The first hard freeze in Cicero usually arrives before anybody is ready, and the wind that follows it runs unbroken across the flats. J&J Seal and snow works those nights, plowing driveways and lots, clearing walks down to the pavement and spreading salt where ice likes to set up. Snow does not arrive politely in this town; it comes in bands, at odd hours, and it means a truck rolling at two in the morning more often than not. The measure of the job is visible at daybreak: pavement showing, a walk you can trust, a car that goes where it is pointed. That is the whole ambition, storm after storm, until the thaw.