Sammy the Squat

## Sammy the Squat (deceased)

* **Name:**Samuel Robert Stenerson
* **Position (at time of Death):** General Manager of Buddy's Bomb Shelter, and a top lieutenant in the Underberg  crime family.
* **Metatype:**Dwarf (*Homo sapiens pumilionis*)
* **DOB:**6/9/2016, Steele ND USA (now Uesta, Upper Yankton CF, Oceti Sakowin)
* **DOD:**8/7/2075 (Age 59), Fargo  RRDMZ
* **Education:**Fargo South High School, Class of '32.
* **Family:**Braden Michaelson (father, deceased), Olivia Stenerson (mother, deceased)

Sam "Sammy the Squat" Stenerson was not a bad guy. OK, so he was, professionally speaking, a Bad Guy, a legbreaker and bag-man for the Underberg Family for most of his life, but for a local gangster and thug, he was known for being alright.

Born in the small town of what was then Steele ND as part of the first wave of UGE, he grew up with his dad, an oil rig worker in the Bakken Oil Patch, when his mom abandoned him in the hospital after seeing "What she had given birth to". His dad took him with him on the job and raised him best he could with the sixteen-hour days he had to pull. After the Oil Patch was sealed off behind the new Sioux border, Braden took work wherever he could get it, ending up working to help build The Block in Fargo. Little Sammy grew up rough, a dwarf in an era that didn't quite know what to make of dwarves, he fought with the other kids, the other unsupervised kids of the builders that worked with his dead. Of course being a dwarf, and being Sammy, he fought and generally, he won.

His childhood, rough as it was, was to end suddenly on April 30, 2021 when his father died in the middle of Goblinization, his body giving out under the physical strain of trying to transform into a Troll. in front of his traumatized, six-and-a-half year old son. Sammy was packed off to become a ward of the state, being moved around between institutions until he settled in a foster care facility in Jamestown ND (now Itazipokaksa, Upper Yankton). One of the names the bullies there gave him was "Squat" usually with miming squatting down to poop. Of course, they generally only called him that once and little Sammy was often in trouble for fighting with the other kids. His height and early facial hair made it easy for him to pretend to be a little older than he really was and he walked free as an adult at age 17 in 2033. He tried to find work in Jamestown and then Fargo, but his hot temper and inability to take insults off of anybody meant that he got fired as much as hired and ended up a drifting day-laborer.

Until he met Buddy Underberg in 2036. Buddy saw 'The Squat' kick a guy's ass in a barfight one night and, impressed with the casual violence, immediately recruited him into a crew of legbreakers and petty thieves he was putting together to protect his interests as he rose up the ladder, by hook or by crook, at Corwin Auto. Here he joined such local legends as Hamm, Underdawg, Jenny Slicer and the late, great No-Nose Nussbaum in Buddy's first crew, led by Buddy's wife, Flo, herself a stone cold badass.

In the early days Sammy used to work most closely with the taciturn redneck Hamm, often being the 'good thug' to Hamm's 'bad' when pressing for info or collecting money. His newfound skill at negotiation served him well and while his duties dispensing violence never exactly stopped, you don't put a bruiser like Sammy out to pasture with good ass-kicking years still ahead of him, he gained extra responsibilities, originally handling some of the car thieves Buddy employed, then leading up a legendary crew of enforcers during the Whiskey-Callahan War, which got him control of some lucrative gambling rackets as a reward, not to mention the responsibility for keeping Buddy's fences in line, which saw him work closely with Bernie Whistler, the oldest fence in town. During the 50's he was famous as a fixer and bag man for the Shadowrunner crew on the Underbergs' behalf. During the 60's he was infamous for running the Corner in Moorhead, the sleaziest dive in town, where he also served as mentor and teacher to a lot of newer Underberg talent, including their close family, people such as the Myhre Sisters and the mysterious Ether.

When Buddy died in '67, Sammy traded up. Ma gave him control of Buddy's Bomb Shelter, giving his Corner to her son, Brady. With control of the Bomb Shelter came control of the Underberg's prostitution rackets, and just as important, a seat at Table, Ma's council of war, one of the few non-relatives she listened to. He ran the Bomb Shelter the way Ma had run the legbreaker crews. He hand-picked people he could trust and put them in positions to earn that trust. As a hot-headed young man Sammy had always been in the front and never let anybody do anything for him. But as he aged he grew better at delegation and even before his rise to the Table, Ma always trusted his sense for finding talent. It was Sammy who recruited Chris "Chips" Swanson to run gambling out of the Bomb Shelter, later making Chips the day manager and also his liaison to Malvina Mau the madame he used to sleep with in the '50's who he had running the sex trade. He was the one who recruited Swain Magnuson from the fighting pits to become Ma's bodyguard. He even managed his famous temper to become friends with his old enemy Stands Alone Billy and the friendship between them was a quiet but vital element in keeping the peace between the Underbergs and the Tiospaye over the years.

Sammy the Squat was a Fargo institution by the recent summer's evening when Brady Underberg was caught in an ambush meant for Brady, who was using the Bomb Shelter as a drop-off point for an extraction his Team doing the afternoon of Monday August 7, 2075. A BlockSec strike team came out of nowhere, in force. Sammy and his day staff engaged the Security forces, giving Brady time to get away and warn his mother and his team. And Sammy did what Sammy had always done. Fought for the Underbergs. And he died the way he had always known he would. Taking a bullet meant for one of them.

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