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
——— No, what’s nuts is the professional who’d violate those boundaries, take advantage of a trust, that vulnerability essential for treatment.
——— But they do it.
———
——— I know some who do it. Sleep with their clients. That’s why I know I’m crazy. I gotta be crazy.
——— There’s nothing crazy in what you just said. Nothing at all.
——— Well, say I had a lover who was a “counselor,” I’m not going to say what kind, but say I was his lover and he confided in me that he had slept with his female patients, a few of them, sort of like he was doing them a favor. They were in great need, pain, some of them. So he fucked them.
——— How does that make you crazy?
——— Cause I was his lover. How could I be attracted to a man who had so little respect for another woman’s confusion, her trust in him. He was supposed to help them, not fuck them. How did a dick get to be a cure for emotional problems…. No, wait. Freud’s all up in here, shit. I didn’t report him. You know, anonymously or anything. I didn’t even stop seeing him for a while.
——— Is that why you are afraid now?
——— What the hell makes you say that?
——— Your legs are tucked up under you, your arms are clasped over your hips like you are protecting yourself from something, someone.
——— There’s nothing going to hurt me in here. There’s nobody else in this damn room but me and you.
——— Is that what’s frightening?
——— What?
——— That only you and I are here?
——— What could you do to me? You just sit in that chair and suspend silences when you don’t ask stupid questions. “What are you going to do to me?” Ha. You wish you could do something.
——— I am not going to seduce or attack you. I am not going to jeopardize myself and you in any way. Do you understand, Liliane?
——— Yeah.
———
——— Well, aren’t you going to ask me do I understand, again?
——— No, I am virtually certain you believe I will not make any kind of overture.
——— Oh yeah, how do you know? I didn’t say a thing.
——— No, but you’re whippin’ your legs in the air in a very sensual manner, and you’re fondling your breast, to the right.
——— So what does that mean?
——— What do you think?
——— I guess it means…I guess it means if I want to say I feel like sucking your toes, I can go and feel like that.
——— And we can talk about it.
——— Talk about how it feels to suck your toes.
——— And how you imagine that makes me feel.
——— Jesus. Don’t you ever give up?
——— Nope, but it’s time.
——— Thank God.
———
——— I need to get out of here before I want to take your shirt off.
——— See you next week, Liliane. We’ll talk about that.