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's
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 it's place, not a bread crumb or coffee
spill was visible, when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was
convincing 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, 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 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's Syndrome often had heart problems at a 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 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
Stevies 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 til 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 TonyTipper 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 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 it's outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within it's 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 possession.
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......