Grooved Pavement

My father got me the job for the summer. I was home after graduating from college, had no money, and had yet to decide what I wanted to do with a finance degree. A family friend owned a paving company and needed extra help after winning a contract to repair a stretch of battered highway in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. The company was located about fifty miles from my parent’s home. My father lent me money against my first paycheck for a cheap, clean room in a local boarding house. I moved in on a Sunday night and went to work the next morning.

My job was to drive a truck. Actually, to inch it along, keeping a straight and steady line so that the man hanging in a harness to the right of the passenger side door, wielding a lathe-like machine, could cut precise grooves in the pavement. It was tedious work, and the hours passed about as fast as the truck. It made the long evenings alone in my room even harder to take. After the first week I thought about quitting. And I might have, except that Miller, the man in the harness, invited me to dinner.

It was after work, Friday, as the crew waited for paychecks. Once they got them they left fast, except Miller, who took a long time studying the check before folding it neatly into his pocket. He came over and said: “You’re welcome to eat dinner with my wife and I if you have nothing else planned.”

I didn’t and accepted.

To my surprise, Miller, unlike his stoic work persona, was animated and humorous at home. He was also gentle and kind to his wife, but also quick to tease her in a manner that clearly pleased her. I was surprised how easy it was to talk with him that evening, our conversation uninhibited and interesting. It set me in a better mood and I resolved to hang on to the job.

The rest of the summer, I ate at Miller’s every Friday night. Perhaps the best part of the meal was our walks afterward. Once we helped clear the dishes, Miller and I would hike around his property. He had a few acres of woodland that bordered a private golf course. Sometimes we brought fishing rods with us, as a good-sized pond enveloped one of the greens. The pond held perch, blue-gill, and largemouth bass. Miller had a deal with the head groundskeeper: as long as golfers didn’t complain about him fishing, he could do so. Miller also made sure to reward the groundskeeper with fresh fish. He’d keep a few every so often, clean them (Miller was an artist with a filet knife), and then gift them in plastic baggies filled with sage, thyme, and mint from his herb garden.

It was the kind of thing I would tell people about after I moved to New York City and took a job on Wall Street. “Miller time,” my friends named these stories, when I would trot out my experiences that summer. Fishing on the golf course was one I told quite a bit. The “races” he’d stage at a local running track was another. Miller, although tall and lanky, had a peculiar fear he was overweight, and on Saturday mornings would get up early and head to the local high school track to do laps. I ran with him a few times but could never keep pace. I also was sometimes embarrassed to be with him. You see, if there was anyone else running the track, Miller would make it a point to draft behind them, no matter their speed, following them around until some silent bell would ring in his head and he would sprint past, arms skyward, as if crossing an imaginary finish line.

Even more peculiar were Miller’s paintings. Nearly every bar or deli or store in that town had the same painting hanging prominently on a wall: a red elephant staring straight ahead, with a black bowler perched atop his head. When I questioned Miller about this he told me “he was the artist.” He explained that several years earlier when work had dried up and left the crew on an extended break, he decided to take up painting to keep occupied. But for several days he could not come up with one idea that interested him. Finally, he had a dream about an elephant wearing a black hat and figured that was as good a subject as any to undertake. He painted about twenty of them, framed each, and gave them out as presents.

But for all Miller’s oddities, it was the work he did, the grooving of pavement, that most interested my friends. I think the fascination was that it was tangible. When I first moved to the City, all of us were just starting out as stockbrokers, real estate agents, and lawyers, juvenile white-collar professionals toiling in an ethereal confusion devoid of non-money-related outcomes. Grooving pavement had purpose outside of a dollar: slots gouged on the side of the road stopped cars from sliding into ditches when it rained, and slots gouged on the side of a road warned drivers not to slide into ditches when it didn’t. I spoke as if I was a vital part of the work, not letting on that my only role was to drive the truck like a lethargic automaton. It was Miller who needed to think, to keep a sharp eye on the diamond-tipped blades, making adjustments in positioning to ensure the cut was clean and consistent. I would have thought the job draining, but Miller found it relaxing, staring down at the cutting blades, the pavement.

It was Miller’s wife who phoned me, many years later, to say he had died of a brain aneurism. She told me when and where the funeral would be held. She hoped I would come. She said he often spoke fondly of me. She intimated that he was sad we hadn’t stayed in touch.

It was true. I only spoke to Miller a few times after that summer ended, and never did I go back to visit. Perhaps it was less about being busy than not wanting to look back. I certainly was driven to excel at my job. Plus I met a woman, got married, and had a daughter. My life was moving in an upward arc. I had money, security, and a loving family, everything I needed to be happy. The only problem was that I wasn’t—at least not in a way that was lasting and satisfying. Happiness came only in short, fleeting bursts, usually following some sort of work success. My solution to the problem was to try and generate more and bigger successes, which required me to work harder, push harder, to focus on the end result, the future payoff. By the time I got the call from Miller’s wife I was near a breaking point. My energy was depleted. I felt anxious, distracted, and had difficulty sleeping. Worse, I felt disconnected from family, from friends, from the happiness I craved.

The funeral was crowded. It was not sad. The priest, a fat old man with a face as red and fleshy as rare roast beef, gave a short Mass and then told funny stories about Miller. Afterwards, we all went to a nice restaurant in town and ate a buffet lunch. On the wall, of course, hung a painting of a red elephant wearing a black bowler.

I started on my way home right before sunset. Working my way through town toward the highway, I passed by the track where Miller used to run. I doubled back, parked, and headed to the oval. There was a young man circling all alone. He was tall and thin and ran with an easy grace. I envied his youth, his freedom of motion, the look of serenity on his face as he passed. He did another lap, and I slipped off my shoes and fell in behind him, my tie flapping in the wind as I ran, enjoying, at least for the moment, the steps I took, waiting for that silent bell to let me know it was time for a final push and victory.