At three in the morning a commercial lot is the loneliest ground in Madison County: acres of dark asphalt with snow coming sideways under the light poles. M.A.S. ASPHALT INC works those hours in Granite City, plowing lots and drives, stacking snow where it will not block a lane, and salting the aprons and walks before ice can take hold. Down near the port and the warehouse rows the trucks do not wait on weather, so the plow does not either. There is a plain satisfaction in finishing a lot at dawn and watching the first cars roll in as though nothing had happened. That is the entire point of the night.