Angelou Northeast Branch Library, Wichita, KS

My mother has lived in the same, university-adjacent apartment complex for 20+ years. She moved in when I was only just married (or about to be), I would guess based primarily on location and affordability (she was going back to complete her bachelor's degree). She has seen many whippersnapper college students come and go, and it is both tiresome and comforting that bros will always be bros, but she likes it here and is reluctant to move, even though school is well in her rearview mirror and she has retired from working at the university. She enjoys the lively youth surrounding her, even if it gets a bit noisy at times.

Twice yearly I would make the trek back home to visit family, usually flying crammed in a budget airplane, biting back panic, to Wichita (always with one required stop), sometimes direct to Kansas City (no stops, less panic), where I would rent a car a drive the last three hours to Wichita. I would sleep on the pull out futon in mom's living room, knowing that the winter visits would mostly be peaceful (students having returned home to their loving families for the holidays) and the summer visits would incur at least one booze infused youth rager, straggling from an apartment (or two) out to the pool, with lots of splashing, screaming, and sometimes even some hearty, all-American Bro-violence. This party would usually take place the night before my 6 a.m. flight back to NYC, leaving me seething in my old bones, wishing for a cane to brandish at the little pudknockers (as if I ever would). At most, I'd go out for a smoke and give my best Clint Eastwood, 1000-yard stare which could easily be mistaken for errant smoke in the eye; no cowardly harm, no cowardly foul.

The neighborhoods surrounding Wichita State University were notoriously low rent and high violence throughout my childhood and remain strained to this day. During the 90s, the city decided to drop some new development on the problem (bank branches, apartment complexes, minimalls), which has brought the perception of safety and comfort to a better level than before. Erecting a new police station right in the middle of a troubled area also helped, no doubt, and they built a brand new branch library right alongside it for good measure. It is important to state unequivocally that I feel safe in this neighborhood, despite the fact that a horrific murder took place in the park right across the street. The reason I feel safe is due to the fact that the apartment complex we live in is well lit and the resident handyman (and cat rescuer) suffers no fools. Another influence on my particular perception is the NYC factor--I mean, how scared can you be of anything once you've lived there a year or two, right? But more than anything, I've lived in all kinds of "bad" neighborhoods since I can remember--so mom's place next to a beautiful park in complex that features a nice, clean pool to swim in, alone and unbothered? Not too effing bad, ya know?

But as long as my mother has lived here, and as many years as I've visited her, I've never come to think of it as "home." This is in part because we never had just one homestead to begin with...from my calculations, we had about 17 "homes" from my infancy through college. So I could easily blame my indifference on that as much as my overall indifference to the neighborhood itself, a place I only had a single connection to before my mother lived there: Euphoria gigs.

Somewhere on Hillside, near 13th street maybe, lived The Man Who Did Not Give a Shit. When we were in high school, our friends had a metal/alternative band named Euphoria and they played shows in the basement of this man's shabby little house. The Man Who Did Not Give a Shit would just leave his house open to the babycriminal elements...and whatever happened, happened. He was rarely there for these gigs, and when we did see him he would just wander in at the end of the night, unfazed and frankly uninterested. The Man Who Did Not Give a Shit didn't care about noise, cigarette burns on the carpet and furniture, empties strewn everywhere, or that sharp and spicy teen spirit smell. Over the course of my senior year, I saw things there. Gross things, personal things. But mostly I saw a house party erupting around a thrashing metal band; little heathen goblins irreverent, drug-infused, and half deaf by the end of the night. My friend and I would sit upstairs and smoke while the band head-banged it out in the basement, with all the wee metal heads moshing their brainius maximi. We had high hair and pegged jeans and everything smelled like Marlboroughs and Aquanet.

But that was it, that was my only connection to the Fairmount neighborhood other than passing through to spend time with my mother before heading back to the big, shiny apple. This summer has been the first time I've spent any real, quality time in the area and I have to say...I like it. It's central to everything, we get along with the neighbors (though with the new school year starting, new bros have moved in and I'm watching them for bad brohavior), and despite looking at the spot where Letitia Davis was attacked every time I drive by, it's more about the emotion of what happened than a fear of lurking boogeymen. I can't speak for whether or not it really is safe, but living among maniacs who thought Prospect Park in Brooklyn was a lovely, fun place for an outing, all while surrounded by needle freaks openly needle freaking out, skews my objectivity off the charts.

After all, when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, I had a real terror of a park near my house. Park Villa was right next to us--it was small, open, and impossible to feel afraid of...but farther down the road was the woodsy Oak Park--dark, thick with growth, terminally empty of humans--and rumors of sex perverts, rapists, and even murderers hiding in it's multitudinous shadows was taken as scripture by the grade school set. My babysitter, a great believer in all things scary, rapey, or demonic, solidified my misty faith into glacial fact when we had no choice but to walk through Oak Park one day, just as dusk was closing in and the light was receding deeper into the shuffling shadows of the woods.

"Erin," she said, nearly hyperventilating already, "do NOT let go of my hand. Do you hear me? This isn't a joke. This isn't playing around." She leaned in closer, her feathered, white blond hair framing her face, her blue eyes wide and serious. "When I say run, YOU RUN." And we did. We ran like hell. We booked it. We sprinted like the goddamned wind. We lived to tell the tale of the Time We Ran Through Oak Park and Absolutely Nothing Happened. As far as I know, no one was ever harmed in that park...and if something did happen, in was anomalous, not the norm. According to Google reviews, it's a splendid little park and people love spending time there. My long-winded point is that shit can happen anywhere...Fairmount Park, Oak Park...your basement, for example. Who knows who's down there, or what? When I pass that part of Fairmount Park where something truly terrible happened, I think about Letitia, I think about her family, I wonder if they've established a memorial of some sort, or perhaps a gathering to commemorate her loss and rededicate the community's commitment to never let anything like that happen again. I'm not afraid of the park...and from the tons of people I've seen utilizing it over the summer, the neighborhood isn't, either.

Posterity.

I am sad to say I never noticed the Angelou Northeast Branch Library until I started looking into places to visit this summer. After procuring my library card, I decided the first books and movies I would check out would be from my neighborhood branch. The movie I most wanted to see (Arrival) was a hot ticket item, so I put in a request and got the good word that it was waiting for me at the Angelou Branch a few days later. I also picked up a Stephen King book on a whim--turns out it was the second (and weakest) of a trilogy I'd never read before. I even documented the event for posterity.

The Angelou is a handsome little library, born in 1996, and named after renowned poet Maya Angelou, who also attended the grand opening of the branch. When I go there, I'm usually in and out in a flash to check the movies and drop off and pick up books, but I plan a longer visit soon after the Labor Day weekend (when all Wichita library staff has a whole two days off, yippee ki ay!). It looks like there might be just enough room for me to set up shop if I get there early enough.

The exterior could use either a power wash or a repaint, but otherwise the library looks like it is great shape, especially after 20 years in service. It's kind of hilariously shoehorned in right next to the police station, so if you are not careful, you will turn into the cops' domain and will be immediately under arrest. OK, no, but I did make that very mistake the first time I tried to go to the Angelou Branch and that guilty, "I am somehow in trouble" feeling is so universal, isn't it? Even when you just see a cop car? Driving through their parking lot feels like a misdemeanor, maybe a felony if you've got a stinkface on.

What I'll remember most about Angelou is the staff--they dealt with my questions about new technologies and procedures with great patience and good humor. They have been consistently friendly, cheerful, and impressive. Yay, my branch! Feels almost like home.

The Beckoning Arm of Librarius.