After graduating in 1982, he landed a job with a commercial diving company that was doing work in New York Harbor. There, he demolished concrete, welded support beams under South Street, and installed pile wrap beneath the Port Authority Heliport. Every hour demanded muscular expression and a nimble touch, often in caves or tunnels made black by swirling silt and sediment. Supervisors could see that Chatterton was different—not just because he slithered into difficult places or refused to quit even after his body went numb from the cold, but because of the way that he saw. During times of zero
...more
