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
Danny made me promise not to tell Liliane that he was plannin’ on comin’ to this affair in Queens whether she was gonna tell him about it or not. I memorized what we did once we got off the E train on the Independent line and caught the Q-44 bus. Now down by the subway stop looked like the movies for real. There were overhead rail lines for some other kinda trains went to Brooklyn. Big old blue steel pillars comin’ right up the sidewalks far as I could see. All these stores, piles of people comin’ from underneath the cement. I almost wanted to turn right around and go back to New Jersey. I’d heard that boys and girls actually made dates on the subway with people they’d just met or saw everyday at the same time on the same platform. Danny was to take this train to Sutphin Boulevard and wait on the bus just like we did. I wasn’t real convinced this was a good idea, now, but Danny was my buddy. When we got really going on the Q-44, I couldn’t stop looking out the windows. So many colored people going in and out these houses that was standing on they own, not attached, you know. Here I was in New York City and there was trees taller than the bus, too. I saw a little house with gray round stones, the kind they used to make field markers with, had a fish pond in the front with a mer-man or a boy-fish leanin’ over the water, I thought maybe there should be some of them like black jockey boys holdin’ they hands out in front of some of these places, but then since real little Negro boys lived in these houses, wasn’t no need to pay for fake ones. Rose Lynne occasionally waved out the window to this or that grown-up. Was this being polite, a way of stayin’ out of trouble, or settin’ up these pedestrians for some scheme, I wondered.
Once we was near the party, I knew it. Music was all up in the air long with roasting okra and broiling meat. Liliane heard it, too. I leaned over to her to say we must be gettin’ close, but she didn’t act like herself. I thought I might talk to Rose Lynne, but her mind was definitely between her legs by this time. I could tell cause she was taking these very slow deep breaths and openin’ and closin’ her eyes like there was something caught on her eyelash. Well, I knew how to perform well as them two. I started fondlin’ my fingers how I’d seen my mama ’fore she went out, like I was stretchin’ my nails by my willpower.