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
We were quiet for a while, I guess. I never understood why white folks claimed the slaves stood the heat so well God must have meant for us to pick cotton. I couldn’t stand the heat. Liliane couldn’t stand the sun directly on her face, either. She and her mama had masks they put on to bathe and lay out to tan. See, I really had to know more about Sunday Bliss. She was such a mystery to me. Liliane just knew her mama so I couldn’t hold that against her. Yet, a mama who didn’t receive visitors at every reception, gave mambo lessons, looked like Ruth Brown and grew orchids, when the rest of the world was losing its very mind, must have been wonderful. Must be wonderful. S. Bliss got on well with my folks. My mama’s not an easy soul to know, either. On guard for enemies of the race at every moment, but she saw them in the strangest of quarters: the lawyer with bad diction, the model with a flat nose, the singer with too much jewelry. Why, once I actually told her that she was the cross the race had to bear. Oh my, what a conflagration fell upon us when I said that. Still, I want to marry well, steady like the sea rocking me on the sands that are my skin.
The lands that were once ours been eaten up by no good white assessors, poor crops, and fatigue. My papa skittered from New Orleans to Mobile, then Galveston to Montgomery aiding the plight of Negroes forced to defend themselves in white men’s courts. That’s how Liliane and I were in one another’s company so much. The race actually threw us together. Our fathers were champions of the Negro civil rights, but mine was clearly less the rabble-rouser, more the old school, I mean. If Papa hadn’t known when to push and when be still, I imagine I would be another dead Negro girl gone up in flames one night, while the townsfolk milled about, mourning our recklessness in the face of crackers crazed with hate. Defending the daughters of the South, how many times had I heard that? I was a daughter of the South, I thought to myself. Maybe I do understand more about S. Bliss Lincoln than I thought. I wanted to be like her, not like Liliane. S. Bliss, her laughter wrapped around us when she kissed us good night, the same as waves fold over themselves when the tide comes in.
“Liliane, are you sure your mother’s not a Communist?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I rolled over to dream where no other Negro girl had dared. Liliane took all sorts of things for granted. Not me, I know to cherish now. So many folks had been awready blown apart.