Chapters (31)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Room in the Dark I
- Fawns of the Diaspora Court Liliane in Paris, While Tabou Combo Whispers “Coq Qualité” in Her Ears
- Room in the Dark II
- “I Usedta Drink, Smoke and Do the Hoochie-Koo,” or What’s a Girl to Do When Her Mother Looks Like Ruth Brown
- Room in the Dark III
- “El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom
- Room in the Dark IV
- And Where Is Garnett Mimms?
- Room in the Dark V
- I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?
- Room in the Dark VI
- Zoom Went the Strings of Liliane’s Heart, But Arsenio Rodriguez Could Have Told Her the Music Sounds Just as Sweet When We’re Blind and Still We See
- Room in the Dark VII
- I Know Where the E Train Stops But I’m “Sendin’ Out an S.O.S.” and I’m Not Edwin Starr Either
- Room in the Dark VIII
- “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby” or Wouldn’t It Be Great If the Lead Singer of The Crests Wasn’t a White Boy and I Could Be My Mother?
- Room in the Dark IX
- Every Time My Lil World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination
- Room in the Dark X
- “That’s Why I Love Her So and Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I Want to Know” or Why Jackie Wilson Died in Silence
- Room in the Dark XI
- There’s No Use Cryin’ “Forever” or Hyacinthe Returns from a Very Blue Holiday for Real B(l)ack at Ya
- Room in the Dark XII
- Lollie Struts Her Stuff Thru “The Sea of Love” or the Brides of Frankenstein Catch the Bouquet
- By Ntozake Shange
- Acknowledgments
- Copyright
“Surely, Bernadette, you of all people understand, I had to stay with Granville. I’ve known him most of my life. Our parents are counting on us to…further the race, to propel our people to freedom without any dependence on white folks. Don’t you understand that? Why can’t you see, you of all people, Granville and I are the foundation of a new Negro. It’s so clear. We’ll never have to depend on white folks for nothing, nothing at all.”
I guess we won’t ever have to see a redneck again, we’ll have our own to cozy up to. Shit. The bitch was totally out of order, out to lunch, but my mama said I had to go. I had to realize what an exceptional person the Lincolns must think I am. Why, I could sleep in their house! Well, you know, I should get me a prayer cloth and snivel in it every hour on the hour that the Lincolns deem me worthy of such “intimacy.”
Shit. I get to the place, the house with no number, you just sposed to know it from the roadside, I guess. Anyway, I’m making my way down the path of foot stones so subtle they look like dirt only I could tell they harder cause my feet don’t sink into the ground. So I’m most to the door, when Liliane runs out like I just came from the Korean War or something.
“Bernadette, Bernadette. I’m so glad you could make it. My very best friends in the whole world are here. It wouldn’t be right without you. It just wouldn’t be right.” Then she grabbed me up in her arms like I was a child from the television orphan’s ad, send twenty dollars, only seventy-nine cents a day, and all that. Oh, I really thought I should be somewhere else. Then, like the goddamn Beverly Hillbillies, these pickaninny heads popped out the doorway one by one: Rose Lynne, well we know bout her, Roxie, Hyacinthe, and I looked to see if there was any more of these fools, but that was it. Thank God.
Well, we started out with all these pizzas we ordered from all over the county: pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers and onions, plain, Sicilian with double cheese, Neapolitan with olives and anchovies. We had more silly-looking white boys looking up our shorty pajamas than Pinoy girls at Clark AFB. Now I know bout that cause both my brothers was hooked up with Filipinas, was bringing them home, and couldn’t nobody stop them. You’d think the Negro had enough new blood, but not the way things were going on Liliane’s birthday. I was packing them pizzas away and Liliane’d found some beer and some scotch to wash it down, so long as we didn’t say nothing to her daddy.