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
But it is true that Lollie’s getting married. Of all people to be a blushing bride. Lollie is the closest colored to Jean Harlow that I ever encountered. Blond as a summer moon and bold like a colored Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke. Bienaimée always swore wouldn’t nobody ever, ever marry the likes of Lollie. Yet once again she’s dead wrong, incorrect, in error, mistaken, off target, waylaid, mislaid, misled, fuckin’ stupid bitch, dumb twat, ignorant jackass, stank pussy, fool. Oh, see, I tol’ you, I cannot make lists. No lists. They won’t let me outta here if I make lists like that. They won’t ever let me outta here. I wanna go to Lollie’s wedding. I want Aurelia to he’p me. That’s how she says it. He’p me. Aurelia believes I am playing at being crazy.
“Now, Hyacinthe, I’m only going to say this once. You cannot stop living on account of Sawyer, your brother, made some injudicious choices in his own life. You not joined at the hip, if you get me. Now, you are going to do what these folks here ask you to do, you are going to stay out the Quiet Room, and you are coming to Lollie’s party and I’m going to marry you on away from your mama just like I got Lollie on her merry way. Thank you, Jesus.” That’s what she said.
I think Aurelia might actually like me a little bit. I know Lollie loves me, but sometimes I think Lollie loves me like you take to a stray of some kind of a dog, maybe a man. But it’s just I could never stand white folks, let alone how they treat us. That’s why I’m here. That’s why they say crazy cause I want to fuck white folks up, break they necks. But I’m a girl. Well, hell, I’ve always been a girl and my brother was more beautiful than me, lovelier, smooth, soft, delicate, brown, long, limber, suave, warm, kissable, kissing, kisses, kiss me, Sawyer. No. No. Stop. I never had to kill like my brother. I’d wake to blood and torn human organs every morning until I learned to take the moans of our folks who were dying in my body. Then, when I screamed it was 10,000 mad, anguished niggahs they threw in the Quiet Room. “The Quiet Room,” like that scares me. How you gonna scare ten thousand dead niggahs who’ve seen the bottom of the Mississippi River, the floor of ravines outside Springfield, hid behind stalactites and stalagmites in coves near Jeff City, holed up in corrals by the Kentucky border. Somebody believe they gonna scare me, when I’m fulla alla that? Well, come again, as they say in these parts, I could take it.