Brittany Rogers on How Libraries Helped Her Feel Safe and Embrace Her Queerness

By 2010, nearly every librarian on the east side of Detroit knew me by first and last name. Knapp Branch where the edge of Detroit and Hamtramck kiss. Franklin Branch, the only one in walking distance. Lincoln and Wilder—both on the east side of the city. Chandler Park when leaving the daycare center. Elmwood Branch when I was far away from home.

The library had always been my sanctuary; from the time my mother got me my first library card in elementary school, I sought out a new branch when I needed comfort, or time to research on a computer that wasn’t dial-up, or a book that I couldn’t afford to purchase outright. At least twice a week I found myself perusing the dusty stacks, searching for a new world to get lost in.

But that summer, I spent most days holed up in branches across the city, making friends with the librarians, learning to stop hiding from myself and all that awaited me outside.

*

Five years before that summer, I only frequented Franklin Branch. Then, my family lived on Alcoy Street, only a mile and a half away. Outside of my cousin’s house, the library was the only place I was allowed to walk to that was outside my mother’s strict two-block-radius rule.

Back then, I couldn’t figure out why she would allow me to walk alone on the EastSide of Detroit, past vacant houses and full liquor stores, and who knows what behind closed doors. In hindsight, there was only one Boys and Girls Club and a handful of half barren parks as my options for play; the reality is there were no other safe spaces for me to go.

What stemmed from a need to get out our muggy house became an illicit space for discovery. I quickly graduated from checking out young adult novels and the occasional mystery when I discovered shelves and shelves of erotica.

I blushed the first time I stumbled into that section, convinced that everyone in the library was watching me, waiting to tell my mother they saw me, surrounded by what she would call smut. Here, in this world I entered, nothing was discrete: not the half-dressed bodies in full embrace on the covers, or the titles which outlined fantasies clear as summer’s sky.

I spent countless Saturdays in the back of that dimly lit library, its musty air and still, still quiet, sitting at their old wooden table, devouring story after story of women loving women. Professional women. Churchgoing women. Black women. Women with children. Women who had once thought they loved men.

Here, with none of my friends or cousins around, I could call my new favorite genre a hobby. I could pretend I did not feel the need, wrapped around my midsection like vines. My favorite librarian worked four days each week and never asked questions or raised a brow at my reading selection.

Still, I betrayed her. At the end of that summer, I ran from my mother’s house straight to that college forty-five minutes away—took the last batch of library books and stuffed them into a box in the back of my childhood closet. Returning them felt blasphemous. Too final. An unnecessary lie, as though these long dormant wants had suddenly lied back down.

Those books remained hidden my entire freshman year. The late book fee was so large; I was not allowed to check out another book in my name for years.

*

Three years later, I was pregnant and newly separated. It is hard to know what abuse looks like beyond the textbook black eye. The screaming which only happened during arguments. The withheld food and finances.

The tan sofa, purchased at a thrift store, was thrown over the balcony, as easy as tossing a sheet of paper in the trash. When the bruised face finally came, I left my high school sweetheart, pregnant, swollen everywhere that my eyes could reach. I gave birth that March and begged summer to show her face soon.

*

By the summer of 2010, my daughter was two, and we were just exiting a two year long season of couch-hopping: from friend to family member to church member to family member. This transient time meant learning which grocery store had the freshest food, which blocks were unsafe after dark, and which libraries were within walking distance.

I didn’t have a job then, and she was too young for school; with the budget for Parks and Recreation stripped, the library was one of few free recreational places we could go. There were none close enough to walk to—at least not with a toddler in tow, so catching the bus to the library became a near daily routine.

I learned the bus route for every library in a ten-mile radius. Me and my toddler made an adventure of it; sometimes we would be waiting at the bus stop for twenty minutes, and some days we sweat under the sun for two hours.

She learned to point out landmarks—beauty supply, school, corner store. I learned which branches were always stocked with the newest selections and which branch had the largest section for African American Literature. Only one branch had an entire section dedicated to erotica, and I found myself catching the DDOT to that one the most. This time, I do not pretend that binge-reading the last three volumes of Best Bisexual Erotica Anthology is out of curiosity.

Week after week, I find new titles to take home. I overindulge and shame does not whisper in my ear. With each book comes a new language; now, I name myself. I reintroduce myself to my friends, and do not wait to see if I am greeted with kindness.

So little belonged to me that summer; I could at least own my pleasure. My sexuality, finally, could belong to me.

*

We eventually settled in the same neighborhood I was raised in—three blocks up, and a mile over from my childhood home. For the first time, I lived only a few blocks away from my chosen sanctuary. Most summer days we take the journey—past the liquor store on the corner, past a beige three-story apartment complex, and a small park with broken swings.

These days the librarians know me and my daughter by name. As soon as she is old enough, I get her her own library card.

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Good Dress by Brittany Rogers is available via Tin House.