Fitz: Arroyo diners dish on Trump

Sour Frank is a Trump supporter. Rosa loves taunting Frank. “So let me get this right, your man Trump wants to build a yellow brick road and make who pay for it?”

I set down my coffee cup. “Munchkin Land.”

Sour Frank said, “Laugh all you want. We need a wall to keep the Mexicans out.”

“And to keep Mexican ladder salesman laughing all the way to the bank,” I added.

Romero joined in. “ And your man Trump wants to ban … ?”

Frank knew the answer. “All Muslims. Until we get this ISIS thing figured out. The man is talking common sense.”

Romero sighed. “If you don’t love Donald Trump, it’s because you’re probably one of those arrogant elitists. You know, the ones who made it out of pre-school.”

Frank kept talking. “Country’s crawling with illegals. Yesterday, some Mexican knocked on my door ‘looking to do yardwork.’ I told him I didn’t like his kind coming here from Mexico to rape our women and commit voter fraud. In that order. He looked at me like I was crazy.”

Romero faked shock.

Frank went on. “America matters to me. That’s why I have 700 semi-automatic weapons in my basement just in case the race war comes.

“I’d love to talk more about the great man, but I’m late for Bible study. Tonight we’re praying for that poor, crazy man who shot those people at Planned Parenthood. Thank goodness Trump is as pro-life as he is pro-American.”

Romero choked and spat out his coffee on Frank’s astonished face and yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” shirt.

Professor Cabeza helped Frank wipe off his shirt.

Cabeza had retired from the University of Arizona in the eighties, back when it was an academic institution.

“Frank, Trump’s science guy is a global warming denier. This is far more significant than whatever idiotic sexist or racist comment your man tweeted yesterday. If we choose — as the ice is melting and our oceans are dying — a rapacious capitalist who thinks climate change is just leftist nonsense, and who is so irrational he is willing to start trade wars in a global shaky economy, then we are fools, but worse, such poor stewards of creation that we merit our own extermination.”

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Sour Frank squinted at the professor. “Cabeza, you’re an egghead living in la la land. My man Trump will make America great again.”

“It’s always been great, Frank. Trump’s ascendancy threatens our greatness by encouraging our darkest demons — and the ratings-driven media nourishes it! If your man Trump ignores science, he is threatening the well-being of our children.”

Sour Frank groaned. “Climate change is BS.”

Cabeza took his pocket-sized Constitution out of his coat jacket and waved it at us.

“In the name of the American Revolution, our republic cannot be allowed to fall into such coarse hands.”

“Tiny hands,” Rosa added.

“Our revolutionaries did not fall at Concord and Lexington, gather in Philadelphia, and sanctify Yorktown with British blood so that a crude and petty tyrant might rule over us like a mad monarch.”

I stood, applauded and punched at the air. “I got to agree with the professor here, Frank.”

Frank was unmoved. “I like Trump because he isn’t a politician.”

Romero muttered, “Yeah. He’s a salesman. A ‘say anything’ flimflam artist who wrenches money out of the wallets of rubes with his silver tongue. A door-to-door land shark.

“The Rust-belt Reagan Democrats will love the guy. The boomer who never saw a boom because his job got shipped overseas and who never adapted to globalization is looking for anyone other than himself to blame for his failure to adapt to change. Along comes Trump blaming Mexicans, Muslims and China for everything, and these guys buy it because between New York City and San Francisco there ain’t nothing but a whole lot of Alabama just waiting to goose step behind a strong man.”

Rosa asked Romero, “What’s in your coffee?”

On my way out, I patted Frank on the back.

“We all have an inner goose stepper lurking deep within us, just waiting to be lured out into the torchlight by a voice calling us to madness, Frank. Tread carefully.”