Lorraine Ulysses Dixon was born in Wesson, Mississippi to an already large family; with nine other siblings, he was the youngest of the litter as number ten. As a result, he was always the pup, and always the last for any number of things. Growing up in such a household made him quite self-sufficient from an early age; his siblings were also those that acted as secondary parents and mentors. It was a supportive and loving household, despite the consistency with which they seemed to be impoverished. As his younger years progressed, the boy known as Ulysses to those outside of his family grew like a weed. Of course, he had similar siblings, so nothing was thought of it until his teenage years approached. When he finished high school, Ulysses was around three-hundred pounds and half a dozen inches above the boys his same age. He was one of the star linebackers for the football team, and in essence, growing to be the local giant. After graduating from high school in nineteen eighty-four, Ulysses left Wesson for Jackson, enrolling in Jackson State University under an athletic scholarship and eventually graduated with a degree in Sociology. The intent of his degree was mainly to keep himself educated, but Ulysses did have an interest in the field itself that had yet to be fleshed out. Instead of pursuing that career, however, shortly before his graduation, the New Orleans Saints approached him about playing on the Louisiana team. One love won out over another when the young man chose to follow American football rather than continue his uncertain education.
Ulysses played for the Saints for around four consecutive years, until an in-game injury to his ACL took him out of the sport. While he did have his degree to fall back on, the man could only find so much work regardless; his physical therapy and disability made the start of a two year hiatus almost unbearable. He found himself relying on what pay the Saints relieved him with, as well as state-side assistance. By the time Ulysses was proclaimed as healed enough to continue with stressful activities, football had left him in the dust, and he was a man out of work.
Finding work was a quest in of itself; a man of his size and stature was certainly useful for physical labor, but Ulysses was a man more mindeful than he appeared to be. More menial and blue collar work left him bored and looking in unfamiliar places for better jobs. It is through that state of mind that he found himself on the welcome mat of the Marcello family in the heart of New Orleans. From that initial meeting, and despite his hesitance in joining the family as 'professional security', Ulysses did somehow find that stimulation that he had been searching for. Not that many of the people he now worked for could tell or even thought it possible. Under the guise of a personal bodyguard, it was not long before he sponged up this new 'world' with reserve and silence. After just a few months of immersion, Dixon was placed as an aide to Kain Zarek; Kain was the embodiment of a Cajun King, while Ulysses was swiftly made into a proverbial stick-in-the mud. During this new period of criminal security, Dixon also met and married a woman by the name of Estelle Barrett. While she was sometimes a shallow woman, the two believed themselves in love. It was a rather dull relationship emotionally, and it was a feeling of duty that kept Ulysses in place. Towards the end of the nineties, when the Marcello family was slipping in their control of the New Orleans streets, Estelle became pregnant; the child born at the turn of the millennium was not what she had been hoping for. A little girl, sweet and doe-eyed, but it was just a few years that she would eventually be diagnosed with autism and as being on the cusp of mental retardation. Remaining for a few more years in his place beside Kain Zarek as a relative meathead was easy enough, but when Estelle left Ulysses with their daughter after Katrina flattened New Orleans, it was certainly less so.
As Knox and his gang tore up the already ravaged city from the underbelly, and the seat of power had been disrupted, Dixon had no choice but to take his daughter and follow on the trail of the one man that seemed to know where to go, and that was Kain Zarek. Las Vegas may not have been the best place to end up, but with gangs such as those in the deep south with his name and face, it made everything different. While Kain quickly found haven with the Linderman Group's more silver-tongued men, Ulysses found a similar haven within the ranks of the intelligent security that Daniel Linderman saw fit to place with his people. "A smart man by himself is little protection unless he knows how to use his brain effectively. If he is seven feet from the ground, that helps too." That was effectively the logic that put Dixon to work. Whereas many of Linderman's men were bound to him by debt or worse, Ulysses found himself bound to the man out of necessity and what may well have been, and still is- personal magnetism. Ulysses was never a 'bad' man, per se, but simply a man that found grey areas more to his liking. His daughter was another matter entirely, and for a while he managed to keep his personal life and work life fuzzily divided. Eventually, and possibly purposely late as some intelligent bosses do, Linderman did point out about the single father role the man played; as a favor for his services, Anthea Dixon was brought into the fold and given ongoing support from the Linderman Group's many more charitable foundations.
When Kain was put onto the Niki Sanders case, Dixon was ordered to go with him; they got stuck together once more through fate, and the giant tailed the Cajun the entire way through that particular quest. Content in knowing that he could trust Dixon, Linderman permanently assigned him to Zarek just before sending them both to New York City. There, it was where they kept a watchful eye on Nathan Petrelli.
When the election passed, and the Bomb engulfed Midtown, Dixon was caught in the middle of it. He survived the blast, but much like his partner, was personally physically decimated by it. It was now that Ulysses learned the existence of the Evolved populace, through Daniel Linderman's helpful touch. He was never a god-fearing man, but the incident and what followed made him reconsider God's place in the game. In the fallout of the bomb, Dixon remained loyal to Linderman's security efforts in the cataclysmic city, and soon became trusted as a key player in the actual security forces there. All the while, still being one of Kain Zarek's most constant shadows.
