"Something For 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 my trucker 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 the 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 the 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, my

  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 him 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.