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 Downs 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
"truck stop germ"; the pairs of white shirted business men on expense
accounts who think every truck stop 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 truck stop 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 a 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 truck stop.

Their social worker, who 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 Downs
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, headwaitress, 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 and 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 ten 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.

 

 

"These days people seek knowledge, not
wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom
is of the future" (Lumbee)

The first peace...is that which comes within the
souls of men when they realize their [relationship]
with the universe and all its Powers...is really
everywhere, it is within each of us." (Oglala Lakota)

"The more you know
The more you will trust
and the less you will fear." (Ojibway)