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
Liliane thought this was funny. I wasn’t gonna be the one to tell her “The Twistin’ Postman” had a letter in his hands and it wasn’t good news. It’s just that I’d never known a black man wanted a woman who didn’t want her children. And that means to me, I know I’m not all that grown, but if a Negro man’s not sniffin’ after her mother, that only leaves a white man knockin’ at the door. And that means, accordin’ to Liliane, herself, there won’t be nobody home. Damn. Lili can’t even sing The Shirelles’ song:
Mama said there’d be days like this
There’d be days like this
My mama said, Mama said, Mama said.
—THE SHIRELLES
Lili in all her colors and flowers. She can’t even sing this simple, beautiful little bitty ol’ song.
Room in the Dark IX
——— Well, hello, there….
——— Hello, Liliane. How are you?
——— I was singing to you again, just like in the beginning.
——— Really? What were you singing?
——— Some old black magic.
——— That’s pretty potent stuff as far as I know.
——— I can testify to that.
——— So, now, we are our own church?
——— Let’s not get carried way here.
——— But doesn’t making witness open conduits to the gods, and with the puissance of the deities available aren’t we capable of speaking in tongues, eating fire, shape-shifting, et cetera?
——— I’d say something flippant, but I did change shape last night and I did speak, a particularly peculiar…I don’t know what to call it, how do you say whatever climbing plants talk.
——— What does that sound like, Lili?
——— I’m not actually sure I can tell you, but I was a labyrinthine rhododendron last night.
———
——— I thought I must have looked at too much Frida Kahlo.
——— That’s plausible, I can imagine.
——— I thought I was imagining it, but I was sitting in my window, the one that faces the avenue, watching the car lights, the people coming and going any places I determined, when I realized that the vines of the rhododendron I was sitting under had grown into my braids. At first this didn’t bother me much, but then I remembered I had artichokes on the stove, but I couldn’t move because I’d become this plant. I really got angry cause this was my plant that I’d nurtured and fed, turned toward sunlight and away, washed the leaves, soaked in the tub, led along silk strings to the ceiling. Who was going to feed me? That’s what I wanted to know.
——— That’s a very “Lili” fantasy.
——— How’s that?
——— There’s all the glass in the window. You are watching lights and people moving about.
——— So?
——— Didn’t your mother have a greenhouse?
——— Yes.
——— Didn’t she nurture rare flowers in the greenhouse? And entertain a variety of people whose identities you imagined.
——— Yes.