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
It’s not funny, but Lili was pale as a sheet como the Breck girl. As carefully as I could I swallowed my laughter, actual hoots, gritas en realidad. Somebody put an end to all her madness for sure. And those somebodies sure didn’t take no instructions from El Señor Zoom, either. “In the foothills of Heaven,” coño. The steppes of Hades is more like where he and his kind ended up with Malinche, holograms of the Venus Hottentot, multitudes of writhing Negress wenches leaping from mahogany bedsteads and barn rafters. “The foothills of Heaven.” I noticed that Lili was cryin’, not weeping, but having tears, quiet.
“Was it worth it?” I asked softly.
“What—what do you mean?” Lili stammered slowly, breathless like she’d escaped with her life.
“You don’t understand, Victor. Zoom was always so nice to me. He was so gentle and he made me feel…” Lili stopped, bit her lower lip with her two front teeth. I knew what that signaled. That was Lili’s physical gesture for visceral memories of orgasmic ecstacies which meant I didn’t haveta wear the kid gloves anymore. I mean, I have limits too.
Lili was randomly filling pages of newsprint with what I took to be those fuckin’ black ringlets of the former white boy lover, Zoom, at every angle, I guess. Her eyes reached for me and then dashed away into the charcoal swirls away from me.
“Liliane.” She didn’t look at me. “Liliane,” I said again more firmly. “Did he ever use the word ‘cunt’ in your presence?” I didn’t wanta ask if he ever called her that or if he pulled gently at her vulva and whispered how pretty her cunt was, what a beautiful cunt she had. She was, my Lili, mi querida.
“Well, did he ever use the word ‘cunt’?”
“Why? Why do you want to know that? What’s that for?”
Though philological and semantic intercourse had never fazed her before, now Lili was stumped. “What are you talkin’ about?” she repeated over and over.
His scalp, those goddamned curls, I wanted his scalp like Pontiac and Hatuey had demanded. The back of my mouth was viciously sour and clamped my breath back toward my heart pumping vengefully.
“I want to know the extent of the violation, Lili. That’s all. In a word, ‘cunt.’”