RED ROOF INN, ROUTE 9, MASS.—It was a hot Tuesday afternoon—July 25, 1995—and the rain let up around 4:30. I was driving a dump truck half full of asphalt with the radio tuned to 104.1 FM, WBCN, “the Rock of Boston.” We were on our way back to Hopkinton from Wellesley or Newton or some other fancy town. The other men were drinking Budweisers out of paper bags they politely held below the dashboard, out of view of any passing cops. The radio people were broadcasting from Great Woods, the concert shed in Mansfield, where Lollapalooza was going on. I don’t remember why I didn’t get off work that day for the show. It was a summer of putting on boots that went above the knee and shoveling hot asphalt out of the back of the truck to lay down new driveways; pounding and leveling fine sand to sit under bluestone walkways and patios; digging ditches; driving stakes into the ground; planting rhododendrons; and raking loam. “Pick up a rake and take a break,” the foreman, Jimbo, used to say. He used to say many other colorful things and he always started singing along in a jubilant mocking tone when U2 came on the radio, which was not infrequent at that time in history. He hated Bono yet also worshiped him, an appropriate response to oversaturation.