Chapter 20 from The Rotten Bridge, A Gypsy Love Story (aka Neptune Never Did This)

After a couple of days I take the train ahead of YaYa to Bologna for our little overnighter.
It is one-thirty in the morning and her arrival is delayed. I double-check my information and pace the platform. She was vague on the phone and as always there is the idea that I have missed something. Half past one she said. Of course I know where she is coming from, but when you are as tired as I am and thrust from a moving train to face a sleeping station, you wonder if you are even there at all, let alone where you should be.
I sit down on a bench facing two rolled up bums who are waiting for their sickness to call them from sleep. The entire scene at the station is under a similar spell, starving for a twitch. It is a static chiaroscuro of light suspended in a fog. I look down the empty length of tracks that dissolve into the animal darkness. There is a clock under a buzzing halo that is off by hours if not days. I walk under the platform, back to the ticket area to look at the arrivals and departures as they are updated. Here is something at least - something that moves, that clicks and whirls off numbers in the otherwise palpable stillness.
They make the announcement. The train from Rome is on the approach. I picture the sweaty struggle between the sheets just as I have for days.
I beat the train to the track. I imagine it out there struggling against the darkness, pushing all of night aside with sparks flashing above and below - the horrible screeching of souls as they are torn from the tracks - and then the emergent thunder, the lights, the emancipation out of darkness, the lifting of the dead. The platform is alive now. A pneumatic sigh from the long belly of the train. The doors open down the line and people trickle out dragging their luggage down the steps chained and shackled.
Suddenly I see YaYa. She bounces down out of the train like a child, kicking at the night, taking loose strides, waving her arms and laughing and slapping at the back of her friend who has ridden with her from Rome. The two of them look at me playfully and whisper inanities to one another as they approach, clinging to one another's arms and bouncing hips together as they walk.
She's passes me off to Heidi for inspection.
"You see, I told you he was a little older and fat too. What do you think ehum, he's cute?
"If you don't want him leave him here. I'll take him for a few days.
These two sisters of the dark are on another plane.
"Ciao Mac. Heh, heh, heh. She rubs her bony hands and forearms together in such a way that I am thinking she must be missing certain essential cartilage in her shoulders. Her whole body is wired together like that - in a loose way - the same way she smiles and drops her hips on the sidewalk when she walks. The way her feet are always coming out of her shoes.
I smile at her goofy punk. The clear plastic handbag with red hearts. The bamboo slippers. Her collarbones protruding out of the neck of her jersey like developing fins. Her deep red lips pulled back to her temples. Her ribbed cotton skirt, white and dirty already, hugging, elastic - stretched over her naked hips.
"This is Heidi, the friend I told you about.
I hold out my hand. "Piacere.
"So we are here! YaYa beams as she takes our hands and swings us into a trot. "Let's go make some trouble.
She stops and looks down at her feet, scraping her red toenails against the bamboo.
"Wait! Do you like them? I bought them for this trip so my dirty feet could breathe for a change. She pulls up her skirt and skips a few steps ahead, swinging her plastic purse.
"She has been like this the whole way, Heidi said. "She was even beating the Neapolitans at their own card games. It's too bad she didn't have any real money to play with.
YaYa hears this. "That's right, they didn't believe that I was Roman. They thought I was one of them. This makes her proud. She winks and clicks her tongue against her teeth, blows on her knuckles and taps her chest, leering at us with that stretched grin of hers. "Ya, ya, ya - you see?
She giggles and does a little jig, throwing her arms over me at last and kissing me. "Ciao Mac, all over again. Her hips squeeze into my hands and she flashes her dark eyes inches from my nose. I touch her cracked lips with mine and squeeze her and then we leave the station, the three of us arm in arm, scouring the red walls of Bologna looking for a late night something.

At the restaurant they sit us down in the very back of the place and agree to sell us two bottles of wine and some bread. We are hoping for more to eat but the kitchen is closed. YaYa sits opposite me so she can leer at the straight crowd as they finish off their colorful plates. She talks non-stop and occupies her hands undoing the lids of the salt and pepper shakers. The wine darkens her frenetic mood. She doesn't get out of Rome very often - that's part of it. I wonder if there's anymore of what she's been taking. I'm starting to shut down.
"So how did you meet? I ask.
"Well, YaYa began, "I was walking in the square one day minding those silly pilgrims when I saw this Heidi character dressed all in black and in a row with a crazy old Christian woman and I thought - now there is somebody I could make some trouble with. The next thing you know we are friends and she has me working at her office doing translations. Of course I didn't last very long.
"What about you Heidi?
"Same job. But it's better - they moved me to Bologna where I can make more money.
"And now, how often do you see each other.
"I have to go to Rome for work about once a month, Heidi said, "usually overnight, so I try to call her - but sometimes she's too busy with her man.
"Shit on him. I'm on my own now and as soon as he gets his things out I will get on with my life.
"Does he know you're here?
"Of course, I told him that I was coming to see my old friend Heidi.
"What about me? Does he suspect anything?
"I'll have to ask him when I see him again. But let's shut up about it and have some fun.
At three o'clock they kick us out of the place. We buy another bottle of wine to take into the street. We stop for a spliff, sitting on some student steps that are littered with the debris of higher learning - beer bottles, cigarette butts, fast food - and are being hosed down by those green-suited men who are all over western Europe at this hour paying off their debts to society.
Heidi gets up to show us a nearby statue of Neptune spitting water.
"If you stand right here you can see his penis and it's quite large. Sometimes at night I think of him.
I have a look. It's true. His missing anatomy is suddenly revealed by a trick of lines.
"You are still such a whore Heidi. I love it. YaYa beams.
As we are standing there in front of this renaissance marvel, two young men approach us flashing unsure smiles. I hand them the wine bottle and they talk with the girls. YaYa turns to me. "They have just taken their first trips and they are starting to feel it. They want to know if we want a hit.
"What did you say?
"I told them thank you but we had other plans. Now they just want to drink.
Thank god for that at least - she has her limits. Who wants to get involved with some kids on their first ride? Besides, acid in another tongue? I don't feel up to it. I have to stay focused. There is a prize at the end of this.
I'm glad when YaYa shows the penis to the two men and we leave them standing there with their chins dropped. We walk on under the red vaults that string together bookstores and cafes that are now closed. As we stumble arm in arm past a group of students YaYa tightens her grip and sneers at them. Somewhere in the back of my dim mind I consider the possibility that she dosed with those kids on the sly or worse yet, that she poisoned our wine.

It's a two bedroom flat. Heidi's roommate isn't home. We sit in the blow-up furniture and smoke another spliff of hash. I really shouldn't - I don't handle it very well - but here I am with two drunk girls who left the room and came back in matching slips and now they are pulled up in the same chair, loose and high, and showing off yards of tattooed flesh between them.
"Heidi is offering us her bed tonight but we can't wear any clothing.
"That's right, Heidi said, "and I'm afraid I'll need some proof.
They look at each other and share a sisterly laugh. They are considering something else, maybe the three of us, but they can see I'm too feeble. Finally YaYa buries her head in Heidi's satin lap and curls up. "Stanco, she said. "Sono stanco. She's tired. They've switched to plan B.
This is my cue to drag her off to the bedroom. Heidi yawns her consent. I stand up and unsteadily pull YaYa's surrendering form up to my waist before she empowers herself.
"My little clandestino, she whispers.
She winks and walks with me into the hall as Heidi calls out good night. The hash rattles against my skull and my stomach rumbles. I've had terrible pains in my gut since we reached the flat. I let go of a little. Horrible gas. My guts are exploding, making huge hungry sounds. When YaYa finishes in the bathroom I take my turn and try to relieve myself but the walls are too thin. I can't relax. Of course, the smoke in my head makes everything loud and dire.
I fight my way back to the room in the dark. YaYa is floating on top of the bed, moon-eyed and glowing, naked to her tattoos. I kiss her head and face, her eyelids, her ears. I bite her lips and her neck. She moans softly under my caress. Good. Nice and easy, I'm thinking. We have all morning and finally I'm getting some circulation back.
I undress and slide against her waiting body. Her face has softened for once. The grinning skull leaves a fleshy child - one whose lips and teeth are stained and dry from the wine, one whose eyes trace mine, wordless, ready to be loved.
We stare into each other. I hold a trembling finger up to her breathless rib. There is nothing else but this exact moment that we have squeezed ourselves into. Nothing, that is, until the rumble in my stomach shakes the bed and it all goes the other way and I am minutely, interminably aware of time.
Now my fragmented mind is watching and sharing the view with someone else. It's Cassi. She is heckling me. My caresses become inept. I linger for too long. My hands are idle while I suck her nipples. My cock feels sluggish. Nothing works in unison.
YaYa pulls me up from her blackness. My tongue has a cramp. Besides, my mouth is bone-dry from the hash and I can't feel her pipe well enough to stay on. The more I focus the worse it gets until finally I am lost among her kneecaps. I come up and feel Cassi over my shoulder, crawling up my ass, and it's a good trick, I think, from six thousand miles away.
Now my cock has gone into full retreat. Nothing. The fucking thing won't fuck. I have to stall. I use my finger for a while. I bury my face again. I suck her toes, her armpits, her tits. I even sneak a finger up my own ass, but nothing, not even a twitch, so I go through everything again - toes, chops, pits, tits, ass and again it's the same.
As the morning light floods across the room, I am caught up in its broad yellow smile and pinned to the bed. Round over. Somewhere a buzzer has been sounded. I feel like a fraud. If I could find my balls I'd jump out the window.
"What is it? she asks.
"I don't know. I don't feel right. I'm buckling under.
"Come here and put your head. It's OK.
But it's not. This is my chance to take her away, to posses her. She came here for that, to let me, and she expected a man, not an acorn. She has laid herself out for me, pleading and naked and moon white and I cannot pleasure her.
It's obvious why I can't but that doesn't make it easier. I want to soar. I want to beat my chest. I want her under me, full of my poison, trembling, moaning, fucking, speaking in tongues and quivering her sex at me. I want ecstasy for her, through her, with her. I wanted our souls to touch, to mingle, to kiss. I want to love her because I do even if I never tell her.
I'm laying in the crosshairs of the sun, watching her sleep. The hash is wearing off but the humiliation and the pain in my bowels are still duking it out. I watch her for hours. Her bulging eyes dart under their lids. I watch her chest heave. Her hips shift. Her hands grip the sheets. I watch her chipped toenails at the end of her long blue feet. I watch her ass cheeks resting. I watch her maritime tits - the ancient ink-fish circling and biting her nipples. She pats the dagger she wears on her naked waist. Her heart beats in her neck. I watch her fingers twist. I watch her swollen wine lips crack. I follow her spine up to her neck and her protruding collar, her extra bones as she calls them. She heaves and snores gently. She farts. She talks to someone and she sleeps, open and vulnerable to the world she is forever holding back, every beautiful scar laid bare.