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Back Liliane Save as PDF
Chapters (31)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Room in the Dark I
  6. Fawns of the Diaspora Court Liliane in Paris, While Tabou Combo Whispers “Coq Qualité” in Her Ears
  7. Room in the Dark II
  8. “I Usedta Drink, Smoke and Do the Hoochie-Koo,” or What’s a Girl to Do When Her Mother Looks Like Ruth Brown
  9. Room in the Dark III
  10. “El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom
  11. Room in the Dark IV
  12. And Where Is Garnett Mimms?
  13. Room in the Dark V
  14. I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?
  15. Room in the Dark VI
  16. 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
  17. Room in the Dark VII
  18. I Know Where the E Train Stops But I’m “Sendin’ Out an S.O.S.” and I’m Not Edwin Starr Either
  19. Room in the Dark VIII
  20. “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?
  21. Room in the Dark IX
  22. Every Time My Lil World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination
  23. Room in the Dark X
  24. “That’s Why I Love Her So and Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I Want to Know” or Why Jackie Wilson Died in Silence
  25. Room in the Dark XI
  26. There’s No Use Cryin’ “Forever” or Hyacinthe Returns from a Very Blue Holiday for Real B(l)ack at Ya
  27. Room in the Dark XII
  28. Lollie Struts Her Stuff Thru “The Sea of Love” or the Brides of Frankenstein Catch the Bouquet
  29. By Ntozake Shange
  30. Acknowledgments
  31. Copyright

——— Okay. My friend Michelle and I are on our way from my house, the one in the Fifth Ward. We go down a tiny alley that doesn’t really exist to see someone I don’t know. Another black woman who has two children and a shop. She lives upstairs. The shop is draped with textiles, sculpture with the usual Navajo and West African motifs as well as straw, dirt, and stone pieces. There are some glowing arclike things in the shapes of headdresses from the Moulin Rouge which I really want. There’s no price tag. There are other things, wall hangings of red, brown, and black mud-cloth that I think would do well as ponchos, but the woman says the cloth cannot be cut. Later we go toward a river where there’s a restaurant I’ve never seen before. It’s all decked out for St. Patrick’s Day in green streamers and shamrocks. It is very elegant, very grand. On a spiral staircase there are green-clad chorus girls doin’ battements and carrying trays of champagne-filled glasses. At the bottom of the stairs there is a small group of girls, two black and one white, doing a sand-dance. They are wearin’ kilts and tams. I notice the black ones’ faces are painted and each one has different braids patterned on her head. I wonder how their mother managed to get them to rehearsal on time. Michelle says she knows who they must have studied with, but don’t know how to get to that studio. I am hungry. We’ve no reservations and the place is packed with white people in formal garb and blackface. I search for an exit. I’m so disappointed, but I panic because the blackfaced crowd is becoming unruly and I cannot find the door. I can’t find my way home.

———

——— Do you understand me?

——— What do you think, I don’t dance with you?

“El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom