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The Truck Stop
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, 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 bussing 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 bussing 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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AUTHOR . . . UNKNOWN |
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MUSIC . . . I
NEED THEE EVERY HOUR |
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