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
I could see each letter, c-u-n-t, rip through Lili’s bosom like the knife she’d wielded in her kitchen. I knew this hurt. I knew that, but Lili needed to know that what hurt wasn’t her emboldened stance to protect herself; her resort to force, to violence, wasn’t the sad revelation of the hour. It was Zoom’s ease within his whiteness, his presumptuous colonization of my Lili’s spirit, body. Lili succumbed, in the end, to too great an optimism, a naïveté fed by Zoom’s awkward attempts to move smoothly in the throng of our worlds, like the priests and union organizers; he wanted to get to know us. Ever gracious, Lili led the way. Now she was afraid. She knew she couldn’t always see the danger. She followed the wrong instincts. She’d lain still, smilin’, while some white boy explored her, droppin’ filthy lil words over her most sacred places.
“Mira, querida, Liliane. No te preocupe.” I sang to her. “Let’s go take a bath.” Lili’s eyes filled her cheeks, pulled her full lips to a grin. Her strange laughs tickled me behind my ears, crawled up my chin into my mouth where I nestle them, single giggles under my tongue.
We were whole again, were going to be soon at any rate. The thing that Lili said that assured me she had learned her lesson was watching her skip backward down Valencia, throwin’ kisses to me between quotes from Gylan Kain: “Shoulda cut the muthafuckah, made him bleed.”
Room in the Dark VII
——— You know I might get married?
——— No. Actually, I did not.
——— Well, goes to show, you never know who knows.
——— Does that mean that in addition to my not knowing that you were getting married, that I also don’t know something else that’s important to you?
——— Who’s to say what’s important to you? Like you don’t know?
——— You give me a lot of credit here, Liliane.
——— Is it you calling my actual name or what you don’t know should impress me?
——— Right now, an answer, even a response, to either would satisfy me.
——— Who said anything about satisfyin’ your behind, tell me that? Who said it and where is he? You want to know what I wanta know, that’s it. That’s it.
——— Who do you think told me, Liliane?
——— See, that’s it. I can’t deal with this anymore. I told you I was gettin’ married and you gonna act the fool.
——— I thought we were getting married nine years after your treatment ended. So your life would be full and effective and I would not lose my license.
——— You remember too many things.
——— That’s my job, I think. No. I know that, but what’d be more interesting is what you think.
——— You must be dreamin’.
——— No. Actually I’ve had no dreams lately.
——— I have.
——— Really. You have in the last few days?