthur made his way backward down the narrow, creaky steps.

“Careful, honey,” his mom kept repeating, as if this would keep him safe. “What you're doing looks very dangerous.”

Of course this is dangerous!
Arthur wanted to yell at his mother.
That's why Dad should be here doing it and not me.

His father had always loved doing dangerous things (usually stuff he didn't tell Arthur's mom about until later). Drag racing with his buddies when he was younger. Carving the curves with his motorcycle. Doing spinouts in parking lots. Staying out late and drinking too much sometimes. Arthur's mom often said Tom Owens's biggest problem was that he never grew up.

Once they got the box safely into the living room, Arthur's mom offered to help put the tree together, but he didn't think he could stand having her around, fussing about every little thing. Plus, he just wanted to be sad and angry at his dad by himself.

“That's okay,” he told her impatiently. “I can do it.”

“You sure you don't need any help?” His mom looked like she was getting upset.

Arthur sighed. “All right, okay.”

“Wait.” She stuck her finger in the air. “I'll go and make us some hot chocolate before we start.”

Neither one of them mentioned how Arthur's dad had often put up the tree while polishing off a six-pack of beer.

While his mother was in the kitchen, Arthur started pulling the fake branches out of the box. The pile looked like a mangled tree puzzle when he was finished. Strands of old tinsel stuck to his shirt.

When she returned with the mugs of hot chocolate, his mom burst out laughing. “Maybe we should decorate you instead.”

Not really amused, Arthur brushed himself off. “Where do you want to start?”

“I'm not sure.” His mom stared at the project in front of them, looking lost.

They decided to begin at the bottom. Arthur's mom untangled the musty, attic-smelling branches while Arthur kneeled on the floor and stuck them in the tiny holes of the fake-tree stand.

After he'd put about eight branches on one side, the whole tree fell over. An explosion of needles and branches landed on Arthur's back.

He swore under his breath. His mom laughed. In fact, she collapsed on the sofa, laughing so hard Arthur worried that maybe she was going nuts. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard his mother laugh like that.

She sounded like a crazed hyena.

“Stop it, Mom, or I'm quitting,” Arthur said, feeling more teed off the longer she went on. The damn tree had fallen on him. His dad was dead. And his mom was completely losing it.

“Oh, I'm not laughing at you, hon. I'm just laughing at…” His mom sat on the edge of the sofa and tried to catch her breath. “I don't know…I guess at how everything in our life keeps falling apart, no matter what we do. Then, to top it off, even our sad old Christmas tree goes and falls over on us.”

“Not funny,” Arthur said in an irritated voice. “And it fell on me, not you.”

“Knocked out by a Christmas tree,” his mom said, with just a hint of a smile.

“Stop it.”

“KO'd by Christmas. Ho, ho, ho,” she added.

And then she dissolved into laughter again, and Arthur found himself unable to keep from laughing too. He didn't even know why. There was a huge lump in his throat, and he wanted to cry or hit something—and yet here he was, laughing with his mom.

It was official. They really had lost their minds.

“Okay, we have to get the tree up before your sister comes back from her friend's house,” his mom announced, trying to regain her composure. She pushed up the sleeves of her blouse and took charge. “You hold the tree, Artie. And I'll stick the branches in.”

With the two of them working, the tree project went faster. It wasn't until they were halfway finished that Arthur and his mom realized the branches were different sizes—smaller ones for the top and larger ones for the bottom.

“Well, how were we supposed to know that?” Arthur's mom looked annoyed as she stared at the half-built tree, hands on her hips.

Once he stepped back, Arthur could see that their Christmas tree did have a funny shape. More like a green hedge than a tree.

“Well, who cares,” his mom snapped. “We are just going to stick these branches wherever we damn well please.”

Arthur wisely kept quiet while his mom finished jamming the branches into the trunk, mumbling to herself.

The lights and decorations were the final steps.

Arthur's dad had always been a perfectionist about the lights. Maybe it came from being a mechanic, but he'd been fanatical about making sure every wire was hidden, every bulb tucked into the branches. There couldn't be any dark spots. Black holes, his father had called them.

Arthur and his mom were not perfectionists. They strung the lights around the tree in less than five minutes. There were a lot of dark spots and black holes.

But none of that seemed to matter to Barbara.

She got home as Arthur and his mother were cleaning up. They had just finished putting the extra tree branches into the box and were picking up all the scraps from the carpet when Barbara came barreling through the front door with the usual armload of dolls she carried to her friends' houses.

“It's our Christmas tree!” Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the sparkling tree—well, hedge—in the living room.

“Your brother put it up,” their mom said proudly. “We still have to decorate it.”

“Thank you, Arthur!” Dropping her dolls in the middle of the hallway, Barbara raced across the living room. Her blond head dove into Arthur's stomach. He didn't want to look like a wimp, but she had a pretty hard head for a seven-year-old. He tried not to wince.

“It looks like magic with all the lights,” his sister said, clasping her hands and stepping back to stare at the tree again, as if she had never seen one before. “Let's turn everything off so we can see it better.”

Arthur's mom switched off the living room lamps.

As they stood there in the darkness, with little sunbursts of light from the tree shining on their clothes and faces, Arthur felt strangely hopeful for a minute. It was as if their old life had briefly flickered back on, like an old movie—as if none of the bad things had happened to them yet.

Barbara, who could be a real pain in the butt sometimes, had this sweet, angelic expression on her face. His mom was smiling and not crying. And the tree didn't look half as bad as he'd thought it would.

It had to be the lights, he decided. That's what made the difference.

Without realizing it, Arthur had discovered the first important thing.