The Truck Stop Busboy

"Something For Stevie" (Author Unknown)

"Something For Stevie"
(Author Unknown)

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me he would be a good, reliable busboy.

I had never had a mentally handicapped employee though and wasn't sure I wanted one. I didn’t know how my customers might 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 my trucker customers. Truckers don't care who buses tables, as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheel 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 a "truck stop germ", and the white-shirted businessmen on expense accounts who think truck stop waitresses want to be flirted with.

I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I needn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month, even my trucker regulars 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 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, and not a bread crumb or coffee spill was anywhere 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 Stevie 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 he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated cancer surgeries. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop.

Their social worker stopped to check on him every so often and admitted they had fallen between the cracks.  Money was tight, and what I paid him probably made the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. 

The restaurant was a gloomy place one morning last August. It was the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve put in his heart. His social worker said people with Down Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age, so it wasn't unexpected.

There was a good chance he would come through the surgery fine and be back at work in a few months.

Later that morning, word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.  A ripple of excitement ran through the staff.  Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Bell Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at this 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 Stevie is out of surgery and he’s going to be okay."

"I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery for?"

Frannie quickly told Bell Ringer and the other two drivers in his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed: "Yeah, I'm glad he’s 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, 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 (I 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 came 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.

She handed the napkins to me, and when I opened them, three $20 bills fell onto my desk. Printed on the outside in big bold letters was: "Something for Stevie."

“Pony Pete asked what that was all about, so I told him about Stevie and his Mom. Pete and Tony Tipper whispered for a minute and ended up giving me this." She handed me another paper napkin with "Something for Stevie" scrawled on the  outside. Inside were two $50 bills tucked in the folds.”

Frannie looked at me all teary-eyed, shook her head and said simply: "Truckers."

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to come back to work.  His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work.  It didn't matter at all that this was a holiday.

He called ten times the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, afraid we had forgotten him and his job was in jeopardy.

I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. Then I met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his first day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but he couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were.

"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took Stevie and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a while. 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 get up and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table, its surface covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.

"But the first thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said, trying to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then he picked up 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 other 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 this table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems.

"Happy Thanksgiving!”

Well, it got real noisy in there, after that. Everybody was hollering and cheering, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what's really funny? While everyone else was busy celebrating and hugging each other, Stevie had a huge smile on his face. He was just happy to be back at work clearing the cups and dishes from the table. 

Best worker I ever hired.

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
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