Thursday, September 26, 2013

Late Night Operation


The climax came at 4:30am. I awoke to lights flashing in the bedroom window blue and red, and an impassioned duet of mid-range D flats pulsing in the night made day by backhoes outside repairing the road. A water line had been recently replaced, and this looked to be the final patch job.



I ventured out in my nightcap to find a steamy scene of hot asphalt, groaning machines and foot soldiers deployed to make Harrison Street passable by dawn. The surrounding homes were cast in a garish light. A few stars and a half awake moon offered their everfresh light and timeless telling of time, for anyone interested. We could learn from them. Unlike much-trod earth, they need no repair.

The metal slaves, so skillfully maneuvered, performed a bulky ballet, balanced on well-tired treads, beeping their D flats to warn all groggy neighbors that the backhoes were, once again, backing up.

Memory returned of the cavity the dentist had recently drilled and filled. Part dentistry, part vascular surgery, asphaltistry is the means by which our aging infrastructure of water lines is made new. There's the tough skin of the road to break, the cavitied old pipes to remove, the new to install, the links to homes to tie in to, and finally the wound to fill with steaming asphalt and scraping blade.

I'm glad for what sleep I got, glad the crew made haste safely, glad someone is fixing some small part of the world,

glad it's done.

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