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I tried not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His social worker assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee. He was short, a little fat, with the smooth facial features and thick-togued speech of Down's Syndrome（唐氏综合症）. I thought most of my customers 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 regular trucker customers 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.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled. 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 heart surgery. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often had heart problems at an early age 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, did a little dance when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at her and asked, “Okay, Frannie, what was that all about?”
"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.
After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I cleared off that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting after they left, and I found this. 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".
That was three months ago. Today is New Year's day, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he had been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, 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. I took him and his mother by their arms. "To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me.”
I led them toward a large corner booth. I could feel and hear truck customers and the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups and dinner plates, all sitting slightly on dozens of folded paper napkins.
"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said.
Stevie looked at me, and 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 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!"
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.
