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
——— You know, I’ve spent all these years seeing after Daddy, making sure that I didn’t upset him too much, going to all the honor and society affairs on his calendar whenever I could and he banished my mother because she was going with a white boy…. I just can’t believe it, but I wished I had told him about Zoom now. Now I wish I had moving pictures of that cracker’s hard pink dick going in and out of my body, and me screaming with pleasure, wet, calling him “my sweet daddy” or some shit like that.
——— Then, what would you do?
——— Then, I’d watch him have a heart attack and die. He’d turn red in the face, be so mad his jaws’d quiver. Then his eyes would get that look like a laser beam designed by colored people so it cuts quick. I’d start laughing and he’d die right in front of me. Just like that.
——— And then.
——— Then I’d be the girl who shafted her father to death on purpose and whose mother ran off with a white boy, leaving her family and the race to fend for themselves.
——— Is that what happened, Liliane?
——— No, shit. Can’t you see, I don’t know what happened. I mean, I know what happened to me, but none of it makes any sense to me, I mean. Daddy’s always been just like he is: if I knew not to bring a white boy home, surely Mama knew it. And Daddy knew my mother was not likely to feel fulfilled in the throes of club meetings, auxiliaries, and narrow ideologies. What in the fuck were they doing together in the first place. Just doesn’t add up. Well, shit, it added up to make me, didn’t it?
——— Yes.
——— Maybe, you’re right…. You know about clearing things up. Now, I understand why Daddy thought he had to watch me so carefully, intimidate boys I knew. He thought I was like my mother, and I’d run off on him. Isn’t that funny?
——— Why is it funny?
——— I had no intentions or thoughts about ever leaving Daddy’s house until I realized I really had to.
——— Why was that?
——— You know, doctor, kinship taboos.
——— Oh really?
——— Yeah.
——— Tell me some more about this.
——— What’s to tell; a girl can’t marry her father.
——— But you were just going to “kill off” your father. Nothing very romantic there.
——— No, but it might just be the kind of affection he understands.
——— Uh. Liliane, looks like we’re at that time.
——— Huh, shit. I really don’t want to leave right now.
——— Just remember, you don’t have to do anything, just be and feel.
——— If I feel any more things, I’ll lose my mind.
——— Worse things could happen.
——— I know. At least I know that.