Downtown wakes from the back: loading docks, service drives, the alley behind the restaurant row where the first trucks idle at five. C&M Group Inc keeps that side of the city passable — plowing lots and drives, clearing dock aprons and entrances, shoveling walks and putting down salt and ice melt ahead of the crowd. Wind funnels between tall buildings and drops snow in strange, stubborn places, so the route gets run more than once whenever the sky keeps going. By the time the sidewalks fill, the pavement is only dark and wet and unremarkable. Unremarkable is exactly the goal.