“He’s a real character.” No doubt you’ve heard that expression. Down South, we add a bit of spice, pronouncing “character” as “care-actor.” He’s a real care-actor.” That tells anyone within earshot that you have met a genuine, unforgettable person.

We laid just such a person to rest a few weeks ago. His family asked me to write his obituary, which I did. I, along with others, was asked to make a few remarks at the funeral of this fellow I’d known for 30 years. We knew him better than family members because he seldom if ever returned home, though it was a mere 77-mile drive.

The occasion of his passing got me to thinking about all the people we cross paths with and how many, to be honest, just aren’t that memorable. For years, a staple of Reader’s Digest was “My Most Unforgettable Character.” People make up an interesting spectrum, and this feature held up well over the years, mainly because, people can be so interesting, but not all are unforgettable. Like an interior designer’s color palette fanned across a table, some people are anemic, near colorless, flat line people. Others strike a nice balance, and a rare few fit at the opposite end of the palette: riotous, colorful personalities who demand attention whether they want it or not.

I knew him for 30 years and we never had one cross word. I liked him; others did not. I met UC at a large, singles adult-only complex in Columbia in the early 1980. Such complexes were legal then. We had yet to ruin the country by trying to outlaw every foreseeable convention that might discriminate against someone whether they cared or not.

Many of us met at this complex at a critical juncture in our lives. Traditional lifestyles had not worked out and it was time to drop back and punt. In short, many of us were getting out of bad or at best flimsy marriages and starting over. Once we put the disappointment and sadness behind us, we made new friends and had the time of our lives. Among those friends was UC, a fellow who never married at all.

Some folks live larger than others and among that group UC reigned as a sort of self-crowned king. The first time I met him, I had just come in from a hot afternoon run in July. I jumped into the pool to cool off. Just then, a fellow in a three-piece suit with a red carnation boutonnière walked up. Without bothering to introduce himself, he proceeded to tell me an unbelievable story about a stay in Myrtle Beach where he had made the company of seven flight attendants on a three-day layover. It was the stuff that makes a man a looselipped legend. It can also paint a fellow as an exaggerator of the worst kind. One thing was certain: I had met a real care-actor.

As time and attrition took its toll, our old group disintegrated. Guys and gals moved away. Some married. Others disappeared without a trace, gobbled up by our mobile, transient society. UC, however, and I continued to live in the same vicinity of Columbia and we bumped into one another often.

He had his quirks. He’d always stand at a bar to eat. He never sat. He would stand behind you if you were seated and talk to you. Often, I’d be talking to him, and when I noticed he was taking a long time to respond, I’d turn around to find him gone. He never said “see you later,” or “I’ve got to go,” or “goodbye” even. He simply left in midstream of a conversation. He did this to many others as well.

He had his qualities. He dressed in impeccable suits. He liked to quote Wordsworth and, like me, had come to know James Dickey. We discussed writing and literature a good bit. He held two degrees, a bachelors and a masters in English, and he, too, had worked a while as a writer. He had a wonderful sense of humor and laughter erupted from him in great rolling booms.

He got a third degree, jurisprudence, and became an attorney and treated many clients with kindness, cutting their bill with a curt “Just send me some business.” He treated many people as well with disdain and left a debris trail of people who did not like him.

Out on the town he often flashed a wad of cash that might be $10, 0000 or $25,000. I dreaded getting a call that he had been murdered, for he went into some unsavory places with all that cash. He made a lot of money and he spent it as if tomorrow might not come, and indeed, for him, it might not. He had a heart attack years ago and diabetes wreaked havoc with his health. That tandem put him on the no-return path of failing health.

Despite poor health, he remained a man who liked high drama and the company of women. He had a rule: he would date no woman older than 25. He surrounded himself with the kind of women who like a big spender, a sure path to ruination.

As the years departed, so did his hair. He went through the predictable stages. First, a sweeper with a long strand of still-viable hair coiled atop his head like some cobra ready to strike. One day after a spirited tennis match with the apartment complex’s tennis pro, the American Dream as he had women call him, (Just “Dream” if they knew him well), UC came over to the pool where a bunch of us sat. His hair had uncoiled and hung down in the back like Hop Sing’s ponytail.

“Beach,” a local high school principal, took one look at UC and said, “UC, why don’t you just cut that stuff and get yourself a rug.”

UC stormed off in a huff, but the point reached its mark. Soon he went through a series of toupees, culminating in the granddaddy of them all. Each year, he placed his attorney’s ad in the Yellow Pages, and it was something to see. One morning, my friend, Robert, called. “Tom,” he said, “got your new phone book.”

“Sure,” I said. “It came yesterday.”

“Turn to page 72.”

I did and there was the ultimate UC attorney ad. He had a coterie of young women standing around him as he sat in a high-backed chair scowling. Atop his head sat a toupee, no that doesn’t do it justice. Atop his head sat a wig of grand dimensions ... no, that’s nowhere close. Atop his head was a, well, heck, crowning his head sat some monstrosity that can only be described as a tall, velvety hat of bearskin like the Buckingham Palace guards wear.

For a long time, I’d call Robert and say turn to page 72 and the laughing would start.

UC fell victim to the video poker craze that South Carolina legalized in the mid 1990s and the gambling bug bit him hard. He went to casinos when video poker was declared illegal after it had ruined lives and led to murders and mayhem. Gambling became his tormentor and several times he’d tell me he was thinking of committing suicide after a bad weekend at a casino. He threw away not one fortune but many.

One night at Bonefish Grille, he told me he was considering killing himself.

“Why’s that, UC?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

“I lost $56,000 Saturday night in Mississippi.”

“UC,” I said, a lot of folks don’t make that kind of money in a year.” My words fell on deaf ears. He merely turned around and left.

And now he’s gone for good. I called a close friend who had met UC through virtue of my friendship with him. When I told her he had passed away, her terse judgment of his life struck a chord of perfect pitch. “He doesn’t have to fight his demons anymore.”

She’s right. Looking back, the best thing that could have happened to him would have been to marry and have children. He wouldn’t have thrown all that money away and he would have had something real to hold on to. He might have taken better care of himself and maybe even lived longer. But that’s not the path he took. He left us with nothing but photographs and memories, memories of a man who lived a life that was unforgettable and, sadly, regrettable.

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