Chapter 14: The Petition
The petition was two pages long, printed at the library, and Gus hated it on sight.
"Too many words," he said, squinting at Mrs. Abernathy's dining room table. "Nobody reads this much."
"They don't have to read it," she said. "They have to sign it. There's a difference, and you would know it if you'd ever finished a book."
"I finished the menu."
"That doesn't count." She capped her red pen. "Sal, how many did you get yesterday?"
Big Sal held up his clipboard. "Thirty-one. The garage, the feed store, and most of the VFW. Eddie at the garage signed twice because he forgot he'd already signed, so really thirty."
"Thirty," Mrs. Abernathy said, writing it down. "Gus?"
"Twenty-two. The church ladies and the hardware store." He rubbed his knee. "Mrs. Gable wouldn't sign. Said her nephew works for Canyon Ridge."
"Her nephew works for a car wash in Florence," Mrs. Abernathy said. "I'll talk to her."
She did, that very afternoon, on Mrs. Gable's porch, with lemonade. What she said was never recorded, but Mrs. Gable's signature appeared on the petition the next morning, along with her sister's. Mrs. Abernathy refused to explain. "A teacher never reveals her methods," she said, and Sal laughed until he coughed.
They divided the town like a pie. Mrs. Abernathy took the school and the library. Sal took the truck stop and the bars. Gus took Main Street, door to door, the way he'd done everything in his life: on foot, in person.
The school was first. The principal, a tired woman named Mrs. Delgado, no relation to anyone, met him at the office door.
"Mr. Malone, you can't solicit on school grounds."
"I'm not soliciting. I'm petitioning. It's civics." He held out the clipboard. "Your students eat at my café. Some of them eat free and don't know it. An exit keeps this town alive for them."
She read the petition, slowly. "My husband drives a fuel truck. He says the bypass will cut his route by forty minutes."
"And put him forty minutes farther from home when the truck stop closes," Gus said. "Ask him which he'd rather have."
She signed.
The church was harder. Pastor Jim liked Gus's stew but hated conflict.
"Gus, the congregation is divided. I can't take sides."
"I'm not asking the church to take sides. I'm asking the people in it." Gus set the clipboard on the pew. "You buried Elena from this pulpit, Jim. You told me a town is just people who show up for each other. I'm asking them to show up."
The pastor signed, then half the deacons.
The garage was easiest and hardest at once. Eddie signed, then asked, "What if we lose, Gus? What if the road comes anyway?"
"Then we lose knowing we fought," Gus said. "That's better than the other thing."
A young mechanic named Tommy, no relation to anyone Gus knew, wiped his hands on a rag. "My dad says the developer's promising jobs. Forty jobs."
"Your dad's a good man," Gus said. "Ask him how many of those forty jobs go to people from Juniper Flats, and how many go to people Canyon Ridge brings in from Phoenix. Then ask him what happens to my café, and Eddie's garage, and the feed store, when the trucks stop coming. Jobs that kill jobs aren't jobs. They're a trade."
Tommy was quiet a moment. Then he signed, and so did the other two mechanics.
By Friday they had one hundred and eighty-four signatures. They needed two hundred. Mrs. Abernathy did the math at the café counter and announced they would finish at the Founders' Day fair on Saturday, where half the county would be eating funnel cake.
Saturday morning they set up a card table by the pie contest. The banner read JUNIPER FLATS DESERVES EXIT 41 in Mrs. Abernathy's perfect teacher handwriting. By noon they had eleven more signatures. Five to go.
Then Councilman Ray Bodine arrived with two men in polo shirts.
"Gus," Bodine said, smiling like a man at a funeral he caused. "You need a vendor permit for that table."
"It's a petition, Ray, not a lemonade stand."
"Fairground rules. All tables need permits." One of the polo shirts produced a clipboard of his own. "I'm going to have to ask you to pack up."
A small crowd gathered. Big Sal stepped forward, and Gus put a hand on his arm.
"Ray," Gus said quietly. "You've known me forty years. You ate free here the winter the mine closed. Don't do this."
Bodine's smile flickered. "Rules are rules."
"Then here's a rule." Mrs. Abernathy stood up, all five feet of her. "The First Amendment. Shall I call the county attorney, or will you?"
The polo shirts looked at each other. Bodine's jaw worked. "This isn't over, Gus."
"It never is with you," Gus said. "Table stays."
Bodine walked off. The crowd, which had been holding its breath, exhaled into applause, and three more people signed on the spot. A woman Gus had never seen before pushed through and said, "I drive through twice a month. This is the only place that treats me like a person." She signed with a flourish. By sunset they had two hundred and thirty-one.
Sadie arrived as they were folding the table. She looked at the stack of pages and her eyes went wet.
"Two hundred and thirty-one," Gus said, trying not to sound proud and failing completely.
"Gus." She hugged him hard, right there in front of everybody. "You did it."
"We did it," he corrected. "Now it's your turn. Make those maps count."
That night Gus sat in the empty café with the petition pages spread across the counter and did something he had not done in years. He cried, just a little, where nobody could see.
Then he wiped his face, locked up, and went upstairs to ice his knee. Tomorrow the pages went to ADOT. Tomorrow the real fight started. He was ready.