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
“Oh, no! Hyacinthe wrote that years ago when Sawyer died. I was just thinkin’ about him. I don’t know why.” Lili’s gaze eclipsed the preened and not too proper opulence of Auntie Aurelia’s gardens and sped off to some juke joint in southern Illinois. It’s odd, lookin’ at whole families of Negro people, how we can see who belongs to who, a quien es quien, tu sabes? All kinds of spirits show up or come out, with who knows what on their minds and hearts, when we marry, give birth, die, even if we just get a little more of ourselves from ourselves. I’m Victor-Jésus María, a consistent and compassionate marvel of creation. To say the least, I am able to guide the lost and unrecovered gems of our folks to landscapes more appropriate to our nature. Ha, that’s right: my photos. In my worlds no persons of color ever look crazy. Mi tierra. The land is all guys like me and Zapata ever wanted to give back to us. So, the land I give us is un poquito, metaphorical. If you was as black as me, inhabiting lands inhospitable to white folks, en realidad, ain’t all that damn bad. Don’t worry, even good old Jorge Luis had to make up some “wheres” somebody could only dream of experiencing. But like I always tell my Lili, “I see you everywhere I look. Even if I close my eyes, I still can’t help lookin’ at you, querida.”
I tell mi morena dulce a lot of things, as you know. I have to secure our territory, not unlike Emiliano Zapata or Miles Davis. And those communal activities, even Lollie’s wedding, bless her peroxided head, these rituals are opportunities for the continuation of clans, dreams, fields of fancy, and realms of the spirits. We all know that zombies and still-born infants traipsed from Jacmel, Cap Haitien, to Port-au-Prince to free Haiti. Pero, sabemos tambien, some of those same spirits and never-born souls came from the hills to assist Duvalier as well.
Maybe here by the Mississippi, during one or more of our so clandestine colored events, the old spirits will come out to celebrate with us, como un bembee: we dance and we get stronger. We dance and we can go to war. Pero, no tu preocupes.
We’re here to see what’s up with Lili, Lollie, and su gente libre, su gente bella.