STEVIE
I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His
placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable
busboy.
But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn't sure I
wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and
thick-tongued speech of Down Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of
mytrucker customers because truckers don't generally care who buses
tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.
The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college
kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their
silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded
"truckstop germ"; the pairs of white shirted business men on expense
accounts who think every truckstop waitress wants to be flirted with. I
knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely
watched him for the first few weeks.
I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff
wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck
regulars had adopted him as their official truckstop mascot. After
that, I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him.
He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and
eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt
and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee
spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem
was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers
were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight
from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was
empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes
and glasses onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a
practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching,
his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing
his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please
each and every person he met.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was
disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their
Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truckstop.
Their Social worker, which stopped to check on him every so often, admitted
they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid
him was probably the difference between them being able to live together
and Stevie being sent to a group home.
That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August,
the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his
heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had
heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was
a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be
back at work in a few months.
A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when
word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine.
Frannie, head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in
the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular
trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old grandmother
of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed
her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look. He grinned. "OK,
Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked. "We just got word that
Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay." "I was wondering where
he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?"
Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at
his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed. "Yeah, I'm glad he is
going to be OK" she said. "But I don't know how he and his Mom are
going to handle all the bills.
From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is." Belle Ringer
nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her
tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie
and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own
tables that day until we decided what to do.
After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple
of paper napkins in her hand a funny look on her face." What's up?" I
asked. "I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were
sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were
sitting there when I got back to clean it off" she said. "This was
folded and tucked under a coffee cup." She handed the napkin to me, and
three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in
big, bold letters, was printed "Something For Stevie." "Pony Pete asked
me what that was all about," she said, "so I told about Stevie and his
Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete,
and they ended up giving me this." She handed me another paper napkin that
had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were
tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes,
shook her head and said simply "truckers."
That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie
is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he's been
counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't
matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past
week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten
him or that his job was in jeopardy.
I arranged to have his mother bring him to work, met them in the
parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Stevie was
thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors
and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.
"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him and his mother
by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming
back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me." I led them toward a
large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the
rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining
room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning
truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big
table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner
plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.
"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I
tried to sound stern. Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then
pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something for Stevie" printed on
the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.
Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from
beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I
turned to his mother. "There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that
table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your
problems.
Happy Thanksgiving."
Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and
shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know what's
funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each
other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all
the cups and dishes from the table. Best worker I ever hired.
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