Dogman

Alex Prewitt: LOWELL — He stepped to the edge to die. Weathered hands gripped the rusted railing of Lowell's Ouelette Bridge, beckoned by the rushing river current. Brick warehouses and amber smokestacks bore silent witness to one final act.

Oncoming headlights lit up his face. Below, fly-fishers hooked salmon and trout. Ducks congregated along the sandy banks, beside the rocks and reeds, where his body would wash ashore by dawn.

The Dogman came to the bridge on a blurry quest for death, the pain and past lingering after another night of chugging cans of Budweiser at the downtown bars. On an early morning in 1998, he readied for the plunge.

Still, he wondered: Who would miss him — or even care — once he was gone? And how could a local legend, lost in his ways, rediscover life in the shadows of the unfinished ballpark just down the road?