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
This rich colored boy who’d been thrown outta Morehouse, Tufts, Fisk, and finally St. Louis University, who’d wrecked a TR 6, a hard-top Ford, and a vintage Jag, all replaced by Daddy. This faun in the thick and thin silk socks, who wiped his brow with silk handkerchiefs and would arrange for an abortion for anybody for $1,500, even had a process. No, I don’t mean anything respectable-looking like Duke Ellington or Ray Robinson, but some wildass colored-looking “do” that challenged Brook Benton and Lil Richard. The boy had nerve.
It was his birthright.
I believed he was my destiny. We weren’t like the others. I’d been raised round hoodlums, that’s why I was farmed out on holidays: to see how the other half lived; broaden my horizons, you know. But truthfully, there was a ruffian in me that wasn’t scared of him. Sawyer wasn’t gonna be no failure or good-for-nothin’. He was what Daddy said. Someone we hadn’t imagined and he knew it. He knew I knew it when he cruised by my cousin Lolly’s porch and honked his horn. I was sposed to be beside myself and run-jump into the red Thunderbird and zoom…niggahs on Eastern Boulevard at twilight. Sure. So I called into the house, “Lolly, somebody out here needs directions, or is lost or something.”
Lolly gave me the look of Maggie thinkin’ of those no-necked children.
“Why, you know that’s Sawyer Malveaux.”
“Yes, I do.”
“He’s not here to see me. He’s known me all my life.”
“Umhummn, but if he’s here to see me, he’s gonna haveta talk. I don’t understand car horn language.”
And I sat there in the wrought-iron love seat staring at this incredibly brazen thing who was gonna have to come get me.
Of course he double-parked and left the radio blaring something by the Olympics. When I think about this, I make believe the Olympics were in the middle of Wabada Street in their lamé suits and those terrible-looking patent leather shoes justa jumpin’ and posin’ and singin’, “Mine exclusively, mine exclusively,” while Sawyer came up to ask me if I’d like to go for a ride.
I swear ’fore God my whole body was trembling with unmitigated delight.
“Why, Sawyer, surely you don’t think I can just leave the front porch and go off on a ride with you. I’m not from here and you know how people talk.”
“Awright, Liliane. It is Liliane, isn’t it?”
“Umhummn.”
“Where would you like to go?”
“I wanta go everywhere you like to go in East St. Louis…when you go by yourself.”
“Oh, well. I’m not sure that…”
“But you asked me. It’s not like you to refuse a lady, now is it, Mr. Malveaux.”