Fifteen years after starting at The Contributor, vendor Keith D. continues to consistently top the vendor sales list. Over the years, he’s learned which days are the best to sell the paper, how to manage his schedule based on the weather and how to show his customers his consistency. Keith now helps lead tours for Unseen Nashville, where he educates the community around what it is like to live on the streets in Nashville.
The Contributor asked Keith about his time at the paper, his garden and his beloved, wild outdoor cats.
When did you start selling the paper?
I started selling the paper on Halloween of 2011. I heard about it from four people on the bus who were discussing what they had made selling it. I looked at them and they all had badges on, and I wondered where could I go to start selling the paper. I had been fired from my job in March that year. I had eaten through my savings and hardly had anything left, so I came to the Contributor office, had an interview and started selling that day. During my interview, I bragged that I would be in the Top 15 of vendors because I had been a waiter before and I was sure that skill would transfer to selling papers. And it has because I’ve consistently been in the Top 15 for every issue, if not the Top 10.
Why do you keep selling the paper?
Well, I keep selling it because I can make my own hours, which means I know what I need to work to maintain rent, electric bill, phone bill, water bill, plus the necessities of life. And I have to work around the weather. I know if it’s going to rain that means I better work the sunny days before and after. And of course, I save any good days for bad because sometimes there’s a whole week off like the ice storm. I was able to pay my bills from what I had saved before the ice storm, which they had forecast was coming six days before it happened. And my power was only off 10 days, eight hours and 13 minutes.
Keith, that’s so long. Oh my gosh.
Well, take two minutes off the total. It came on the ninth day for two minutes and went back off.
What did you do during that time?
Froze. I had a kerosene heater and I learned how to cook on top of it. And of course that week it was down in the single digits at night and barely above 30 during the day for at least eight of those days. It was very cold! When I went to work a few days after the roads cleared, people were asking me, “It’s so cold. What are you doing out here?” And I said, “I’m just standing in this refrigerator to go home to the freezer.” My street has eight residences on it. So when the power went out, I looked around and I could see the lights on in a huge apartment complex right next to the property I live on. And I’m like, we’re screwed because I knew they were not going to be in a hurry to fix eight people’s electricity when supposedly 230,000 people were without power. I knew they were going to go hit the big places first.
What are your living arrangements?
A friend of mine built an addition on his house. It’s basically a small studio apartment. He wanted to rent it to somebody he knew, but he didn’t know anybody that would want to rent it. And I said I would. And he at first said no, because if I sell papers, how could I pay rent? So I had him ask my previous landlord how I was on paying rent. And that landlord told him I paid up a month ahead sometimes, so I got to rent it, and I’ve been there ever since. And I get to have a garden. I like to grow things.
What are the plans for the garden this year?
This year, the ice storm made the deer leave. I haven’t seen a deer or a deer track since the ice storm. There’s a 180 acre field of winter wheat a quarter mile away from me. I think they all found that while wandering around trying to find something to eat. Hopefully they’ll stay there. I haven’t had squash or zucchini in four years because the deer would eat it as soon as it came out of the ground. A few years ago, they came up to my deck to eat the tomato plants! Five years ago there were deer around, but they never touched any of the squash or zucchini. But I guess they got so populous that they were just eating anything they could find because they are building apartments everywhere.
I’ve been lucky enough to receive some of your garden’s bounty over the years.
Well, every year when I plant stuff I say a prayer that if I have extra that I will share with everybody. Some years I’m able to give up to 80 bags of stuff to people. I could never tell you who I gave it to because I’ll be like, oh, I’ve got four bags, let’s see, I haven’t given this person any. So everybody gets a share of it. Some people will buy a paper from me and then I’ll give them a bag of produce and they’ll try to offer me money for it. But I know if I take money for any of this stuff, a plague will come and eat it up because I made a promise to give and not sell.
You’re also part of the team of vendors who lead the Unseen Nashville tours that The Contributor has started offering people in the community. What do you hope people get out of your tours?
Well, I hope that they get to see firsthand the situation of homeless people. This week we led a practice tour that went down to the river where People Loving Nashville does their Monday night service. We discussed the noise level, the heat, the cold. You know, you’re doing this for an hour, but imagine living in this. You see that stinky alley? How would you like to find a piece of half clean cardboard to lay on in that muck that’s dripping down? So we want people to experience firsthand. I was homeless downtown in the late eighties, and there were hardly any homeless people back then. The homeless explosion started in the late ‘80s due to policy changes and the introduction of crack and all the hardcore drugs that you didn’t see earlier. When I was homeless downtown in the eighties, I spent the night at the Capitol building sometimes. I would be unseen because they used to have bushes and stuff down there. There’s no growth anywhere downtown anymore. The growth has been cut down from four feet tall down to the ground, so there’s no hiding anywhere downtown. The benches have all been taken up too. There’s some kind of movement putting handmade wooden benches everywhere and the city has decided to let them stay because people should have someplace to rest without having to pay for it.
What do you think of the newspaper?
It’s a well written paper. It’s balanced real well with vendor writing and other articles by other people that are not vendors. There’s a crossword, there’s History Corner, there’s vendor poetry. There’s something for everybody because I’ve had customers tell me particular things they like. I had one couple quit taking the paper. They told me it was “very left” and they didn’t want the paper anymore, but for some reason in the last three months they’ve been saying, “Oh, well we’ll go ahead and take the paper this time.” So, there’s something in it they like. They’re just not saying what is! It’s not due to my vendor writing, which I’m scared to submit to you.
I know that when you’re ready you’ll submit and I will love them.
I’ve got two right now that I’m working on. The first is “Mama Pal’s Ice Adventure” where she disappeared for 18 days and came back and petted me. I’ve never been able to pet her. And the other one I want to write is about when a homeless guy that holds a sign at my spot pointed at a big box of food a couple weeks ago and said, “You know what that man told me when he gave me that food? It’s out of date, but it’s good enough for me.” So I’m going to write a story about that because I’ve had people give me out of date stuff, but not say it that rude like that.
I have one woman who flies by me to give me Boar’s Head meat and cheese, but it’s three weeks out of date. And I don’t realize who it is until I’m taking it out of her hand and I’m like, I should get her license plate and put an attempted murder charge on her. Because not only is that stuff three weeks out of date, but Boar’s Head was in the news for listeria. For some reason she keeps buying it and not eating it and thinks it’s good enough for somebody sitting down on the corner. But my cats love meat, so I give it to them.
Tell me about the cats on your spot.
I’ve got Mama Pal. She’s the original. Her wild mama dropped her off near my spot when she was eight weeks old. I named her kitten Little Pal and when Little Pal brought me two kittens a year and a half later, I knew it was Mama Pal, not Little Pal, not the male, I thought it was. I’ve got Mini, he’s three years old. He’s a tomcat and I can pick him uo, pet him. He follows me like a little dog every morning. His brother Muffin found a home and told me goodbye. I wrote about that for the paper last year. Then there’s Brownie. She’s a girl and there’s three one-year-old kittens that I haven’t named, but they all look alike.
Is there anything you would want to say to your customers?
Yeah, I deeply appreciate all the customers, especially my very regular customers. And I appreciate anyone who takes the paper and reads the paper. One third of the people that take the paper are Hispanic and don’t read English, but they take the paper knowing that’s what I want them to do, to take the paper. I wish there could be more stories translated into Spanish. I sell in Antioch and it’s about one third Hispanic. If it wasn’t for the Hispanic customers taking the paper and giving me money, I would be very low.
Is there anything you’d want to say to your fellow vendors?
Be consistent. Try to do the same hours every day that you work. Of course you can’t work every day due to weather or appointments and stuff, but the days you do work, be there at the same time every day. People look for that.