The Rotten Bridge, A Gypsy Love Story - E-book - ePub

Facing an ultimatum from Cassi, his girlfriend of six years, Mac flips a coin and loses himself in his ancestral Italy. He soon meets YaYa, a young, fire-eating, gypsy-punk barista who is avoiding the law and the destitution of the Roman streets. He extends his dirty umbrella to her and she warily accepts. Their story begins along the Tiber River, facing an isolated span of marble from 200 BC known as Il Ponte Rotto, or the Rotten Bridge.
Over the centuries this archway has rejected every attempt to rebuild it and at the same time, has refused to fall, to give way to the mythic river completely. This is Mac and YaYa's love story in a metaphoric nutshell, a story that frames a narrative feast of dog napping, stalking, erectile dysfunction, and public seat licking. Throughout, Mac is held at arms length by the whims of her "shithead" as she calls it, and he must battle his restless heart and fend off constant reminders of Cassi who has announced her impending visit.
The Rotten Bridge is Mac's soliloquy of desire, written on the walls of ancient Rome to those who have forgotten what it feels like to want to die in love. It is a raw book, with an edgy, burlesque prose style that bares all and forces those in it's wake to consider the compromises we make, and our need to renew ourselves and believe again. There is an old Roman saying that to cross the Tiber is to have gone too far.
In search of their story, Mac and YaYa cross that line, guided by the footlights of the Ponte Rotto, and it is a rotten bridge indeed, one that "always keeps breaking", as YaYa tells Mac their first night along the river.