Character In Search of Story

Hi, I'm Uggy. Uggy Krup. Just to clarify from the outset, I am not related to those Krups. In fact, I would be hard pressed to show you any kind of genealogy beyond Mom and Pop. I'm thirty-seven years old, stand six foot, three and weigh 15 stone. I am not a handsome man, but I have reached an accommodation with myself. Dad once quoted a quatrain to me which went like this. "As a beauty, I am no star. There are many more handsome by far. But my face, I don't mind it, for I am behind it. It's the folks out in front get the jar."

The first thing most people question is my name. I was baptized Hugh Arlo Krup. When I started school in Koln, I was taught to write my name, "Hugh A. Krup." Donnie Danvers, seated next to me observed my paper and said, "What kind of name is Hug?" "Hugh, I said. It's Hugh."
"Yah," Lisl chimed in, "it's Hug, but I think Ugh! fits you perfectly." So I became Uggy on the spot and have been known by that moniker by friend, stranger, and foe since that fateful day.

It is not that I am unemployed, just, one might say, underemployed. I will take interesting assignments on short-term bases, but I have no desire to commit to long-term or serious engagements for which responsibility might devolve in any sort of unpleasant manner. I have lots of time on my hands. Pop parlayed a half-dozen years of hard work, some much-too-clever investments and unbelievable luck into a fortune which could modestly be described as substantial. Upon the departure of our dear parents from this vale of tears in a horrendous accident, the details of which I will spare you, my sister and I split the proceeds of the estate, per the conditions of the wills, then we split from each other. We had tolerated one another's existence for thirty years, she being two years younger but light years more responsible, more capable, blah, blah blah. In a word, the good child. She matriculated and ultimately graduated well (Mills), married well, and has the perfect life.

Yet you must not leap to the unwarranted conclusion that I am a wastrel or spendthrift. Mom may have raised a quasi-responsible would-be playboy, but she did not raise a stupid one. I recognized early on that if I was to live the lifestyle of my choosing, I would need to husband my resources with the intent that they should provide me a comfortable and pleasant life, no matter how long it might be. Thus, I created a trust for myself in which I am the sole beneficiary, and it is controlled and managed by a staid and responsible investment bank. I draw an annual income which provides for me quite nicely, being at the upper reaches of seven figures, American. I live well, but I suspect that no one knows just how well I could live were I of a mind to do so.

One might wonder about my relationship with the fairer sex. Yes, I have an eye for the ladies, and though I am currently single, and likely to remain so, I was once married, and happily. Jean and I met during our senior year at Cumberland. The relationship was indeed one "made in heaven." We dated for two years, became engaged. She was for three years my fiancee. Then one month after my twenty-sixth birthday, and on hers, we were married in Chelsea. Again, with no detail I will say that I obtained a junior position in a respectable law firm. Jean followed her profession in education and was an assistant superintendent in a large school district in the Midwestern state where we were residing at the time. Everything boded well for a wonderful life. Seven years after the wedding and nine months after the diagnosis, Jean died. I hate euphemisms, but in this case I may hate the blunt statement of fact even more. But I will not talk of her "passing" or discuss how much "better off" she is now.

© 2009 David W. Lacy

• What might we do with this guy? Can you picture a direction for his life?
  
  

  [Happy Birthday, son Curt]