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, really, Victor, we went to a cove where this barn had been done over for performances and a gallery. It was so pristine and free of clutter, not like alternative spaces in the city. All these other white people, artists, Zoom claims, owned this place and lived out there. I said, ‘Well, okay.’ I chatted with some women who run a shelter and some others who make chap-books, and it was like grade school. A bunch of white people who are not necessarily dangerous, but still alien, whose faces I wouldn’t remember, or names. I was getting fidgety, wanting to go somewhere I mattered, when this black guy with dreadlocks appeared from nowhere, like an extraterrestrial. But, and this is the weird thing, he looked at me like I had done something to him. He’s the only other one of us there. He was colder than the white people whose names I don’t remember.”
Me, of course, I say nothing, nada. Who am I to judge? Yet I was not alone having a hard time watching Lili cavort thru the Fillmore, even the Point, on the back of this Harley holding on to a till-the-death cracker. This is when her extraterrestrial aspects loomed, but she didn’t notice. A couple of brothers at the corner of Divisadero near Scott threatened to pour oil on the road, if they came back that way. All they really had to do was wash out the Jerri-Curl. But their instincts were on the mark, compadre. Right on the mark.
Lili took to wearing a beret when she and Zoom were about town. She even invited him to a few more ceremonies and parties that our little group had now and again. Zoom mingled well, like he’d been waiting all his life to not be so white, to be comfortable when he was the only one of them around in a way that Lili could not. I assume this is a privilege of race, but don’t let me sway you. From Tower of Power to Larry Graham, even Tito Puente’s ritmo couldn’t contain Zoom’s exuberance when he was dancing. The whole world was at risk with his gangly out-of-control I-am-a-white-boy contortions. After he knocked over a lamp and a few glasses of wine and stepped on Kim Sheang’s toes two times, Lili indignantly led him away. He didn’t want to leave, poor thing, having such a good time cavortin’ with the natives.
“Where are you going?” Zoom inquired.
“Home. I’m going home.”
“Hop on, then.” He straddled his other black sweetheart and revved up. “Get on, I said.”
Now Zoom didn’t look so friendly, eager to please.