Blood, Sweat, and Waffles: The Unforgettable Nights Behind the Counter

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
This happened to me back in the early two thousands.
I was living with my ex in Texas. My girl
and I had been forced to move cross country after
we lost everything in a house fire. We were in
a very bad position, and when all hope appeared to
be lost, her family offered to runt us a place
that had been just sitting unused. The few things that

(00:38):
survived the fire were packed into our old jeep and
we hit the road. Two days later, we arrived at
her aunt Jenny's house, road worn and ready to get
moved in. We didn't have much, so it didn't take long.
Although we had to spend the first night in sleeping
bags on the floor, it was a giant first step
toward getting our lives back. Early the next morning we

(01:00):
went shopping for a new bed. It was probably the
most satisfying event in my life up to that point,
and I never slept better than in that bed. Maybe
it was just the relief of having a stable place
to live, but I still look back at that time
with fondness. The next few days were spent scouring goodwill
and charity shops for furniture, lamps and such, and by

(01:21):
the end of the week we were settled in and
it was time to look for work. I've never been
averse to hard work. Maybe I'm a massacres, but I've
always sought out the most physically strenuous jobs I could find.
I think a lot of the employers I encountered were
a bit shocked at how hard I pushed myself. My
insane work ethic has a lot to do with my upbringing.

(01:41):
I was one of four children in a very poor family.
We lived in a remote part of West Virginia, and
life was beyond tough. Going to bed hungry was a
regular occurrence, and although I was not above raiding the
neighbor's gardens and the warmer seasons, my Christian morals stopped
me from becoming a full blown criminal. I'd rather not
go into too much depth about my folks, but suffice

(02:04):
it to say my dad's love of the good life
meant he rarely had a job for very long. Mom
did the best she could, but she had her hands
full taking care of us, and as soon as my
last sister got old enough to go to school, Mom
began working part time with her sister at the dry cleaners.
Once I was old enough, I took her place there,
and she moved on to better paying work. Dad and

(02:27):
Mom had split up by then. Life only got harder
after that, but somehow we all survived to become useful
members of society with families of our own. At that time,
there was plenty of work to be had. Texas was
just beginning to grow in the economic powerhouse that it
is to day, and everywhere I looked, houses were popping
up and new people were moving in. Folks were hiring

(02:49):
for every imaginable position. I'd done landscaping work before, so
it seemed logical to try. I bounced from job to job,
sight to sight, doing any work that had let me.
It put food on the table. But working in the
Texas summer was rough and the rainy days weren't much better.
For some crazy reason, I turned to the food service industry.

(03:10):
I was trading one hot place for another. Stupid in retrospect,
but I had been a line cook after high school.
I knew my way around a kitchen. There are a
few things in the South people liked more than eating,
and our area was overflowing with places to do it.
I landed a part time position washing dishes. The pay
was all right, but I was getting killed on gas

(03:30):
costs In the long run, I was about to go
back to landscaping when I got a call from a
waffle house. The pay was better and the location was
less than a mile from her home. I could walk
to work and Missy could take the car if she
needed to, and it seemed like the best thing to do.
Now we could both work full time rather than juggle
our schedules with one car. And I went for the

(03:52):
interview and was hired in less than fifteen minutes. Missy
was over the moon to hear it, and I'll admit
that I was pretty excited too. Stable work, no matter
what it is, can go a long way to ease
your money concerns. Missus boss had been nagging her to
take on more hours, and now she could. Overall, things
were beginning to look up. As I walked to the

(04:14):
restaurant that Monday night, I had the worst case of
butterflies in my life. For some reason, my instincts told
me this job would be like none before it, and
boy did I turn out to be right. My first
couple of weeks turned out to be relatively uneventful. There
were occasional drunks, getting a little rowdy, but they usually
calmed down if we were assertive enough. The rest of

(04:36):
the staff were cool too. Most of them were older
than me, but they didn't take themselves too seriously. When
it was slow, we'd talk about where we'd come from
in our hopes for the future. But when we were slammed,
everyone kept their heads down and got the food out
as quickly as possible. And everything was going really well
until one Friday night when an especially drunk man came

(04:58):
in looking for trouble. In Texas, the bars usually closed
down at two a m. Around two thirty or so,
the drunk stumbled in looking for something good and greasy
to soak up all that booze. Waffle house was a
very popular place to do so on this night, the
regular group of bar patrons came in for their late

(05:18):
night meals, and since this was a smaller city, we
knew most of the people that came in. The overwhelming
majority were salt of the earth, hard working folks just
looking to let off a little steam. They were harmless
for the most part. Unfortunately, this situation was going to
be different from what I recall. It was just before

(05:38):
three a m. When a very intoxicated stranger staggered into
the restaurant. I didn't recognize him, but I was there
to cook food, not vet people. And anyway, the drunk
man paced around, occasionally stopping at tables and then walking
on to the next. Most of the other patrons ignored
him and focused on their meals. And that was until
the drunk man stopped at the bar and began leaning

(06:01):
too close to one of the regulars. And I'll just
call this guy Mike. Mike had been coming in on
the weekends way before I was hired, and I'd bet
he still does. Mike had his own share of drinks
and must have been annoyed at the other man's presence.
He started barking at the man to get away from him,
and he told him he's stunk. The stranger took offense

(06:22):
to this and tried to take a swing at Mike,
but missed. Mike pushed him down onto the floor and
stood up from a stool. He was looking down at
the stranger, shaking his finger at him while he cursed
him out. The drunk stranger stumbled back to his feet
and rushed toward Mike. He managed to punch Mike in
the chest and stomach a few times before Mike pushed

(06:42):
him away again. The stranger fell back on to the
table behind him and just stared for a minute before
turning and running out of the restaurant. I chuckled to
myself as I watched the brief fight before turning back
to my work. A few moments later, I heard a
woman's voice say something like, you're bleeding from your chest, Mike.
I turned back around to see Mike wiping at the

(07:04):
front of his gray shirt. There were a few dark
spots on it, and when Mike looked at his hand,
there was what appeared to be blood on it. And
that was when we realized the drunk stranger had stabbed him,
not punched him. It looked like he managed to pull
out a knife during the scuffle and got a few
quick jabs before Mike could stop him. I'm not sure

(07:26):
what made me do it, but I ran to the
back and grabbed a stack of hand towels, and from
there ran over to Mike and began putting pressure on
the wounds. By now, Mike had dropped to the floor
from shock, I think, and a few other patrons helped
me hold the towels on the wounds while we waited
for the ambulance to arrive. This whole time, Mike was
talking about his kids. I did my best to assure

(07:49):
him that he was going to be okay, but to
be honest, I had no idea how serious his injuries were.
About seven minutes later, the ambulance arrived and whisked Mike away.
We had to close things down while we talked to
the police, and just before dawn we were able to
get things up and running again. And all I could
do that morning as I walked home was think about Mike.

(08:10):
I continued to wonder about his condition that whole weekend,
and when I showed up for work that Monday, I
was told that he had a rough time but was
now out of danger in recuperating in the hospital. For
the next few weeks, I was given little updates by
some of the customers that knew his family. He was
doing well and enjoying his time off of work, though
I think almost two and a half months passed. When

(08:33):
I was standing at the flat top and heard a
familiar voice behind me. I turned around to see Mike
standing there with his big, toothy grin. I asked how
he was doing and he said he was great, and
we shook hands and he gave me a big hug.
He thanked me for saving his life. I wasn't sure
if I had, but I wasn't about to be rude,
and I could tell that he was serious. I quickly

(08:56):
mentioned the others and tried to be humble about my
part in it, and from there the subject just veered
off on to other topics and I returned to my work.
I'd continue to see Mike regularly for about a year
until I got a better paying job elsewhere. It's been
at least fifteen years since I last saw him, and
I hope he's still doing well. I'm not sure if

(09:17):
the drunky that stabbed him was ever caught that night.
It never seemed appropriate to ask. He moved on with
his life, and I didn't want to stir up bad memories. Mike,
if you do happen to hear this or see this,
give me a call. I'd love to catch up. I

(09:43):
used to work at the waffle house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
People sometimes ask me if I ever saw one of
those waffle house brawls or anything like that, but honestly,
it really wasn't that kind of place. We were just
down the street from a bunch of bars and stuff
in the Lehigh College campus. It was less than a
mile away, so we definitely got our fair share of

(10:03):
customers during the midnight hours. But I think during all
the night shifts that I worked, I only saw maybe
two or three physical confrontations, and those mostly consisted of
a little shoving before the two people about to fight
were separated by their friends. And that's not to say
that I didn't end up quitting after a very violent incident.

(10:24):
It's just that the incident in question happened to be
considerably more messed up than some dumb street brawl. As
you can probably guess, weekend night shifts tended to be
the busiest when it came to drunk college kids or
sports fans stopping by for all star specials, but the
weekday night shifts could actually be pretty quiet. You get

(10:45):
your giggly stoners staring at the menus for like twenty
minutes before ordering, but there were never any trouble at all,
and the same went for the truckers and shift workers
who came in the store cold sober for their Paddy
melts and hash browns. But then this one night he
had the super sketchy, crackhead looking guy walked through the doors,
and I swear to God, when he first walked in,

(11:06):
I was like ninety percent certain that he was about
to pull out a gun and rob us. The waffle
house I worked out never had a single robbery for
the whole time that I was employed there, but it
was still one of your biggest fears when it came
to working the night shifts. And whenever anyone came in
who fit that profile, basically anyone who looked like they're
on crack, we always got a little nervous and kept

(11:29):
an extra eye on them. The guy was definitely high
on something, and not only was he twitchy as hell,
but after ordering his food, he just sat in his
booth intermittently looking over at us without even touching his
grilled cheese. I let my coworkers know that the guy
was giving me some pretty bad vibes, then carried on
cleaning down my station while kind of low key scoping

(11:51):
him out. As I'm watching mister twitch, some regular looking
white guy with dark hair walks in and then orders
a car coffee and a piece of triple chocolate pie.
My coworker serves him and he takes a seat at
the counter to drink his coffee. So I just keep
on cleaning while I watch mister Twitch. Mister Twitch looks

(12:12):
up and we make eye contact for a second, and
then he looks back down with this sort of nervous expression,
like he's either high out of his mind or something,
and the paranoia is kicking in or he's thinking about
doing something crazy. And I'm getting more and more nervous.
But then to my left, I hear, don't I know you?

(12:33):
And I look around to see that mister Coffee and
Pie is turned around on his stool and is talking
to a guy eating in the booth behind him. The
guy in the booth is like, I don't think so.
But then mister Coffee and Pie is like, Noah, you
went to such and such elementary school. You were in
my fourth grade math class with missus so and so.

(12:54):
And I can hear that the guy at the table
having a bit of a moment of recognition, but I
wasn't watching them like I was watching mister Twitch. They
go back and forth about how crazy it is to
run into one another in a waffle house at one
thirty in the morning and then start reminiscing about this
and that and the other. I lost track of their
conversation when I went to get some more cleaning supplies,

(13:17):
but when I returned, they were wrapping up their chance
encounter with a few good to see is and take cares.
But then out of nowhere, mister Coffee and Pie stops
by the door and says, oh, and one more thing.
Then I look over just in time to see him
pull a gun from out of his jacket. The guy

(13:38):
sitting in the booth didn't stand a chance. He looked
up just in time to see mister Coffee and Pie
pulled the trigger, and then after three shots, the guy
slumped forward on to his half eaten plate of food.
The place was so quiet after mister Coffee fired his
gun that after I ducked down below the counter, I
heard the sound of the gun hitting the floor after

(14:00):
he dropped it. I stayed down below the counter while
I heard the door open and close, and then everyone
stayed silent for a few more seconds until some lady
started screaming like a goddamn banshee. At the time, there
wasn't really any kind of contingency plan for someone getting
shot in the face at your waffle house. So we

(14:21):
did the only thing we could think of and got
everyone that hadn't run off to walk behind the counter
so we could guide them out into the rear parking lot. Naturally,
everyone was extremely shaken up, and the woman that had
been screaming was hysterically crying. The restaurant was closed for
a few days after that, because obviously the cops had

(14:41):
to perform all kinds of crime scene analytics and forensic stuff.
Waffle House offered us free counseling and a bonus to
anyone from that shift who would return to work. But
unlike my three co workers who were working with me
on the night of the murder, I didn't take management
up on their offer, no matter how generous it was.
They have seemed. They'll call me a coward, but I

(15:03):
just figured why go and work back at a place
like that, where every time I wipe down on a table,
every time I looked at it, I'd be reminded of
that guy slumped over in his food, with that stream
of blood just oozing off the table onto the floor.
I take my hat off to anyone that could just
go back and act like nothing happened. But to me personally,

(15:26):
I'd rather just get a job someplace else, someplace I
don't have memories of someone getting murdered right there in
front of me. I saw some crazy stuff during my
time working at a waffle house. I saw some brawls

(15:48):
between drunk family members. I saw some people getting freaky
in the booths like they thought no one could see them.
And I saw people doing drugs right there at the counter,
as if they didn't give a damn who saw or
told on them. But the single worst thing I ever
saw was something I walked into on a quiet Monday
night shift at a time when I never expected to
see anything so haunting or horrifying. Like I said, it

(16:13):
was just after midnight, so technically a Tuesday morning, and
the only two people seated were these two dudes who
looked like they were a little more than just friends.
They were sitting at their booth, flirting and holding hands
and stuff. Then at that point they both got up
and headed for the bathroom. One of my co workers
waited until we were out of earshot to make a

(16:35):
very crude joke about how if they're not out in
three minutes, I'm going in there to pry them apart.
It was just a dumb joke, though, Like I don't
think anyone believed that they were about to do anything
unsavory in there. Then, within a minute or two, the
older of the two guys walked out of the bathroom,
thanked us for his meal, and then wished us good

(16:55):
night as he walked out of the door and over
to his car, figure that he'd wait for his boyfriend
or husband or whatever. Even as he got into the
driver's seat and started the engine, my buddy and I figured,
any minute now, little twinker bell in the bathroom there
is going to come running out to join his boo.
But no, the older guy slams his door, shut, backs

(17:17):
up his car, and then drives out of the parking
lot and off into the night. We're both like, huh,
that's weird. Where's the other guy? Then, after a minute
or two of waiting around, I volunteered to head into
the bathroom to see what the deal was. I honestly
figured the younger guy would be in the bathroom, probably

(17:38):
just still in a stall, crying because the older dude
had just broken up with him or something like that. That,
or maybe the younger dude couldn't handle his liquor puked
all over the bathroom, and then the older guy was
just like, f this crap, I'm out of here. I
remember pushing open the door, calling out hello, anyone in here,

(17:58):
and the question immediately struck me as dumb, because unless
they escaped out the air vents, there had to be
someone in there. Right away. I could see that there
was someone sitting in the toilet in one of the stalls,
but the fact they didn't respond to my question had
me mildly concerned. I asked, you okay there, buddy, and

(18:19):
when that question got no reply, I knew I had
to check on the guy to make sure he was okay.
We didn't get a lot of drug use, but it
was always a possibility being a late night spot, so
it dawned me that the guy might be overdosing or
something like that, and I knew I had to act fast.
I walked over to the stall, tapped on the door,

(18:39):
but it moved, showing that it was unlocked. I then
pushed it open a little more and as it touched
the guy's knees, it was just enough gentle force to
push him off balance and send him falling off the
toilet to his right, and the second he hit the floor,
I could see something poking out of his right eye eye.

(19:01):
His left was wide open and undamaged, and he seemed
totally unconscious, but there was clearly something long and thin
sticking out of his eye in a way that I
couldn't see the exact entry wound, but I knew it
must have been bad because there was a lot of
blood dripping off whatever it was that was stuck in there,
on top of what was oliver his clothes, and on

(19:21):
the floor too. I immediately felt sick, but rushed to
call the copse and told my coworker to lock the
front doors because the restaurant was now a murder scene.
And that's what it looked like to me anyway, all
that blood and an unconscious person who's been stabbed right
through the eye, and one who hadn't responded to anything
I'd said. I was almost positive that guy was dead,

(19:45):
So imagine my surprise when the ambulance shows up. We
walked into the bathroom and the guy that I thought
was dead was just stumbling around the bathroom with a
hand partially covering his wounded eye. I think the poor
guy suffered some kind of horrible brain injury or something.
The EMTs were telling him, don't touch your eye, and
not only was he acting like he couldn't understand them,

(20:07):
but the stuff he kept responding with was like nonsense
baby talk. It was really distressing to see, and I
had to leave the room as the EMTs went to
work on the guy and then wheeled him out to
the ambulance. The cops showed up around the same time. Then,
after locking the doors behind them, we threw up a
closed sign and then got to talking to the cops

(20:27):
and giving them descriptions of both the older guy and
the car he was driving. Nothing I ever did or
saw was crazier or scarier than when I saw that night,
and frankly, I'm glad nothing ever topped it. But the
thing that haunts me so much about the whole thing
wasn't just how that poor guy got stabbed in the
eyes so deep it messed with his brain. It's how

(20:48):
we never found exactly what happened or why it happened
in the first place. We didn't hear any screaming or yelling,
which you'd figured if there was a fight like that,
someone would have made enough noise to attract our attention,
but it was totally quiet in there. Those two guys
looked like such a happy couple, and on the way out,
the guy had done the I stabbing didn't seem to

(21:09):
even have broken a sweat. He seemed relaxed, had a
big smile on his face, and was perfectly charming and
polite when he thanked us for everything we did that night,
but all that after he had just tried to kill
someone in our men's bathroom. Like I said, I saw
my fair share of crazy fights and serve my fair
share of creepy customers, But none of those memories keeps

(21:32):
me up at night, like remembering the way that guy
smiled as he walked out. It was like taking someone's life,
or at least trying to take it was like the
most normal thing in the world to him. It was

(21:55):
the weekend before spring break was to end, and I
was out with a few friends from school. This was
my senior year in high school. Everyone except my friend
Keith was in their final year. Keith was a junior,
and to be specific, it was Saturday evening at around
fifteen past midnight. The four of us had piled into
Keith's Mustang and went to see a movie earlier in

(22:16):
the evening. After the movie ended, we decided to go
to the waffle house for a late night snack. We
ran into a couple of more friends and lost track
of time, and before we knew it, it was way
past our curfew, including Keith's who was driving. Then we
all paid our bills and rushed out to the car,
only to find that it had a flat tire. Panics

(22:38):
started to take over for a moment, but Kim Keith's girlfriend,
managed to calm us all down. And I was the
only member of the group who had ever changed a
tire before, so obviously I was chosen to do it
this time. I began by asking Keith where a spare
was located, and I was rewarded with a very blank
stare and a lazy shrug, and it was clear that
it was going to be of no help, so I

(23:00):
just went in search of it myself, and after countless
minutes of digging through a giant pile of clothes and junk,
I finally found it. Luckily, the jack and a lug
wrench were lying underneath, and once I was able to
dig everything out, I rolled the tire over and jacked
up the car. Kim was kind enough to sit next
to me and light things up with her phone. Keith

(23:22):
and our friend Seth just sat in the curb texting
people while we did the work, and to be honest,
there really wasn't much they could do, but their lack
of concern did annoy me a bit, especially Keith's. I
shrugged it off and got down to business. The spare
did appear to be a little under inflated, but it
was going to have to do for now, and the
actual operation was going relatively smoothly. But it was looking

(23:46):
like we'd be on the road soon till a new
problem arrived. Just as I was beginning to hand tighten
the bolts on the spare, a car of college guys
pulled up a few spaces over. Normally this wouldn't have
really mean, but in this case it probably meant trouble.
You see, my friends and I had problems with these

(24:06):
guys in the past. Three of the four in the
car had jumped and beaten one of our friends at
a party the summer before, and Keith and I ran
into them a few days later and almost got into
a fight with them. A lot of threats were exchanged,
but their girl friends got them to back off, and
I knew that wouldn't be the end of things. And
now here we were, almost a year later, unable to

(24:27):
get away or distance ourselves. I quickened my pace as
fast as I could, but it was obviously too late,
and just seconds passed when I heard a drunken curse
coming from a yard or so away. Great, I thought,
as if things couldn't be any worse. These morons were
drunk as a skunk, and I knew this wasn't going
to go well, and rather than react, I just continued

(24:49):
my work and our only hope was to get this
done before a fight broke out. Keith and Seth started
exchanging words with those guys and things got heated quickly,
and I was to Kim under my breath that things
were going to be okay, but in truth, I clearly
had my doubts. The last lug nut was tight, and
just as things were popping off, I didn't see the

(25:11):
first hit, but I knew something was wrong. When the
light disappeared, I turned around and saw Keith stumble back
onto the ground. Seth was all alone now and outnumbered
four to one, and without a second thought, I ran
towards the attackers, swinging wildly with that lug wrench as
I went. In hindsight, it's probably a miracle I didn't
seriously injure any one or kill anyone with it. I

(25:33):
know I made contact with at least two people, but
I'm not sure where. And I continued swinging around like
a madman until I heard a voice behind me telling
me to stop. It took me a moment to realize
that it was Seth. I turned around and saw him
waving his hands, and now that I was out of
my haze, I could see Keith lowering the jack while
Kim helped him. I didn't know where the college guys

(25:55):
had gone, and at that point I didn't care. My
single thought was to get away from the situation. Seth
and I gathered up all the tools and threw them
into the trunk while Keith and Kim got into the
car and started it. We hopped into the car and
pretty much squealed out of that parking lot. It's a
miracle that the spare held up, and I don't recall

(26:15):
checking the nuts one last time before leaving. And now
is when I began asking questions. Seth waited patiently until
I finished to answer me, and he said that three
of the four were about to jump him, but I
went crazy and started swinging that wrench around and they
turned to jump on me, but I hit them all
a couple of times and they just turned tail and

(26:36):
took off. And to this day, I still don't really
remember much of it. I guess it doesn't matter, though.
We all got away unharmed and we never saw those
idiots again. I was worried for a while that the
cops were probably going to show up, but thankfully they
never did, and hopefully those losers learned their lesson that night.

(26:56):
No matter how tough you think you are, a scared
nerd with a lug wrench probably is tougher. I worked
in a waffle house for almost two years, mostly night shifts,
and I saw some wild things in my time. I

(27:18):
saw a lot of drama and a lot of stuff
that made me laugh my butt off, but it was
rare that anything actually creeped me out or scared me.
But then, the one thing that I actually did take
home with me has stayed with me for quite some time.
We had a guy poll in just after six a m.
On a Sunday, just like he was headed to church,
and with all the same kind of cheerfulness too. I

(27:41):
remember his order like it was yesterday, steak and eggs
extra hash brown with biscuits and gravy on the side.
Man ate like a king that morning. Then as he
sat there over a clean plate, and as the customers
were filing in here and there, I remember seeing him
make a phone call, and after that he just sort

(28:01):
of sat there and waited. When two cops first walked in,
people looked up, but only in the way that they
would if any other kind of customer walked in. We
get a lot of police officers on and off duty
thanks to the ten percent law enforcement discount that we offer,
so it's not uncommon to see them walk through the door.

(28:22):
But to see them walk straight up to our well
dressed church goer and pull the handcuffs straight out. That
didn't just draw everyone's attention, It pretty much demanded it.
He just stood up, turned around, let himself be handcuffed,
and the cops walked him out of the building and
out to the patrol car. One of the cops drove

(28:44):
the guy off, then the other came back to recommend
that we just closed for the day. Forensics were about
to be all over the guy's car, and it'd be
one hell of a bad look to have an active
crime scene in our parking lot. My supervisor touched base
with management and they agreed that having people watching all
that CSI stuff over their breakfast melts was probably a

(29:04):
major no no. And about an hour later, we'd closed
down the restaurant and I was walking to my car
just as they were pulling the first body out of
that guy's trunk. I caught one glimpse, then averted my
eyes because I instantly recognized that the body was small
child sized and I did not want to deal with

(29:26):
the memory of seeing a dead kid like that. I
texted some coworkers later on saying how I was pretty
sure that they pulled a kid out of the guy's trunk.
And then a few days later the whole story broke
on the news. The well dressed, cheerful customer who ordered
his steak and eggs extra hash brown with biscuits and
gravy on the side, had killed his whole family that

(29:47):
morning before he decided to drive them to a waffle house.
The guy must have known that in the very best
case scenario, he was going to jail for the rest
of his life. Worst case, he'd just be up for
lethal injection. But before any of that, before he had
to face the music, the guy wanted a few final

(30:07):
plates from his favorite breakfast place. And I swear to God,
I would never ever have guessed what a terrible thing
that guy had done. The way he came up to
the counter like it was just your average Sunday morning.
It was like the part of the guy's brain that
accounted for emotion was just gone or broken. I can't
even imagine the kind of headspace that I'd be in

(30:29):
if I just annihilated my own family. I lose my
appetite whenever I even get remotely stressed out. So the
idea that this guy bashed in his two kids brains
and then thought I could go for some biscuits and
gravy right now, that's just about the creepiest, most haunting
thing I've ever been unfortunate enough to cross paths with.

(30:59):
Worst thing I ever saw at a waffle house started
as one of the nicest things I'd ever seen at
a waffle house. There's probably something deeply philosophical in there somewhere,
but I'll be damned if it's me that's finding that.
So me and a fellow buddy stopped by a waffle
house in Gainesville a few years back, first and last
time we ever stopped there. Then as we're eating, a

(31:21):
man comes walking through the doors and gets the reception
of a minor celebrity, and we soon figured out why.
The moment after the guy walked through the doors, different
groups at different tables started trying to get his attention.
It was just after two in the morning, but the
place was still really busy because it had all the
Saturday night drinkers in there, so there was a whole

(31:43):
bunch of people calling out mister Brewer over here, mister
Brewer and stuff like that, and my buddy and I
were like, what's going on? But, like I said, we
soon found out mister Brewer was obviously some kind of
big shot, or at least he sure played it that way,
because he starts walking to each of the tables that
seemed to recognize him and handing out wads of cash,

(32:05):
and he's not just giving them the money, he's sitting
down with them talking to them, asking about their families
and their jobs and stuff, real pillar of the community
type things. And some folks are refusing the money and
are just happy to check in with him. But others,
and I mean no offense by this, look like they
needed it, you know, so they seemed only too happy

(32:25):
to take his money. Anyway, this guy carries on going
from table to table. Then when he seemed done with
his rounds, he stood up and waved goodbye to everyone
as he walked towards the doors. But then as he's walking,
some lady in the back starts calling out something like,
why didn't you pay for our meal? I looked over

(32:46):
and the lady and her old man were looking over
at this mister Brewer guy, and they looked mad. Mister
Brewer starts telling them that he can't pay for everyone's meal.
But this doesn't go down well with the lady and
her man, and she starts saying how Brewer there was
trying to embarrass them or something. And by this point
people were telling the lady to shut up, and this

(33:07):
is making her man even madder, talking about don't you
talk to my woman that way, But mister Brewer's chill
tells everyone to pipe down. Then basically explains that if
they're going to be so rude, he's most definitely not
paying for their food. People start clapping and cheering, and
it's all amped up to eleven because most people are
drunk out of their minds. But again, the rude couple

(33:30):
did not take this swell, and the anger man gets up,
marches toward mister Brewer and takes a swing at him.
The guy's drunk and Brewer seems sober as a judge,
so the swing completely misses, and then people are jumping
in to separate them and push the instigator out of
the waffle house. There were people keeping him outside, people

(33:52):
making sure mister Brewer is okay, and people yelling at
the rude lady to get outside and control her. Man,
my buddy and I are just trapped in the middle
of all that chaos, so we're both just like, let's
get the hell out of here, and taking a few
final sporkfuls of food, we got up and head towards
the door, right in time for the shooting to start.

(34:14):
I didn't see where the shots came from, but I
saw mister Brewer just buckle and hit the floor. Then
the next thing, someone's getting wrestled to the ground outside,
and the cop showed up just in time to put
the cuffs on him while folks outside helped hold him down.
The shooter was that angry guy trying to defend his
woman's honor or whatever, and he just killed a man

(34:35):
because he wouldn't give him money to pay for his waffles.
I think that was probably the worst thing I ever saw,
not just in a waffle house either, ever, and my
mom loved that movie To Kill a Mockingbird, And I
once asked her why it was called something like that
when there was no mockingbirds in it, and she told
me it was because it was the worst kind of

(34:56):
sin to kill a mockingbird, because all they did was
sing and make folks happy. And I feel like that's
what angry guy with the gun did, he killed a mockingbird.
And I just pray that he realizes what he did
and what a terrible, terrible sin it was. I used

(35:23):
to work at a waffle house and we used to
have this one family stop in whose kid was a
total psycho but also had some pretty serious learning difficulties too,
so it was a difficult situation to say the least.
I think he was only like thirteen or fourteen, but
we used to joke about how his parents must have
been slipping supplements into his milk bottle or whatever, because

(35:45):
he was huge for his age, and that was just
about the only funny thing about him, though everything else
was a total nightmare. He beat up two employees one day,
broke one of their noses, and did thousands of dollars
in damage to both company property and staffs. Televisions, windows, doors,
gaming systems, windshields, glasses, phones, you name it, he broke it.

(36:09):
His parents used to get mad at us if we
called the police to help us. They didn't want him
to get a bad reputation in the community, which was
ironic because I'm not sure his rep could be any worse.
We weren't officially forbidden from personally pressing charges, but it
was not encouraged. Everyone did everything to make sure he
never faced any consequences. For the two staff that he pulverized,

(36:31):
he had to draw a picture to say he was sorry.
He finished the picture and his parents brought him along
to present it to us with an apology, and I
swear to God, he looked one of my coworkers dead
in the eyes and said, I'm not sorry, I'm glad
I did it. I wish I'd hurt them worse. His
mom yelled at him, told him not to be so rude,
and I don't think any of us were all surprised.

(36:55):
I ended up dealing with him on a couple of
other occasions, and when he wasn't in a rage, he
had his moments of decency, and one of our calmer conversations,
he was playing legos and I asked him if he'd
like to talk about some ways to avoid hurting people
when he gets angry. The kid looked me dead in
the eyes and said, no, I don't want to stop

(37:15):
hurting people. I like hurting people. I asked him why,
and he shrugged and told me I just like it.
It's fun. I still think about that kid from time
to time, and whenever I do, I wonder how much
longer it'll be before I see him featured in some
online news article about how he's killed someone or beating

(37:38):
them half to death, something violent in nature. Anyway, I
hope his family have found more effective ways to deal
with whatever he was suffering with. But to be brutally honest,
I think the way they treated him made him worse
and worse. You can't have kids like that thinking there's
no consequences, even if they are a little slow, And

(37:59):
that's how he ended up up with the Green River
Killers or sons of sam As. I said, I wonder
what they'll call that kid if force comes to worse
and he ends up taking a life instead of making
one for himself. In the early hours of April twenty second,

(38:22):
twenty eighteen, twenty nine year old Travis Jeffrey Rhyme King
pulled into the parking lot of a waffle house in
the Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee. Sitting in his pickup truck,
Travis spent the next four minutes contemplating what he was
about to do. He was completely naked apart from a
thin green jacket which covered his torso, and resting on

(38:44):
the back seat of his truck was a fully loaded
assault rifle. Travis was born in Morton, Illinois, on February
first of nineteen eighty nine. He had a history of
erradiced conduct, paranoia, and delusions, and was particularly obsessed with
the globally renowned singer songwriter Taylor Swift. He once told

(39:06):
coworkers that Swift had accepted his marriage proposal, but when
confronted on the date of a supposed matrimony, Travis announced
the engagement had been canceled after he realized that he
was gay and that he and Swift were never, ever,
ever getting back together. In May of twenty sixteen, sheriff's

(39:26):
deputies in Tazewell County responded to a call from Ryan
King's parents in the parking lot of a drug store.
Upon their arrival, paramedics saw Travis was suffering some kind
of mental breakdown and heard him claim that Taylor Swift
was hacking his phone as well as stalking him. A
subsequent written report stated Travis's hostile towards police and does

(39:48):
not recognize police authority. Travis also possesses several firearms. Later
in twenty seventeen, Travis was living in an apartment above
his father's crane rental business in Tremont, Illinois. He was
briefly employed as a crane operator for another company, but
quit his job in March twenty seventeen because he believed

(40:09):
police were following him that his last chance to marry
Taylor was swiftly approaching. In June of that same year,
an employee of his father's business called the police, saying
Travis had walked downstairs carrying a rifle and wearing a
pink dress. He then tossed the rifle in his trunk,
cursing loudly as he did so, before departing the building.

(40:30):
On another occasion, the director of a public swimming pool
called the police to report Travis had arrived wearing and
quote a pink woman's housecoat. When asked to leave, Travis
reportedly exposed himself to lifeguards and members of the public alike,
but fled the scene before he could be apprehended by
attending police officers. Just over a month later, Secret Service

(40:52):
agents arrested Travis near the White House after he crossed
a barrier and refused to leave. The Secret Service said
right King had said he wanted to set up a
meeting with the President and that he mentioned being a
sovereign citizen. Travis was subsequently charged with the misdemeanor of
unlawful entry and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. He

(41:15):
agreed to perform thirty two hours of community service and
agree to stay away from the White House on the
pain of much more serious charges by November of twenty seventeen,
Travis had successfully completed the program, meaning his case was
dismissed entirely, but his conviction meant authorities in Illinois were
entitled to revoke his state firearms authorization. Police then confiscated

(41:39):
two bolt action hunting rifles, four semi automatic long guns,
and a single handgun. However, after being approached by Travis's father,
Jeff Rhyme King, who promised to keep the weapons secure
and away from his son, the firearms were returned. Travis
was once again employed as a crane operator from January
until April two, twenty eighteen, and used his wages to

(42:02):
relocate to Davidson County, Tennessee. However, on April third, he
was fired after claiming that his fellow employees were in
I quote after him. As not clear what Travis did
over the next two weeks or so, but on April eighteenth,
he stole a brand new BMW X six from a
dealer's ship in Brentwood, but was swiftly apprehended by the

(42:24):
police after they tracked the car's location using its built
in GPS system. Again, as not clear what Travis did
in the days between his arrest for car theft and
his arrival at the Antioch waffle House. But after those
long four minutes spent contemplating his future, Travis grabbed the rifle,
stepped out of his truck, and began walking towards the restaurant.

(42:48):
Inside the waffle house, two close friends named James Shawn
b J mc murray were enjoying their food. James had
been an electrical technician since the age of eighteen, stating
that I've been destroying stuff and putting it back together
since I was a little kid. I would take stuff
apart and just hope I could reassemble it. After graduating

(43:08):
from Tennessee State University, James began working for a T
and T installing internet, television and film connections and homes
and apartments across Tennessee. James and B Jay had been
sat in the booth for around twenty five minutes when
suddenly both heard a loud pop before near by windows
suddenly shattered. I knew straightaway that they were gun shots,

(43:31):
James later said. Some me and Bjay rushed towards the
bathrooms to take cover, Yet it also occurred to him
that if he hid in the bathroom, he'd be cornered
and almost completely defenseless. It was then that James remembered
the simple three word instruction that had recently been given
to people caught up in such a senselessly violent incident.

(43:52):
Run hide fight. James positioned himself behind the counter, out
of sight of the restaurant floor, just as a heavily
armed Travis walked through the doors of the waffle house.
He fired two more shots at cowering Innocence, killing one
and seriously injuring another. But following that second shot, Travis's

(44:14):
weapon suddenly jammed. Sensing the opportunity to strike, James launched
himself over the counter and lunged for Travis's rifle. As
his hand found the weapon's barrel, searing pain shot up
James's arm as the heated rifle barrel inflicted second degree
burns to the skin of his palm. But at that moment,

(44:35):
and thanks to the huge amount of adrenaline coursing through
his veins, James could barely feel any discomfort whatsoever. All
he was focused on was neutralizing the threat. Travis had
been completely and utterly surprised by James's decisive and valiant
actions and failed to prevent him from wrestling the rifle
from his grip. James then tossed the rifle over the counter,

(44:58):
out of Travis's reach and and began furiously beating him.
Travis discarded his jacket, the only item of clothing he
was wearing during the ensuing fracas, and then fled the
waffle house on foot. The subsequent man hunt lasted just
under thirty four hours, but eventually Travis was tracked down
to some woods not far from the waffle house, where

(45:20):
he was cornered, then arrested. Following his eventual surrender, shortly
after news of the shooting hid the airwaves, Nashville Mayor
David Brily was quoted as saying, it's a tragic day
for our city anytime people lose their lives at the
hands of a gunman. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam added that
he was deeply saddened by the tragic incident in Antioch

(45:43):
earlier this morning, and we mourned the lives taken in
this senseless act of violence. Prior to his trial, Travis
was charged with four counts of criminal homicide, four counts
of attempted homicide, and one count of having a firearm
while committing a dangerous felony. Following an intense psychiatric examination,

(46:03):
forensic psychologists declared that Travis was suffering from severe schizophrenia,
leading a judge to categorize him as unfit to stand trial.
Travis was then committed to a mental hospital for treatment,
but just over a month later, it was determined that
psychologists had grossly overestimated the extent of Travis's mental illness,

(46:25):
and then, in essence, Travis had played up the worst
of his symptoms in order to court their sympathies. He
was declared fit to stand trial, but in January of
twenty twenty, prosecutors announced that they would not seek the
death penalty against Travis and would instead seek a sentence
of life without parole. Travis pleaded not guilty by reason

(46:48):
of insanity to sixteen counts of murder and assault, but
was found guilty on all counts at his trial's conclusion.
Then the following day, the judge sentenced him to life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Travis's father, Geoffrey Rhine King,
was later charged with unlawful delivery of a firearm for
returning the weapons to his son. He was eventually found

(47:11):
guilty in May of twenty twenty two and sentenced to
a year and a half in prison. The attack claimed
four victims, Aquila Da Silva, de Ebony Groves, Joe Perez,
and Torreon Sanderland, but all agreed that if it wasn't
for James Shaw's courageous actions, many more people would have

(47:32):
lost their lives. James later established a GoFundMe campaign to
raise money for the families of the four victims, with
donations surpassing two hundred thousand by May of twenty eighteen.
While he has been described as a hero by numerous people,
including Tennessee authorities, James has stated that he does not
think of himself in those terms. Quote, I did that

(47:54):
completely out of a selfish act, he said. I was
completely doing it just to save myself. Now, in me
doing that, I recognize that I saved other people, but
it was never my intention. I never set out to
be a hero. I'm just a regular guy who happened
to be in the right place at the right time.
The following month, at the twenty eighteen MTV Movie and

(48:16):
TV Awards, the late Chadwick Boseman won an award for
Best Hero for his work in Black Panther. However, during
his acceptance speech, Boseman brought James Shaw to the stage
and instead presented him with the award for Best Hero.
Boseman then stated, receiving an award for playing a superheroes amazing,

(48:38):
but it's even greater to acknowledge the heroes that we
have in real life. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Click
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