Freedozer

Built in 1929, the CAT 15 bulldozer in Martin’s barn boasted a massive 4-cylinder engine behind its tall, stately grille. It had been sitting in there collecting dust and birdshit for at least forty years, part of his old man’s excavating business. Martin had planned to fix the thing up for at least half that long. Now, after a career as a heavy equipment mechanic that had never once felt like work, Martin had finally retired. He’d go into his shop to repair broken lawnmowers for people in the neighborhood when the small engine shops were booking four weeks out. But now, in midsummer, that busy work had dried up, and there the CAT 15 waited. He got his out his compressor, put a mask on and began to blow off the dust.

After a morning’s work with a rag and a shop vac, Martin came in for lunch and Nan had the news on. The feds were doing another raid, and the protestors were out in force. The TV showed masked men with nightsticks, knocking people to the ground. Martin drank his lemonade and looked out the window over the groomed lawn of the farm, with bluebird houses mounted on the gleaming white fence. All that city stuff seemed a million miles away, but it was close enough that his grandpa used to ride there on a horse.

*

Mina next door was a fiery old hippie with signs all over her lawn, and her whole family was deep in the fight. The dozer’s motor was sputtering and chuffing when Nan came to the barn to shout something to him. He took his ear protection off and rose to his feet to get closer. He was prepared for one of his wife’s usual compliments about how he’d gotten the old thing running. Instead she said “Mina got arrested. She’s bonding out in half an hour and needs a ride home. I’m going down to get her.”

“Protests?” he asked.

Nan chuckled. “Well, the old lady didn’t rob a liquor store! Of course it was. Need anything at the hardware downtown?”

“Naw, I’m good.” He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and returned to his work. The rough-running engine wasn’t his first concern…he needed to inspect the treads, especially the parts that had been sitting facedown in the dirt for a few decades. As army tankers did when maintaining their rigs, he intended to unfasten the treads completely and drive the machine right off them. He grabbed his impact wrench and began to loosen the bolts.

A couple of weekends on, the treads were cleaned, painted and back on the dozer and the motor now ran strong with new spark plugs, wires and cap. Nan had begun frowning all the time. Martin lived among his machines and was satisfied with his life, both currently and looking back. But his wife kept a wide social circle and had begun to wear their angst heavily. Almost everyone she knew had seen something, been accosted on the streets by federal troops, or actually been detained…many of them for minor infractions or none at all. Whole areas of the city were being called risky to visit. But what about the people who lived there?

“Mina said they intercepted some sort of secret memo. They’re keeping all the people they arrest in some big empty warehouse down in the canal district. People are talking about trying to break them out. I’m worried it could turn really ugly.”

Martin pursed his lips. “Would that be old Warsaw Produce building? We used to service their lift trucks before they moved overseas.”

“Yep, that’s the one,” she said. “Owned by some developer looking to lease or sell. I guess the government made him a better offer.”

“A true patriot,” Martin scoffed. “Getting paid to warehouse people.”

“Yes. They said it’s air conditioned, since it was built to store food. So nobody will actually die while they’re shut up in there.”

“Not of the heat, anyway,” said Martin forebodingly.

Over the next weeks the prison warehouse became an open secret. News outlets started reporting about it and a small skein of protestors picketed the entrances around the clock. The feds claimed it was just a staging site for equipment and warned people to stay away. Lawyers complained they couldn’t contact their clients and were being told that the agency didn’t know where they were.

On a Sunday evening, Martin drove the bulldozer in a loop around the farm. The headlights shone bright. It was loud and strong and clanky, causing a flock of wood ducks to come up out of the reeds in a panic when he passed the pond. Just before dusk he lowered the blade and tried the machine out on the big pile of wood chips out behind the chicken coop. It moved the whole pile in one push and didn’t work hard to do it. Martin figured he’d put the thing up for sale. He could even deliver it with the old Ford and the heavy trailer. Maybe he’d use the money on Christmas for the grandkids.

On the other hand…

“Nan, I’ve been thinking about that warehouse and I have a crazy idea. I mean, it’s probably dumb for me to get involved, but…”

After he told her, she nodded for a moment, heels of her hand resting on the edge of the formica counter. She set her jaw and looked him straight in the eye.

“Do it.”

*

In the city people are used to big trucks and machines moving around at all hours. Besides, the area around the old Warsaw Produce complex was a commercial district and not a lot of folks lived there, so nobody looked twice as Martin trundled the bulldozer in reverse off the trailer. It took him a while to spin it in place in the middle of an intersection, but it was after dark and there was no traffic to speak of. For a man of his skills, jamming the throttle open wasn’t too much trouble.

Straight down the street, at a slight downhill, was the back corner of the Warsaw Produce building, four stories high and made of corrugated metal painted sky blue. Most of the protestors were at the main entrance and they were still chanting and burning stuff in barrels even at this hour. But it was a huge building and that was two blocks away. Patrolling the complex were two men who’d recently been admitted into the federal force, sucked in by a 180-day sign-on bonus that the feds had no plans to actually pay out.

“I don’t think they could keep me penned up in there,” bragged Mikey, shining his flashlight towards some shadows down the alley.

“Oh yeah?” said his partner Joel. “Why’s that?”

“Take a look,” Mikey said, pointing his flashlight at the metal walls of the building. “Look at all that scoring in the metal. Those slices are from the landscaping crew and their string trimmers.”

“So?”

“Soft metal, is what I’m saying,” said Mikey.

“So what, you think you could kick your way out? No way.”

“Of course not! But I’d find a tool or something. Or get a friend on the outside to bust me out! A vehicle with a little head start, go right through one side and out the other. Hey, what the hell is that?”

The puffing of a big engine and a kind of metallic stamping made the men turn their heads. They couldn’t see what was coming down the hill…its headlights made that impossible. But it was big, and loud, and picking up speed towards them.