A political conversation with a Mayan knife-fighter

I bumped into my old friend Nicky Chiffon at the Clown’s Den south of Cheyenne the other night. We hadn’t seen each other in decades, so we had some catchin’ up to do. Back in the day, we stole horses and smuggled contraband together, so we had a bond.

He is a strange cat, so I’ll have to explain Nicky to you. His ancestors were Mayan priests and priestesses, and they passed down to Nicky the secret rituals of human sacrifice as practiced in the Yucatan. When we first met, he was the reigning welterweight knife-fighting champion of the Caribbean.

Always a rabid Broncos fan, Nicky was heartbroken when John Elway retired, so he cloistered himself in a Maoist transgender nunnery in the Red Desert. He taught switchblade tactics to the sisters and dabbled in blackbone voodoo. He recently wore out his welcome and was 86ed from the convent for being “ideologically unsound,” hence our reunion.

We found a sticky little table in a dark corner of the strip joint and discussed the deconstructionist politics of 21st-century America as we sipped our Everclear smoothies. Nicky, an astute student of collapsed civilizations, waxed prophetic about the U. S. of A.

“You had it all, amigo. You built it up ‘til you were on top of the pyramid. And now you’re tearing it all down just because some weird rich guy is pissed off at everything. The feathered serpent god is not pleased, compadre.” Nicky sucked on his straw with hollowed cheeks, and added, “I see dark days ahead, if you don’t wake up pronto. Dark days.”

I looked nonplussed, so he continued. “Think about it, cabrón. You fought a revolution so common people could have power, and now you’re giving that power to wealthy corporations. Caramba! How stupid is that?”

That made me take a big slug from my own glass of Everclear.

“It took you 250 years to create all these magnificent democratic institutions,” he said, “and now you’re getting rid of them because they annoy the upper class. See what I mean?”

I asked Nicky for specific examples.

“Okay,” he said, rising to the task. “The U.S. is supposed to be a country that welcomes new ideas, right? Americans always say they support freedom of thought and expression.” I must have nodded in agreement, because he went on. “Then why are you allowing the government to ban books and accuse libraries of sedition, just because powerful oligarchs don’t like what’s written down? That don’t make no sense.”

I ordered another round as Nicky warmed to the subject.

“And you created the judicial branch so that you’d be governed by laws, not a king. But here you are, arresting judges just because they don’t toe a political line. What would your Founding Fathers think about that horseshit?”

Nicky’s brow sweated and veins throbbed at his temple when he said, “And you stand around like peasants when your president threatens to jail anyone who protests against him. It’s almost like you’re willing to pay extra for British tea these days.”

At that point, the jukebox began playing Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and the stripper slowly twirled around her pole.

“Listen, Nicky,” I said, “these are changing times. Don’t be so hard on us.”

“Times change, sí. But some things shouldn’t.” He regarded me with those obsidian Mayan eyes. “If you throw away everything that made you great, you discard your foundation. Then your civilization is built on quicksand or goat manure. If something needs fixed, then fix it. But the first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.”

Nicky’s straw made a slurping sound as he sucked up the last of his hooch. He banged his fist on the table for more and said, “My grandpa taught me that rule. I bet yours did, too. If my ancestors, the Mayans, or even the Romans, or the Sumerians, had followed that rule, they’d still be around today. Don’t throw away the good stuff!”

We tried to drink the Clown’s Den dry that night, and in our younger days, we could have. But we have mellowed with age, Nicky Chiffon and I, so we stumbled out the door and parted with our secret handshake. Nicky limped off to his next adventure, while I stood gazing up into the dark American night.