The Black River never fully freezes; it runs dark and steaming under the bridges while the rest of Watertown sleeps under a foot of new white. That is the hour this work belongs to — headlights, a scraped blade, a driveway opened before the first alarm clock goes off. Pier Pressure Powerwash plows and clears lots, drives and walkways across the city and the towns ringed around it, then comes back when the next band sets up and buries the morning's work. There is a plain satisfaction in a clean apron of pavement with the snow stacked square at its edges, and in a walk salted down to bare concrete. Winter here is long and it is loud, and someone has to be out in it first.