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
We was at the Trenton train station waiting on my big sisters to come in from Newark, when I saw Liliane and her mama waiting for the same train. I didn’t know if they was going someplace or was bidin’ time or what. Lotsa folks was at the boarding platform waitin’, cause this was the last night of Girls Carnival over to the high school. Now a town built round a mess of factories and run by folks who learned the word “niggah” the same time they learned how to say, “Gimme a coke, please,” is not weighed down with civic rituals. But for most forty years, maybe a lil more, maybe a lil less, Girls Carnival had thrown all the nastiness and bickering between real white folks and new white folks, colored and Puerto Ricans to the sidelines, leaving the girls to compete on one of two teams: either White or Blue. By the time I came around, generations of my aunts, cousins, and my mama had been consumed by Blue passions. A girl would just as soon thought about marrying a cracker as considering being White Team. This is the absolute truth.
Don’t laugh, but it’s my understanding that Liliane’s mama told her to see which team had the most niggahs on it, then choose to join the other one. That’s the reason, accordin’ to my sources, that Liliane was the White Team color bearer. She couldn’t do any of the specialty routines cause it was “too common.” Only reason she was in the public high school at all, far as I could tell, was cause the private ones close by didn’t take no kinda colored folks. So here was Liliane’s poor mama, looking afflicted every time her child gushed a “Hello, how ya doin’?” to the colored riffraff waitin’ on the train. I mean, the woman tried to be convivial and all, but the small of her back ached so her shoulders was half a foot behind her head, and her lips curled up so tight I thought she must be sucking a lemon to be so mince-mouthed in all this excitement.
My sister, Patsy, and my cousins Margie and Flo come off the train belting Blue Team cheers: “We blue Blue Team girls are hot for sho’/Throw the White Team gals right thru the flo’.” I was so happy to see them. I didn’t really notice Liliane greeting her friend, girl’s name was Rose Lynne or something like that. She was from Baisley Park, come to see Liliane bear the White Team flag which was a hoot cause she was gonna bear it in defeat. Now, that’s the truth.