Calder Falls City Hall was built in 1911, and it has been losing an argument with the twentieth century ever since.
The Department of Public Works was in the basement. You reached it by a staircase that turned twice for no reason. At the bottom was a long counter, a bell, and a sign that said PLEASE RING ONCE. Someone had added, in pen, AND WAIT.
Theo rang once. We waited.
He had worn his good cardigan, the charcoal one. He had brought a folder. It held the public notice, the marathon course map, and one sheet with three bullet points in tiny handwriting.
I had come because Thursday was now empty, and because Marguerite had said, "Somebody has to bring back details. I have money on this."
After six minutes, a door opened behind the counter, and a man came out holding a mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST BOSS.
I knew him immediately.
Amos Gaines was fifty-eight, with a gray mustache and a short-sleeved dress shirt the color of weak tea. He was the Deputy Director of Public Works. He was also, according to our records, four years and two months overdue for a cleaning.
He had rescheduled eleven times. I knew because I had personally taken six of those calls. He always had a reason. He always delivered it in the same tone, warm and slightly sad, like a man reporting a minor weather event.
"Something's come up on the budget side," he would say. "Let's look at it after Tuesday."
Now he saw Theo across the counter, and his face did something complicated.
"Dr. Marchetti," he said.
"Amos," said Theo pleasantly. "How are your gums?"
"Busy," said Amos Gaines. "What can I do for you?"
Theo laid the folder on the counter. He opened it to the public notice and turned it around with two fingers.
"I'd like to talk about Old Mill Road."
Amos explained chip seal with great patience. He had clearly explained it many times to people who did not want to hear it.
First, a crew sprays the road with hot liquid asphalt. Then a truck spreads fresh gravel on top. Then a roller presses the gravel in.
The result is a new surface that protects the old one for another eight to ten years. It costs a fraction of repaving.
"It's like a sealant," Amos said, warming up. "You'd appreciate that, Doctor. Preventive maintenance."
"I appreciate preventive maintenance very much," said Theo. "You should come in for some."
Amos coughed into his mug.
"The problem," Theo went on, "is the loose gravel. The notice says several weeks."
"Some chips don't bond. That's normal. After the surface cures, the contractor sweeps the excess."
"When?"
Amos looked at a calendar on the wall behind him. The calendar was from a gravel company. October's photo was a very beautiful pile of gravel.
"The sweeping," he said, "is in Phase Two."
"When is Phase Two?"
"Phase Two is subject to budget review." He set down his mug. "Budget review is on Tuesday. So that's a Tuesday problem."
I watched Theo absorb this. He nodded slowly, the way he nods when a patient tells him they floss every day.
"The marathon is on the twenty-sixth," Theo said. "Is there any chance the work could wait until after?"
"The contractor's schedule is locked. Benning Paving does every road in three counties. If we lose our slot, we lose it until spring."
Amos spread his hands. "I'm sorry, Doc. Truly. You could always reroute."
You could not reroute.
We learned this that afternoon from the race director, a cheerful woman named Pam who ran the marathon out of a converted dry cleaner's. The course, she told us, was certified. A certified course has been measured by a man on a calibrated bicycle, three times, to the nearest foot. Changing it would mean finding a new six miles, getting it measured, and submitting paperwork to a national office that answered email monthly.
"Twenty-two days," said Pam. "It can't be done. Not unless you've got a man on a calibrated bicycle in your back pocket."
"Do you?" Theo asked me in the car.
"I have gum," I said.
He drove for a while without speaking. Theo drives exactly the speed limit. Other cars pass us with a sort of pity.
"There's a council meeting on Tuesday," he said finally. "Public comment period."
"You get three minutes."
"How do you know that?"
"I read the city website at lunch. You know this."
"Three minutes," Theo said, as if he had been given a lot of time. "Fine."
The Calder Falls City Council met on the second floor. The room had wood paneling, bad acoustics and a portrait of a man in a very tall hat.
About thirty people came. Most were there about a dispute involving a neighbor's chickens. Many of them had brought signs.
Theo had brought the folder. I had brought Marguerite, who had closed the office early and was now sitting in the front row with a bag of pretzels.
"This is better than television," she whispered. "On television, nobody brings chickens."
The council chair was Denise Okoro, fifty-one, a retired middle-school principal. She ran the meeting the way she must have run a cafeteria. On the table in front of her sat an egg timer shaped like a chicken.
"Public comment is limited to three minutes," she announced. "When the chicken goes off, you are finished. The chicken does not negotiate."
Several of the chicken people looked uneasy about this.
Theo was fourth. He walked up to the microphone, adjusted it twice, and set his single sheet of paper on the podium. Councilwoman Okoro twisted the chicken.
"Good evening," said Theo. "My name is Theodore Marchetti. I'm a dentist on Laurel Street, and I've run forty-one races in this county without shoes."
There was a murmur. Someone near the back said, "Oh, that guy."
"I'm not here to ask for special treatment," Theo continued. "I'm here to ask for sequence.
"The city plans to resurface Old Mill Road three weeks before the marathon, and leave the loose gravel until a later phase. Phase Two. Which I understand is a Tuesday problem."
In the second row, Amos Gaines sank about an inch in his chair.
Theo spoke clearly and calmly. He explained the course, the certification, the six miles.
He explained that chip seal gravel was sharp-edged by design, so that it would lock together. He said that this was very good for roads and much less good for three thousand runners. He pointed out that some of those runners wore shoes, and even they did not enjoy it.
Then he made a mistake. He began to explain the pebbles.
"Every course," he said, "gives you something. I keep one stone from each race. It's a receipt. My father, who was an accountant, used to say that—"
The chicken went off.
It did not ding. It clucked, loudly, three times. The chicken people applauded on instinct.
"Thank you, Dr. Marchetti," said Councilwoman Okoro.
"I had one more point."
"The chicken does not negotiate."
Theo looked at the chicken. The chicken looked back. To my enormous surprise, he nodded and walked to his seat.
The council voted to "receive the comment and refer it to staff." Staff was Amos Gaines. Amos stood up, cleared his throat, and said that the project would proceed as scheduled. Sweeping, he said, would occur after the marathon, budget permitting.
"So, Tuesday," said Marguerite, loudly, through pretzels.
Out in the hallway, a familiar figure was waiting by the water fountain. Craig Pell, in his whistle and a windbreaker, with a shoebox under his arm.
"I heard about the gravel," he said. He held out the box. "Size eleven. Whenever you're ready."
"Thank you, Craig," said Theo. "Not today."
"It's not even a race, Theo. It's a hallway."
"Not today."
Craig tucked the box back under his arm, perfectly content. "Long game," he said to me, and left.
We walked out onto the front steps. It was dark and cold.
Theo stood very still with his folder, looking across the square at nothing. I estimated he was about to tell me he was giving up. I estimated it would take two minutes and I would need to say something kind.
"Rosa," he said. "Where do you buy brooms?"
"Brooms?"
"Push brooms. The wide ones." He started down the steps. "I'm going to need about forty."
Marguerite took out her phone and opened her notes app. I watched her type, DR. B SWEEPS SIX MILES BY HAND: 12 to 1.
Then she thought about it. She changed it to 8.
Up next: The Broom Brigade
Continue to Part 3 →