Something for Stevie

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 meat loaf 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 his 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.
The 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, 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 Steve 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, Steve, 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.

Plant a seed and watch it grow. At this point, you can
bury this inspirational message or forward it !
WELL.................DONT JUST SIT THERE!