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
He grabbed my hand and we almost ran—no, we did run down the lawn—to the curb. We were panting by the time we reached the car. When he opened my door for me, he asked, “They call you anything besides Liliane?” Stretching out the “aaannne.”
“No, they do not.”
“Well, today you’re Lili, spelt just like that. Today, mind you, just for today, whenever I say, ‘That’s Lili, she’s my new girl,’ you smile.”
“Every time?”
“Every time, or we sit here. You understand?”
“Umhummn, let’s go.”
So I am grinnin’—“Yes, that’s Lili, she’s my girl”—through all these games of pool. To help entertain myself, Sawyer showed me how to drink shots of tequila, lick salt off my hand or his, and chase it with some beer. He laughs at me. He thinks, Lili feelin’ no pain is funny. Sawyer’s fingers around the cue stick are so beautiful, I think I am goin’ to start cryin’. He calls his sweet stick “Lili.” I am gettin’ confused. But before I can scream, “Do somethin’ with me,” Sawyer had spirited me to a room, a corner behind a floating crap game, some poker players, and a bevy of women with very long eyelashes.
I am still floatin’. Now I hover over the end of a long, long bar. I must be restin’ in the palm of Sawyer’s hands, where else is this possible? Sawyer talks dirty to me. He must be talkin’ dirty to me cause my face is so red my body’s caught fire. He laughs at me: his tongue sweeps the giggles from behind my lower lip. I gasp for air every time he shifts me in his palms. My mouth falls open if any one of his fingers caresses my temple.
I didn’t want to laugh cause guys take sex so seriously, you know what I mean? But the top was down as we rode home; all the stars kissin’ my face and neck and shoulders. The wind coaxed peculiar hummin’ sounds from my mouth, while Sawyer’s very beautiful fingers alternately strummed Bo Diddley licks. Chuck Jackson hollers from my pussy. I was in such a state. I’ve no idea how Sawyer got my panties off. No idea at all. I do know that he had them cause with his free hand, the one that wasn’t playin’ with my clit, he brushed them by his lips and mustache. “Good they’re wet. I like that. I really like that, Lili.” I knew I was goin’ to faint, but I managed to sneak in the back of Aunt Aurelia’s without stopping every time my pussy throbbed. It took me a long, long time to reach the door, though.