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
Well, the Whites were clobbered 76–27 on the last nite. All the screams of Faye Wray and Godzilla would have been whimpers compared to how we was hootin’ that night. Lemme tell you, all Danny could do to get through the crowd to me was to elbow them girls like they was as tough as they wanted to be. Danny gets up next to me whispering, “Bernadette, I need you to get Liliane and her friend Rose Lynne into the Blue Team party. Can you do it?” Now, has Bernadette Reeves ever been unable to do something she set her mind to? Naw. So I turn round, best I can in a crowd: “Danny, put em in your car in they party dresses, not no White Team mess. Get Liliane to put some more makeup on and fluff that other child’s hair round her face, so they don’t draw attention. Then, wait for me by the door on the Evans Street side.” Soon as the words was out my mouth, Danny was nigh behind the wheel of his car; Rose Lynne pullin’ Liliane with her to some real live colored fun. I could tell by the look in her eyes at the station. She wanted to know what went on with us after her folks, like Liliane’s, looked us over at the door and turned us away with one glance at the security guard. Off we went, all dressed up and turned away at the ball, you get what I’m sayin’? Yeah, that Rose Lynne wanted a peek at the forbidden: Negroes off guard, Negroes she was guarded from. Now, this was not gonna to be hard, at all. The Blues was on fire with the delight of triumph; the giddiness of spiked punch and swigs of 151 proof rum in backseats of low-ridin’ overloaded Chevies; choruses of Tina Turner imposters shoutin’ from car to car, all the windows down, cars switching lanes like a Little Anthony swirls capes to the tune “I’m Blue-ooh-ooh-ohohoh/Hey/Hey/tell me now/now what’d I say/I’m Blue/ooh-ooh-ooh…” all back up into the town where the party was. P.A.R.T.E.E.
And we were sharp, I’m sayin’. They was girls with they hair ratted least seven inches in the air with these danglin’ lost-lookin’ Shirley Temple curls on the sides of they faces. Guys witih do’s bad as Jackie Wilson’s, decked out in silk suits and soft foreign leather dancin’ slippers. You could almost smell the new on everybody, besides they sweat. Fancy-ass-footwork, crinolines pullt way past knees, bosoms bouncin’ far as Bristol, gotta holdt of the ’burg that night. We was high. We was silly. We gotta-gettin-to-a-go-go and forgot bout blocks and blocks of guineas only wanted niggahs to get gone, get lost, get dead quick as a pipe’ll break glass.