Mamaw, Uncle Muddy, Shady and me sometimes like to go to the Big Burger & Cheese Freeze, the one with the big C that blinks on a sign by the side of the highway just outside town here in Belle Binford, MS. Uncle Muddy calls it “the Big C” for short. They have fantastic burgers, and the shakes are out of this dang world! And everything is cooked and made fresh onsite.

Anyway, we all went because Mamaw didn’t feel like cooking that evening, and she almost NEVER feels like not cooking. We all stood up at the counter and each ordered our favorite special. Shady only gets fries, and almost never gets anything but lemonade to drink. Man, this is my time to splurge and I always try to eat up, but Shady “eats like a dying bird” Mamaw says, so she gets him his fries and lemonade and goes on.

We were sitting at the table about ten feet from the door, when this ragged looking man walks in with hand in his pocket. He looked kind of wall-eyed, head and eyes darting everywhere. We kind of noticed him looking funny but none of us said anything. You could kind of smell liquor smell come in with him, but it was real faint. Plus he was walking a little odd.

We went back to talking, when suddenly Uncle Muddy runs to the front, and leaps like a gazelle, then tackles the man right there at the front counter. Everyone stared, since the place had five or six tables all waiting on dinner. Uncle Muddy got the man in a headlock, and a small handgun fell to the floor while Muddy was wrestling him down.

The man was in that headlock for a minute when Uncle Muddy hollered; “Tap out boy! I said tap out or I will put you all the way to sleep!” He said that two or three times, and after the third time the man weakly taps Uncle Muddy, who let him out of the headlock and ran his arm around his back, knee in the back of his back in a police hold and yelled “Lay still man and don’t say a d— word or I will rip that arm off, I will rip it clean off, I swear to God!”

The cashier was calling the cops, all the while Uncle Muddy had him face down on the floor, knee in his back and his arm twisted around backwards behind his back. When Mamaw made a motion like she was going to come help, Uncle Muddy hollered at us, and the room, “Don’t nobody come up here! I got this handled. I saw this fool pull his gun, and was trying to rob the place, and good thing I was here too!”

When the cops showed up they took over for Uncle Muddy and thanked him for the help. Uncle Muddy got up and dusted off, and came and sat down like nothing happened, and the whole place gave him a standing ovation. I was in awe, and Mamaw just said “Well I hope they get our food to us after all this nonsense, I am getting kinda hungry a-sitting here.”

We all laughed, and they brought us our food. They actually gave all of us our dinner free! When Mamaw tried to pay anyway, the manager wouldn’t hear of it. “Naw, your Uncle here saved the day so this one is on the house!”

I never knew Uncle Muddy was so fast!