Anquenette S. and her husband Billy love movies.
“We watch a lot, a lot of movies … I like a lot of action, I like horror movies,” Anquenette said. “I love The Walking Dead. We used to have a lot of movies.”
Billy used to have several shelves’ worth of DVDs at his mother’s house. But for years, the two were a hair’s breadth from living unsheltered on the street. Anquenette used her income from The Contributor to secure hotel rooms for the night, every night.
Last year, Anquenette’s name came up on a housing waitlist in Nashville, and she moved into her first apartment in over a decade. While it’s mostly furnished, she’s in the market for a bookshelf — after all, she and Billy have a big collection to rebuild.
“I was first homeless here back in 2009 … I said, ‘God, please give me a house.’ When He gave me a place, I thanked God for it. I just wanted to go home,” she said. “I love [the room]. The kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, it’s all so big.”
And after years adjusting to a rigorous schedule of constant vending, she’s happy to finally have the luxury of the occasional vacation day, she said — even if her instinct to be productive occasionally precedes relaxation.
“I can go across the street, have a good time, and walk outside,” she said. “But you know, I clean! I like to clean, I like to wash dishes. I wash everything, that’s my problem. Every time I come home, it’s like, ‘Baby! Baby, stop, when you get off of work, you always just wanna clean!’ I can’t help it. My mother always told me, ‘When you go to work, clean up. When you get back home, clean up.’”
Despite that, though, worrying about bills on a monthly basis rather than a nightly one marks a significant burden lifted.
“No hotel no more,” she said. “Thank God. No hotel no more.”
While not deeply religious herself, Anquenette was raised to put all her faith in God. She said the Christian rhetoric allowed her to carry forward a connection to her late mother and aunt she might have lost otherwise.
“I miss my momma … I can hear her voice in my head right now,” Anquenette said. “Church is in my family, that’s the way that I was raised. I love it because of my mother. That’s why I’m so strong, my momma always told me to stay strong. Her name is so powerful; her name is Faith. And faith is power.”
That power helped her through years spent scraping together the cash to get by. She earned a reputation in downtown Nashville for her sense of humor and constant presence, selling seven days a week.
“Yeah, I’m known [downtown],” she said. “Actually, I’m known everywhere … they love my spirit because I make people laugh. I love myself, and I don’t wanna see people sad. I wanna see people smile and have fun.”
She explained that the environment downtown is sometimes dreary. Growing up in Nashville, she watched as it transformed over the last decade into something nearly unrecognizable. She said it had changed some for the better and some for the worse, but was focused on being a welcome presence and paying forward the kindness she’s been shown wherever possible.
Busy people shuffle to and from their workplaces against a backdrop of traffic and tourists, and while Anquenette encounters a lot of generosity and friendly faces — like the stranger who helped furnish her new apartment with cutlery and dishes — she also encounters a lot of indifference, racism and cruelty.
Anquenette said it’s best to offer them all the same grace she learned from her mother.
“Like I say: God bless ‘em.”