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
My mama didn’t need a bit of help from us. I could tell by the way she was sporting herself when we went in the back door. R. C. Golightly was every inch a lady of the house, if I must say so myself. I joked with my mama, that she must be named after the Royal Crown Cola people, but she said that was impossible cause as far as she knew Royal Crown Cola didn’t have slaves. That was supposed to be a joke, but I know her name was short for Roman Catholic because her folks had taken up with the church shortly after Emancipation and credited the Pope with their freedom. It was so down-homey, I didn’t care for that idea much. Plus, not a whole lot of the slaves were bamboozled by priests like my mama’s folks, but R. C. was her name. That was my mama and she looked like all get out to my mind, old as she was. And she was old.
R.C. was in a forsythia-yellow cocktail dress that actually lit her up like the three o’clock sun. She was portly, but well shaped, and the softness of the cloth summoned even more graciousness from every gesture.
“You girls, run along now, company’s coming. I know you must have your sights set on a fine time. So let’s get going, you hear.”
Liliane had never seen my mama so smart before. I knew from her face, blank like that, she just wasn’t expecting such a transformation in R.C. Folks like to think little of my mama. She married late, somehow got hold of me, and my father was hardly a run-of-the-mill sort, always defending Negroes out of their place. But Papa just shook his head and tapped his pipe. “Our place is any place we choose,” he said. And R.C. would run her hands by his whiskers and pull the funny end of his mustache: “You tell ’em, Daddy.” Liliane’s mother never touched her father as far as I could tell. S. Bliss just appeared to be doing what she was expected to be doing out of the blue. Liliane said that’s cause her parents had an understanding that if you had to ask for something, it mustn’t of been freely given and was, therefore, not worth having. I could never get to a clear comprehension of that reasoning, but I sometimes think all Northerners are simply quite eccentric.