The Most Important Stranger

Working Stiffs welcomes guest blogger Mark Arsenault!

by Mark Arsenault

One of the most influential people in my writing career was a homeless heroin addict who lived under a bridge. Her name was Julia. Without her, I may never have tried to write a novel.

I met Julia in 1997 while working as a reporter in Lowell, Massachusetts, an old redbrick New England mill town north of Boston.

One day, the newsroom police scanner reported a body under a railroad bridge, and I went out to do the story. But by the time I found the place, the action was over and the police, the paramedics and the body were gone.

What was left behind—on a concrete ledge hidden beneath the bridge, maybe 20 feet above some railroad tracks—was evidence of a community. I discovered dirty bedding and old clothing, crates of cutlery and candles, canned goods and cat food, damp campfire ashes, and mounds and mounds of trash.

The dead man under the bridge had overdosed on heroin. I learned that his nickname was Ebby. Through the local homeless shelter, I also found Ebby’s longtime girlfriend—Julia.

I only saw her once. Now, 12 years later, I can’t picture her face in my mind. From my notes, I know that she had rough skin and rugged hands, but dainty eyebrows.

Ebby and Julia had lived together under that railroad bridge for two years, through nasty New England winters, as part of a small, invisible community of homeless addicts.

Julia told me her story in a coffee shop. People with nothing to lose are the most honest people you’ll ever meet.

Heroin, she told me, knows exactly what a person is missing inside, and that’s what it provides, every time. Do it for one week, and you’ll have a habit. At the time, she had recently cut back to two bags of heroin a day, and was hoping to quit. She was devastated by Ebby’s death. “We weren’t hurting anyone but ourselves,” she told me. “Why couldn’t we just have our little lives?”

That was when I realized her tale was one of the oldest in the world: a love story with a tragic ending.

I raced back to the newspaper with plans for a feature on this underground community of addicts, to take the readers into a world they never knew existed, which is the job of any newspaper.

My editor had other ideas. He wasn’t interested in these people. He told me to go find some “respectable” folks to write about.

I was equal parts crushed and infuriated. I would have quit my job on the spot, except that I was two missed paychecks from joining the homeless.

So I had to suck it up, get back to my desk and try to forget about the story.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Julia called me one time. I told her I was having trouble getting her story in print. She asked me: If you can’t write it for the paper, can you at least write it for me?

I promised I would.

Having that story spiked by the editor was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to try to write my first novel. Five years later that book was published under the title Spiked. It includes a fictionalized scene inspired by Julia and Ebby’s story.

Three books later, I’ve realized that a key ingredient to finishing a novel—especially a first novel—is having a reason to write. Anybody can do this. Find a worthy person to write for, and then finish your book for that person. (Worry about trying to sell it later.)

I don’t know what happened to Julia. Part of me prefers not to know because I’m afraid the news might be bad. I like to think she’s out there somewhere. She might not know that I kept my promise to write her story. She might not know the book was dedicated to her.

So, if you had to choose somebody to be the inspiration for finishing a first novel, who would it be? If you already found that inspiration, who was it?

Mark Arsenault is a Shamus-nominated mystery writer, a journalist, a runner, hiker, political junkie and eBay fanatic who collects memorabilia from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. His new novel is LOOT THE MOON, the second book in the Billy Povich series that began with GRAVEWRITER, a noir thriller praised for a fusion of suspense, humor and human tenderness. With 20 years of experience as a print reporter, Arsenault is one of those weird cranks who still prefers to read the news on paper. His Web site is: http://markarsenault.net/