By Brian Smith
Male bonding is a complex subject. Anthropologist Lionel Tiger mentions in his 1969 book “Men in Groups” that men bond through shared activities, while women bond over shared emotional experiences. Baseball, manual labor and shaving are all cliché origins of male friendship. However, not all men share similar desires and experiences surrounding such standard masculine activities. Now I’m sitting on my porch in a conversation with a few male friends, analyzing our bonds. This conversation led me to the holy grail of male desire, and the ultimate universal male bonding point.
Back in 1947, a company called Melroe Manufacturing in Gwinner, N.D., bought the rights to a three-wheeled construction loader. Melroe further developed the loader and their company, into what’s commonly called Bobcat. A Bobcat skid steer loader is a compact white and red bulldozer. Bobcats are widely used across the country, and are usually parked overnight where they will be used the next day.
As a child, I grew up around Floridian suburb construction sites. At night as a kid with other kids, we’d go out in search of something to do. We trespassed on so many house construction lots that I’m surprised security guards only ran us off a few times, and only one of my friends got a nail through the foot. Our ultimate goal of being in those construction zones was starting up a Bobcat and driving it around.
Later in life, I can remember driving down highways past construction zones, seeing Bobcats and wondering if some blue-collar sap left the keys in the ignition. I can remember digging through a glove box or two for a flathead screwdriver. I can remember telling my friend to be on the lookout. It’s all the thrill of borderline-illegal adventure, right there on masculinity ground zero.
Back on the porch, my roommate Houston, my lifelong friend Dash and I are sharing our Bobcat stories. Moments later, we’re on our bikes searching the historic district in the dark for a lone, compact bulldozer. The silhouette of a crane looms against the full moonlit clouds, above a patch of torn-up road between some high-rent apartments. We drop our bikes in the dirt and scale the crane body, but don’t see a Bobcat around. Dash finds an unopened Coke can in the cockpit, shakes it and throws it at the ground. We leave.
“Bobcat,” Houston shouts as we ride past a gas station on the outskirts of the district. We lock our bikes up to a chain link fence, hop it and approach the white and faded-red piece of heavy machinery. Dash shoves a screwdriver in the ignition and twists; Houston presses all the buttons in the cabin and I futilely pull all the levers I can find. Nothing is working. The control panel lights up and the LCD display reads a long strand of numbers, but the motor won’t fire and the metal creature just sits with its rusted mouth shoved in the dirt.
We end up back on the porch, once again unsuccessful. Later, Houston and I go on a walk and the sky opens up eight blocks from home. We run a couple of blocks but give up, stand in the middle of an intersection and look up at the rain. The construction site across town begins to flood; a pool of mud forms around that Bobcat and we know we’ll never stop trying.
