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 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 its 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, 
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 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 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 Stevie's surgery.

"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 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 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 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 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 eachother, 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. . . . . .