Her feet are planted firmly on the ground. Her large back wheels are lifted up into the air in a position of readiness to pounce, to smack. Her frontbucket nose is pressed firmly on the ground alongside her feet, keeping her face up off the ground. Joe is inside of her and in front of the pair stands a small cinder block wall, unprepared—to be fair, no architect could imagine what must be planned for in order for a wall to face this pair. She is like a scorpion, her front lowered in a crouch, her tail lifted in to the air, prepared to strike. Across her pock-marked, yellow cheeks are green tiger stripes and in one spot, near her halogen eyes, written in green cursive, her name: Beatrice.

Joe pulls a lever, shifts a joystick and her tail comes to menacing life; he shifts, she shifts and—WHAM—there is dust and the small sound of particles landing in bunches on the already smashed structure. WHAM, WHAM. Her tail, cloven in a massive metal shovel wavers and dances like a cobra hypnotizing its prey. Truthfully, she has no prey. She is a dieselilitarian as evidence by her low constant grumbling and black smoke. WHAM, WHAM, WHAM, like a slap, a backhand, and a final slap for good measure, and the wall is… Joe smiles… it’s gone. Erased. It’s mason turns in his grave.

Turning a key, Joe causes Beatrice to shudder and moan in displeasure, for she is not nearly ready to cease her smashing. But she will wait for him to consume his disgusting organic foodstuffs. She blows him a kiss Before exiting her, Joe smiles and pats her roughly on the rump. She shudders one final time and turns off.

Not far away from the dancing pair of demolition sit four workmen on a wall, scarfing sandwiches spilling red and yellow condiments and sauces on the wreckage. With workhats by their side, they eat their lunch while enjoying the ballet that is Joseph and Beatrice. They have at their feet paper bags of white and brown, but at the end of their row sits a glorious red lunchbox with yellow words emblazoned on its side, merrily and futuristically stating, “Press Your Luck.” It is old and dented and covered in little smiling demons sweeping dollar signs away—Joe’s favorite game show. As he approaches the non-laboring laborers there is a smattering of slow-clapping applause. In a rare moment, smiling, Joe stops, orange vest trailing urban wreckage dust, and genuflects. One of the workman guffaws and hollers, “Shit, Joe, I’m surprised you didn’t bring her over here to eat lunch with you!” It is in good spirit, for the men sit where they sit in order to watch the dance. There is no operator of a backhoe like Joe, and there is no backhoe like Beatrice. Even when moving Beatrice from some old decrepit space to some new smooth piece of ground that has been declared needing a ravine, Joe’s foreman has been known to yell at the men moving Beatrice. “That’s not just some God-damned machine, you clowns! Get her on that trailer easy.” Other backhoes are its, Beatrice is she.

Joe lifts his lunch box and sits next to Carlin at the end of the row. As he opens the lunchbox and removes his wax-enwrapped bologna sandwich, Carlin says, “That was awesome man. Whack, whack, whack. Shit.”

“Thanks, Carlin.”

One of the other workman says, “You know Gunny’s kid? Just tried to start learnin’ how to drive one of them things—wants to get into the old man’s business—and… first try, he forgets to put the damn… uh… what are those foot things, Joe?”

“Stabilizers,” Joe replies between mouthfuls of bread and bologna.

“Yeah, yeah. That. Anyways, goes to dig and the damn tractor comes up off the ground! And to boot, he hit where he was supposed to dig all cockwise and he tips the whole thing over!”

There are laughs around the row; all except for Joe. He, the sensai, knows that one loses control of machinery only because one knows not its intricacies. He only nods and takes a bite of his sandwich.

Carlin elbows Joe and says, “I bet your god-damned tractor would’ve—“

Beatrice shudders to life with a grind, a noise and operation whirl through her and a puff of black smoke leaves her stack. Then, just as suddenly, she settles back to sleep.

Carlin stares.

“Yeah,” says Joe. She does that… especially when you call her a tractor.”

Carlin turns slowly away from the spectacle to Joe.

“Her name is Beatrice.”

The row eats the last bits of their lunch quietly for a while, but as soon as Carlin is finished and crumbling up his burger wrapper, he says to Joe, “You know, Jodie told me you were actually thinking about coming to her party.”

Read the whole thread: The Hunger Engine

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