Every Chicago block has a second street behind it: the alley, where the garages face, and where a storm quietly locks the cars in. Patch Landscaping & Snow Removal spends February back there, clearing garage aprons and the run from the back door out to the gate — the stretch nobody thinks about until 6 a.m. By the third snow of the month the piles have nowhere left to go, so the work becomes about where you put it as much as how you move it, stacked clear of the gangway and the neighbor's fence. Walks get scraped and salted; drives get opened wide enough to actually use. It is plain work, and coming home to it feels like a small mercy.