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1、Unit 1Something for stevieI 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 wasnt sure I wanted one. I wasnt sure how my customers would react. Stevie w
2、as short, a little dumpy, with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs syndrome. I wasnt worried about most of my trucker customers. Truckers dont generally care who buses tables as long as the food is good and the pies are homemade. The ones who concerned me were the mouthy col
3、lege kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded “truck-stop germ;” and the pairs of white-shirted businessmen on expense accounts who think every truck-stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those peopl
4、e would be uncomfortable around Stevie, so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.I shouldnt have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his little finger. Within a month my trucker regulars had adopted him as their official truck-stop mascot. After that I really di
5、dnt care what the rest of the customers thought. 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, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with
6、 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 hurry to the empty table and carefully b
7、us the dishes and glasses onto the cart and meticulously wipe the table with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brows 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
8、 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, admi
9、tted 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.Thats why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie
10、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 have heart problems at an early age, so this wasnt unexpected. There was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape a
11、nd 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 whoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, on
12、e of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of 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. 9 He grinned. “OK, Frannie, what was that all about?” he asked. 10 “We just got word th
13、at Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.” she responded. “I was wondering where he was,” said Belle. “I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?” 12 Frannie quickly told him and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevies surgery, then sighed. “Yeah, Im glad he i
14、s going to be okay,” she said, “but I dont know how he and his mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, theyre 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 offic
15、e. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face. “Whats up?” I asked. “That table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting,” 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 opene
16、d it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed “Something For Stevie.”“Pony Pete also asked me what that dance 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
