A spade and a heart.

“Blackjack!”

Winning, again. It felt fantastic. Sheffield smiled and then slung back another glass of aged whiskey. He tossed his ace of spades and king of hearts back at the dealer. Not flip, but an actual aggressive toss, right in his face. The night had been going down hill, he had been playing for the last three hours and losing for most of that time. But this, this was a very nice turn of events. He wouldn’t have to slap the blackjack dealer around.

Christopher started shovelling his chips won towards him, when he noticed a waitress passing by. He grabbed her by the arm and then placed his empty drink on her trey. Feeling happy he flipped a fifty dollar chip onto her trey and drunkenly murmured something that sounded like, “How about another glass a whiskey?”

Then he turned back towards the card that had been dealt to him. The dealer was showing a ten. Sheffield had a nine. He was feeling so good, more the three hours of damn fine whiskey then the cards, that he pushed forward a good three quarters of his chips.

Sheffield smiled. “Hit me, you pedo-stached, motherfucker.”

To be fair, the moustached card dealer did look like a pedophile, like a mix between Jackie Earl Haley and Ron Jeremy. Which also meant he looked like pure Vegas. He laid down a three in front of Sheffield.

A sober man might have paused to think of the possibility, but Sheffield just bellowed, “HIT ME!”

Nine. Which meant Sheffield now had nineteen.

Christopher eyed the blackjack dealer with an untrusting eye. Since the guy had a ten on the card showing, he had to have a face card or an ace even, in the card not showing. The dealer couldn’t be trusted. No one could be trusted, as far as Sheffield was concerned. Sheffield grumbled, “Nah wan can be trusted…”

The dealer arched his eyebrow, “Excuse me sir?”

“Hit me.”

“Are you sure?”

“YOU HEARD ME! HIT!” Sheffield was standing up from his chair. The girl who had brought back another glass of whiskey, saw this, saw the fear in the dealers face and then turned back around before she made it to the table, to get the pit boss. And security. All the security they could find.

“HIT!”

Jack. Bust.

“HIT!” But Sheffield was more then a bit in the kicker.

“Sir…” The dealer began to sputter.

“DO YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM!?” Sheffield screamed as he lept up began to throttle the blackjack dealer, completely sauced after letting the drinks hit him. “I'M ALIAS YOU FAT FUCK, NOW HIT ME AGAIN!'“

“Sir…” The dealer spluttered “...you bust on that last Jack!”

“WHAT JACK?” Sheffield screamed as security start to swarm “THIS JACK!?”

Two security guards got laid out in the process of trying to stop Sheffield from shoving the Jack Of Spades down the dealers throat. In the all the commotion, almost no one noted a man named Black slipping further into the casino, in his quest for Zamboli himself.

“What seems to be the problem here, sir?!” screamed Jonhnny Gambiano over the roar and commotion of Christopher Sheffield and the security guards. He usually would have tossed a bum like this back into his room, or simply enough out on the streets. Being a pit boss for the good part of twenty years hear under Zamboli, however, he knew not to completely cut out a man who was drinking so merrily up until now at least, while dumping a whole load of money into the cards of his fine casino.

“You tell each one of these stupid motherfuckers, the next hand that I feel pull me away from this table… I will feed back to the man standing beside him!” Sheffield was incensed and was now heavily into the large scale threats stage.

“Sir, how does a few complimentary drinks sound at Z Lounge.”

“Or I could go to the Sound Lounge at the Mandalay…”

“Yes, but is it complimentary?” Gambiano smiled at Sheffield a car-sales man grin, with his car sales man like hair towering over top of it. He knew in his heart of hearts that troublemaking sons of bitches like this never turn down free things. The security detail parted, and Sheffield walked to the bar, still with his chest puffed out.

And as Christopher Sheffield slumped onto an oversized black couch to the side of the bar. It was a mix of resignation and pure give-up swimming around in his head.

A man named Darwin Collingwood came and sat down not more then seven feet to the side of him between he and the bar.

“You’re Alias, aren’t you, pal?”

A cavalcade of tourist’s, a family, where walking down through the casino. The path they where taking took them right past the Z Lounge, a larger man with white socks up to the bottom of his knees, and the kind of outfit that would go along with it, pulled his family along behind him. Towing along in the back was an entirely uninterested high school football kid, brush cut, no neck, what have you. The moment he saw Alias however, the fat kid before the growth spurt, with the Original Pulp Hero shirt came rumbling out.

“Alias!” was all he could yelp, at first.

Christopher Sheffield looked from Collingwood, not having answered him yet, to this 6’4, 340 pound, no necked kid. He grimaced. “This a fan club meeting?”

“Oh, wow, it is you! Long night in Vegas, hey? hah, Yeah…” the kid tried to collect his thoughts, still grinning from ear to ear. Darwin was now smiling. Sheffield looked down at his haphazardly-skewed suit, he looked rougher then usual. “Remember that one time when you held the ACW Championship and the tSC Championship at the same time? That was amazing! That best of seven with Jason Kain… I mean, wow. Oh, that tSC Championship man with Sonny Silver?! I could just punch that Sonny guy in the face! Am I right? Hey, what match against SVJ was your favourite? There had to be a million! My favourite has to be Pounded and Fused Two, I know it’s not up there with other people, like your Legends II match, but damn was that ever a classic. My dad, my dad still hasn’t stopped talking about the night he partied with you guys in Invictus, in Tallahassee in 2004...”

“Pete!” The family had already gotten some fifty yards ahead, and his father yelled back at him to catch up, to stop talking to that drunk guy. Pete, the big kid, smiled at Alias.

“You rock man!” Pete went to fist bump Sheffield, and Sheffield went to fist bump back but was only able to catch one of Pete’s knuckles thanks to his lack of sobriety.

Sheffield said, “Thanks.” And he meant it, but by then the big kid had run off.

Darwin grinned, a little dumbfounded by the celebrity experience, “Well that wasn’t the confirmation I was expecting.”

He turned to Collingwood, and not even meaning to say it, he still did, “Me, Rook and Mike Randall never drank together… hell, tSC never even ended up touring through Tallahassee in 2004.”

“Hey, I would have lied to him too.” Darwin had to admit it, Nunez was right to send him over hear to talk to, dun dun dun, Alias. His over excitable pro wrestling loving friend had made the man sound meaner then he actually was though, and Darwin didn’t mind that at all. He still looked mighty mean when confronted by a ward of security goons. Sheffield only gave Darwin an unimpressed look.

Darwin reacted, “What?! The kid was huge, and was fuelled by god knows however many hormones at his age… not to mention the evident elephant steroids.”

“They give elephants steroids, do they?” Sheffield shot back, his gaze drifting back into the casino.

“Maybe I should have shot lower and went with horse steroids?” replied Darwin, his finger tapping his bottom lip in mock recognition.

“Then I would have believed you.” said Sheffield, he gaze now down into his hands in his lap.

The two men looked at each other.

“Fathers lie to there children, so that they can be the man that they want there son to become, or there daughter to be with.” Darwin, caught himself before he continued. Where the hell did the mush come from. That shit would get him killed in this business before he could ever find his baby girl.

A missing fact donned on Sheffield. He was still drunk, damn it. “Who the fuck are you, by the way?”

“Oh yeah, pleasantries. Yeah, I could never really ever get the hang of those, always slowed down the conversation.” Darwin chatted, and Sheffield quickly interjected. The man was a sobering influence, trying to keep up with.

“Name.” Growled Sheffield.

Darwin gulped, then put out his hand, “Darwin Collingwood. I can help you.”

Sheffield shook his hand, and ended up with a small packet in his hand. Looking at it, he realized what it was.

“I deal in what you need to numb that pain away, and otherwise make it through the day. Though hell, let’s be positive shall we?” Darwin went on to give Sheffield the usual pitch. Then wrote down a phone number on a blank card and told Sheffield to contact him the next time he was in Vegas and he’d hook him up. It was odd, thought Chris, how they fallen so easily into talking like friends. Past the pitch, even, revealing things that they wouldn’t normally to others. Darwin got up, to walk away, but then stopped.

“Pleasure meeting you, by the way, pal. Oh and keep a hold of that too,” Darwin noted, pointing at the sampler that was still in Sheffield’s hand. “But you know, use it when you’d like.”

Darwin was then gone, back into the crowd. An unfamiliar but friendly face, and as it goes for a man like Sheffield, the exact opposite then entered his field of vision. He couldn’t believe that the man was still alive, let alone… working at this damn casino?

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” grumbled Sheffield, already eyeing his exits.

The man who was walking up to him was born Nikoli Moskovic, went by the name of Moscow. It was a hell of a fitting name for this bear of man. His black beard peppered with grey, and his black hair kept short. He wore a suit and help an imposing stride, coming towards Sheffield from the side of the main entrance. The Russian had been running with an Irish brotherhood as a hired gun when Sheffield had broken his nose. It was the first nose Chris had ever broken.

Then a few minutes later, Moscow blew out Sheffield’s left knee cap with a large hammer.

They where looking at each other, dead in the eyes, and Moscow smiled and ugly smile. He talked at him, not to him. “Still the same Christopher. Drinking himself into a shit storm and then just waiting to get fucked up some more.”

Christopher Sheffield had sobered up enough now to gather his thoughts. He took in a deep breath, “You hear to kill me?”

“If I wanted to,” Moscow’s Russian accent was suitably thick, “well, you know the rest.”

Sheffield finally stood from the couch, stumbling to his feet before stretching out the kinks, swinging his right leg as he did, “So you plan on taking the right leg this time, then?”

Moscow laughed, “Not yet. Not yet.”

“Just how are the rest of you Russians doing?” Sheffield grumbled, rubbing the pain out from between his eyes, he still felt black and white but he was illuminated by the neon lights all around him.

“Good question. After Rasputin died The Family dissolved. Now it’s warring factions fuelled by KGB brute force in all directions. Even Vladimir Putin is trying anything underhanded in the old country. He‘s having to much fun fucking with the Euro Union as Prime Minister.” said Moscow, obviously not happy with the state of his countries crime world.

“So what brings you all the way out here then? You aren’t a vacationing type. Sure you’re a Soviet born psychopath,” Sheffield smiled at Moscow, “But you never did have the KGB connections. And the North American base of operations for the Russian families is, what, anywhere between Montreal and D.C. since ’91? Not Vegas.”

“Yes, Reagan let us walk right in once that wall came down…” replied Moscow, “but no, I’m not working for The Family, not anymore. I followed Rasputin’s son out west, but then I decided to turn over a new lease. Go legitimate. Live your American dream.”

“And that means?” there were so many missing pieces in this conversation, unconnected bits of logics, butchering of metaphors, that Sheffield easily believed the reply that came next the least.

“Freelance security and surveillance, comrade.”

There it was. Sheffield, turned his eye towards the perma glow of the casino where it was always midday, where the time of day didn‘t exist. He believed Moscow, work for one Italian and you can work for all of ‘em… but then again Sheffield knew he could never quite trust a man who had already tried to kill him once, “So who’s keeping an eye on me?”

“Not on you. You are no danger to anyone.” Sheffield tilted his head back towards Moscow, “We expect a fat celebrity such as yourself to kill yourself before you say any names.” said Moscow plainly. The wink was the clincher. Moscow planned to make it as accidental as possible.

“I am watching a man by the name of Darwin Collingwood.”, said Moscow… and Chris was just starting to like that Darwin guy, “Zamboli is sure this coke dealer has more connections then just the high rollers within these Las Vegas casinos. Christopher… how are the Italians doing, by the way?”

“You know I wouldn’t have a fucking clue.” Sheffield hissed back at him.

“No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know that they’ve been keeping an eye on you for years now. I’m sure you’ve suspected it though. You wouldn’t know that the minute you crashed off the radar, the Italians expected it would only be a matter of time before some federal agent connected the dots that some coked up former professional wrestling man had connections to the mob, and then started leaning on him for information. Then the Irish, the Russians, and all those other fucking little gangs clamouring for space in New York, would rush to put pressure on the Italians.” Moscow ran a hand through his beard. Sheffield suspected as much on all these facts, and his search for conceivable exit points now had even more reason to continue. Moscow also continued, leaning forward towards Sheffield and enjoying himself.

“You hear of this old Italian, George Barone? Barone used to have it so well, comrade. As a dock foreman and a goodfella for the Genovese crime family. His usefulness changed though, as the days went by… at his level within the family, the older he got and the more the world changed, the more he became a hindrance. He told the feds the one thought in his head was his former family should have tried harder in there attempt to kill him. To keep him quiet. Whatever the circumstances, today that aging gangster never denied his murders. ‘I got a track record of being in a lousy, dirty, rotten environment where killing was part of staying alive.’ he would explain.” Moscow enjoyment had taken a sinister edge.

“As in ‘dog eat dog?’, The federal agent would ask him. Barone just replied… ‘Dog kill dog.’ You, Christopher Sheffield have got a price on your head. A substantial one, that everyone out east now knows full well.” Moscow did love to tell a story. Especially a story such as this to a man such as Sheffield.

“But seeing as you’re just a security guard for this casino, you fat Russian fuck, that means you’re going to let me walk.” growled Sheffield, through gritted teeth. This was a bad situation, and if he was thinking clearer, he would have talked his way out of it a little bit more cleverly.

“The way I see it, for the disrespect you’ve shown me now and in the past, and with the shape you’re in… I can at least take my pound of flesh or two from a soft celebrity bastard such as you. Why you think I even took the time to talk to you tonight?

“I’m not going to kill you for money, I’m going to kill you for fun.” Moscow once again smiled that ugly smile.

The West Wind and Whiskey Jack
Everywhere and Nowhere

All was white.

Except it wasn’t actually white. Or black or darkness. It was nothing.

Christopher Sheffield was not even himself. He was part of it all, the earth around him, the people on it… and yet, he was separate from it all. Christopher felt very much alone, but he didn’t mind at all. He no longer felt the pain of the ice cold water. He was content. He was… at peace.

He was home. And then, he was at home.

There he stood in his Aunt Michelle’s apartment in San Francisco. It was where he had grown up from four to sixteen. Where he had found safety and solace from the world. Sheffield stood there, white t-shirt, blue jeans… barefoot. He was comfortable. He loved to hear stories of when his Aunt and mother lived under that same apartment roof, before his mother had met Brian “Flyboy” Sheffield, before they had moved to West Memphis. As he thought of his mother, there she was…

Rebecca was almost unrecognizable to Christopher. It wasn’t just because she looked slightly younger, or that his only memories of the woman where as a very young child. No, there was a weight to her very spirit that he remembered her having… that just wasn’t there. She was so happy. His mother had blonde hair that Chris didn’t quite remember… he had always thought of her hair as brown. Her soft brown eyes glistened. This wasn’t the pained woman that she would become, not at all. That fact made Chris want to walk up to his mother, hold her, and cry on her shoulder. To revert back to the child, that despite what he fought against… he still was. But he didn’t walk to her, because Chris didn’t want to disturb her.

She seemed so in love. So loved.

Then a man followed her through the door to the apartment, walking up behind her he swept his arm around her waist and rested his hand on her stomach. The man was tall, dark, handsome… he kissed her neck. She smiled.

The man was not Brian Sheffield.

“I once knew your mother. Once. There’s a world out there, young one. That we hide from ourselves. We create illusions and lives, aliases for ourselves because the truth is far more powerful than we are ready for ourselves to be.” The voice was warm but powerful, like the west wind… Christopher heard it, and yet it didn’t seem to come from anywhere at all. Once again, Sheffield was alone in the apartment.

“I… don’t understand.” said Sheffield.

“You will.”, said a voice, like the west wind.

Christopher Sheffield breathed in hard and deep, his nostrils filled with rich smells of maple, of smoking wood, of life. He was alive. Sheffield looked up at the water speckled ceiling of an old, yellowed by age, bathroom. He was sitting in the bathtub, up to his neck in water, and stripped down to his underwear. He tilted his head to the side and he saw an old man drinking a Labatt Blue.

“Hope you don’t mind the tub. The worst thing a man can do is stay in his wet clothes after he’s been in the ice water. Second worst thing is putting him in a hot shower. So I put you in a tub full of warm water. Thaw you out, like those horrible plastic wrapped turkeys that white men make for Thanksgiving. I would placed you in the earth, behind this house… but it‘s winter, grounds frozen.” said someone out of Sheffield’s field of vision. From what he could tell, he was a man with a warm and powerful voice. That man was Webangi Shim, the old Anishinaabe man. He grinned like that last bit about the ground made sense to him, and it would make sense to Sheffield.

“It seems we’ve found each other, Whiskey Jack.” said the old man, and as he then introduced himself his name didn’t sound like Webangi Shim at all, no, not that many syllables. It was different, like…

E-bangishimog.

“My name isn’t Whi--” Christopher said, trying to correct E-bangishimog. Though the more Sheffield thought about it, he hadn’t said Whiskey Jack either. In his weakened state, however, he still hadn’t fully recovered his ability to speak cognitively. It was more a jumble of mumbled sounds.

“Do you smoke? Drink?” said the old man, offering another beer to Sheffield, a warm tint to his voice. Sheffield shook his head, no, pained. Chris was always one to live clean, as a wrestler… it just made him faster. As a hitman, it made him smarter. So he believed.

“You will.” The old man grinned, a light wistful grin and a voice like the west wind. He put the bottle of beer down on the sink, and said, “You have much to learn about who you truly are. Trust me when I say it might take a small while for you to acknowledge this truth.”

E-bangishimog lifted his hand, and Sheffield saw the wind follow with the old man’s hand, the wind come through his hand and lift Christopher from the tub as if he was weightless. Before he knew it he was wrapped in a large, intricately woven blanket, and he was sitting on the ground in front of a large stone fireplace, and there sat the old man beside him. Christopher knew he must have been hallucinating, in believing that he was taken there by the wind.

But as his thoughts centered, as the blanket warmed him body and his mind came back to him fully… he knew. He looked at this old Anishinaabe man.

“Father?” whispered Chris.

“Yes, my son.” the old man replied, and in that moment his cavernous wrinkled face relaxing, and in turn making him appear younger then Chris had imagined him to be, but still old enough to be the man that Chris’s mother once loved.

Being Christopher Sheffield, he could only think of one thing to do.

Take a swing at E-bangishimog.

In his weakened state, however, his balled up right fist barely trickled towards the man who had left him behind, and more importantly, who had left him mother behind. The man who must have watched from a higher place, as she relinquished her strength of spirit and took pain and brutality from a man who Christopher had believed to be his father, but was only a man who resented the fact that the woman he wanted already had a son.

All the anger that he held for the man in front of him, burst forward in messy sobs, but eventually he collected himself and looked up at the stern face of the strong man in front of him. The strong, salt of the earth that he himself would become. E-bangishimog nodded.

“Your true self is only beginning to be laid bare…”

• View Christopher Sheffield's Biography