Sax Taxson and the Trooper

NOTE - This section of American Project contains adult language and content and is therefore not suitable for minors.

Episode 17

Sitting in Chomsky with his hands at two and ten, Sax Taxson thought about what would eventually go down as a precedent – known as the Sax Taxson - Noam Chomsky defense. The word or signifier ‘dog’ could never actually represent an object ‘dog,’ without being first subjectively aligned in a mental construct.

That was the loophole. Sax Taxson loved Noam Chomsky, Immanuel Kant, and especially Rene Descartes. Old Descartes, the old imp. Gosh, thought Sax, Descartes had it all together. Clear and distinct ideas. Matter as quantifiable. Mind over matter. Gosh.

Sax farted a long single note whine on the maroon vinyl seat of Chomsky, the’77 Malibu. With his left hand he wafted upward three or four times from between his legs to his face, and breathed in his own gas. Sax loved the smell of his own farts. For him the farts had not only signifier properties, but, in a purely subjective way, also provided a window to immediate signified. To Sax Taxson, farts were an instance of subject and object aligning seamlessly.

***

The trooper, in his outdated Crown Vic patrol car, and his up to date Macintosh laptop, found Sax Taxson.

It said: Sax Avery Taxson
It said: Male
It said: 46
It also said: Type O Negative
The Computer said: Three speeding tickets since 1990.
It said: Owner: 1977 Chevrolet Malibu, maroon, 2 door.
It said: College Graduate.
It said: Owner: Taxson Antique and Pawn: Cheviot, OH. Employee: Cheviot Machine and Screw, Cheviot, OH.
It said: Has flown overseas _17_ times. Has been to Uzbekistan, Turkey, Latvia, Nigeria, Japan, and Montreal. Bags have been searched _19_ Times. Questionable substances found and investigated. Certain ‘antiques’ resembling sedition devices. Also contained un-normal musical instruments. Has crossed Canadian border _5_ times since December 2005.

There were some pictures. A serialized satellite montage of Sax Taxson driving his 1977 Chevrolet Malibu. Up. Harrison. Avenue. There was a photo in a newspaper article written by Harry Gavone of the Nandale Chronicle. It was a story about high school wrestling, and the Wrestling Boosters at St. Luke’s purchased a new scoreboard and buzzer system. Taxson Antique and Pawn was the primary sponsor. There was a picture with Sax shaking hands with St. Luke’s principal; Father John Gregg. Fr. John was smiling. Tax, in a pullover sweater and collared shirt was grimacing in his alkaline way. The sharp, piercing, angry little features of his face came through vividly, even on the faded scanned newsprint.

***

“Uh huh,” the trooper said. He read the screen of his Macintosh. The screen reproducing data from a string of sources spanning several hundred thousand miles in terms of transmission – tiny binary bits storing ideas and theorized knowledge. It mostly read like a lab report. Clear and distinct ideas imposed upon observations. Skeptical of any connectedness or causality. The little ones and zeroes pixilated thought, and reproduced those pixilated thoughts into simple monochrome text – imbued with a sense of explication. A sense of knowing. Of understanding. Sax Taxson, this owner of a pawn shop, this Employee of Cheviot Machine and Screw, this type O – blood possessor, he was digitized, and known only as facsimile.

As part of modernity, Sax Taxson was a numeric representation of himself. A geometric conundrum. A biological mechanism. A compilation of matter.

As part of a postmodern condition, the understandings of Sax Taxson in the modern sense had become a weapon. A means to control. A vehicle for assertion and maintenance of power structure.

Sax Taxson, sitting wheel hard in his maroon ’77 Malibu with the broken trunk that would sway up and down in a chomping motion as he drove. The Malibu he had named Chomsky, after Noam Chomsky, a structural linguist and analytic philosopher that Sax Taxson, for reasons obscure to most, had some affinity toward.

Sax sat there, in that stale August miasma, breathing the remnants of a long and thoughtful fart. He thought about the water cannon, and the pump mechanism, and the fact that Morton was a strange and small town, and how there were more raccoons than dogs, and that he had to rely on the Noam Chomsky defense because of the Hungarian Vizsla he simply couldn’t resist hitting.

In his rearview mirror, Sax saw the trooper get out of his Crown Vic.

***

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Photograph by Nythan James.