Paul Bass Photo
A white Kia pulled up to the curb. Kenta Wilson’s plan for the morning was about to change.
Wilson, who’s 51, had stopped to catch his breath before proceeding west on Whalley Avenue. He had started the day at sunrise after catching a nap at his sister’s house. It was now 9:15 a.m. He had maybe a dozen redeemable plastic beverage bottles tucked amid the blankets and garments stuffed into his rusted shopping cart. The plan was to make his way 2.7 miles west to the Amity Stop & Shop with dozens more bottles.
Shirley Bell (pictured) emerged from the Kia. She had been on her way to pick up her granddaughter when she noticed Wilson with his cart. She doesn’t know Wilson. She keeps bags of bottles in her car to give to collectors she sees on the road.
Bell handed Wilson two tall kitchen bags with a week and a half’s worth of soft drink empties. “I’m a missionary,” she said. “I’m getting ready to do 100 care bags for the homeless.”
As she drove off, Wilson returned to pushing his cart. Only now he pushed it east, toward a Stop & Shop just two and a half blocks away. He prefers the Amity S&S: The redemption center there is larger, cleaner. The machines work better. It gets less crowded.
But now he had a large enough stash to redeem. And the new route would bring him en route to the Community Soup Kitchen on Broadway, where he could get lunch and meet up with friends.
The switch was one of several decisions Wilson would make while walking to lunch. A man who values his freedom, making his own decisions, Wilson prefers sleeping outside or, say, in a friend’s parked truck to having to show up before dark at a homeless shelter and staying there all night. But his decisions can also depend on actions of people around him.
Wilson's gloves for bottle collection and redemption: "I'm not a germaphobe. But I want to be healthy."
"DeDe," a talisman Wilson found on the ground the other day. "He was hanging out. So I just picked him up. He looked lonely. He chills out with me."
Wilson got his first job as a teen growing in the McConaughy Terrace projects. Crack had hit big. He made money selling it.
He eventually landed a four-year prison term. After that he worked at McDonald’s, Wendy’s. His favorite gig was loading and delivering fruits and vegetables at a distributor on Long Wharf. But that was years ago. For the last decade has has relied on bottles and on side gigs.
Like shoveling.
“I would love the winter weather to hit,” Wilson said during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program, as the mid-February mercury headed toward 60 degrees. “I know guys don’t like that. But that’s the money. I need that for the shoveling. Everybody else would rather be dry. I need that. That’s a couple extra dollars.
“I would love a bunch of snow.”
While it pays less, bottle collecting has its upsides: “Lots of fresh air,” for instance. And “I always loved the earth.”
The best bottle day he can remember brought him $40. Most days bring considerably less.
Wilson still occasionally gets arrested out on the streets; five times since 2013 he has pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. He would love, he said, to find his way to a landscaping job.
Never Mind Cashes In
Wilson found his way to Stop & Shop by 9:44. The redemption center doesn’t open until 10 a.m. Another regular had already shown up.
“It’s 10 o’clock by my watch,” one of the Stop & Shop parking lot workers said as he began to slide open the door.
Sign at redemption center: A new state law has increased bottle collectors' yields.
“It’s 9:45. No damn 10 o’clock,” said J (pictured above), another worker whose duties include monitoring the often crowded redemption center, as he closed the door back.
“I’m in no rush,” Wilson said. “I can chill out until it’s my turn.”
“We all gotta follow the rules,” J said. Based on his experience, he said, if he opens early one day, someone else will come early the next morning and demand he open up early again, even if the room’s not ready. “It causes arguing. We don’t need that.”
Then J mentioned to Wilson that he had recently cleaned out his closet and had clothes he planned to bring him the next day. He’d brought Wilson sneakers, pants, shirts in the past.
“I love them,” J, who is 61 and has worked at the store since 1999, said of Wilson and some of the regulars.
At 9:53, J changed his mind. He had cleaned up the center. No one was arguing or causing trouble. “I got other stuff to do.” So in went Wilson and another regular collector, who said to call him “Never Mind” (pictured above). Never Mind had four extra-large lawn bags stuffed with what appeared to be hundreds of empties.
“You go out and hustle, you get a big bag!” Never Mind admonished Wilson.
The narrow facility has six Envipco brand Ultra 48 machines: three to receive and process plastic bottles, two for cans, one for glass. Most of Never Mind’s and Wilson’s bottles were plastic.
Each man set up at a plastics machine. Wilson’s promptly malfunctioned.
Never Mind held his position at the last remaining plastics machine. He funneled his bottles at a rate of 16 or more per minute, continually holding a second in reserve with one hand while re-submitting rejected bottles with the other.
Still, it was going to be a long wait. Wilson leaned back in the back corner. “I’m patient,” he said.
Twenty minutes later, at 10:15, Never Mind was still going strong — with plenty of plastics left to process. “Hurry up,” Wilson offered, to no effect.
Just then a Highlander pulled up to the supermarket entrance.
“It’s an Uber!” Wilson called out as the driver, Sandra Perez, opened the back to reveal bags of empties.
Alas, she wasn’t dropping them off for the regulars. She planned to redeem them herself.
She usually makes a point of going to the East Haven or Guilford Stop & Shop instead, because they have larger, cleaner redemption centers “There’s 20 machines. You’re in and you’re out,” she said.
She wasn’t going to be on the Shoreline today, so she thought maybe she’d get lucky at her neighborhood Stop & Shop.
Then she took a look in the door.
“Never mind,” she said. The bags remained in the Highlander.
Back inside, Never Mind had advice for Wilson.
“I made $200 in a day,” he claimed as he kept working. “You can’t expect people to give you shit. You gotta go out and get it.”
By 10:30, Never Mind was ready to move on to the glass machine. Wilson stepped up, fed the plastics into the working machine at a steady pace, retrieved redemption slips after each batch. By 10:36 he had 13 slips worth a total of $4.90, which he brought inside the supermarket itself.
Spicy Dilemma
Before hitting the “Solution Center” desk to pick up his cash, Wilson wandered into Aisle 9 to check out the instant soups, which form a staple of his daily diet, he said.
He saw Maruchan Instant Lunch Brand single-serving cups on sale for 69 cents. That looked good. But the space with the spicy-flavored option was cleared out. So no sale. “It’s wintertime,” he explained. “I like to get stuff that’s spicy.”
One shelf down, an array of Nissin Hot & Spicy noodle alternatives stared at him for twice the price.
Wilson paused, considered his fund balance. (Watch him explain his thinking in the above video.)
“As an economist,” Wilson said, “I’m not spending $1.39.”
He walked down the aisle, returned to the Nissins. A free soup lunch awaited him downtown. But then there was the end of the day to consider.
“I might just do it this one time. I can always eat [this] later,” he concluded. He brought the serving to the desk along with his slips. He walked out the door with $3.51, bound for Broadway.
Wilson paused for a breather along the way to the soup kitchen. He reflected on Never Mind’s advice about work. Never Mind had a point, he said.
Back on his feet, he pointed to cracks in curbing, to downed tree branches, as examples of all the work out there that needs to be done. He pointed out a bluebird and followed its path upward.
He arrived at the soup kitchen at 11:01 a.m., to hugs and words of welcome, just as the line was let in. “I love to come here,” he said. “It’s a blessing. It’s a beautiful place.” The time spent with others is just as nourishing as the food, in his view.
He had brought his cart rather than stashing it for the night at his usual spot down the street. “I might run into some more bottles,” he said. “You know, it’s still early.” He left the cart, with his belongings, parked out on the street. He was confident it would still be there after lunch.
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Kenta Wilson on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
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Click here and see below for previous“Word on the Street” episodes and write-ups.
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