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
There’s this place, a spot, on the mid-West Side where I used to meet a fella who stayed with me off and on. Well, I used to see him. I stopped going out with him because he had this terrible habit of wearing my shirts to meet me. Now I am virtually sure he wasn’t a cross-dresser or something, someone who just adores putting on women’s clothes. I think he was one of those men who was working on himself, you know. The man of his times not afraid of his female side, his softness and all that. I’m not against any of that, but I’m not sure that men’s consciousness-raising groups in the forest with animal skins and drums is the path to their female side. Plus, I resented him, his name was Alex, for that matter. I can find no good reason for him to constantly show up in my clothes. It’s amusing before making love, I guess; to exchange things, roles, scents. Yet I can’t help thinking that he’s actually not investing his own money, the time it takes to find these particular garments, that…Well, they look like me.
Maybe Alex imagined wrapping me around and about him when he slipped those wiry arms in my sleeves. The wildest thing I can conjure up is that when he put my pants on that was some simulation of fucking. I don’t know. I just got aggravated when he’d casually appear with none of my hips or bust and look perfectly adorable. Alex could probably have walked all over Manhattan naked if it wasn’t against the law, and come to meet me, too. Oh, whatta husky cherub he was: eyes so deep I could wake all up in them; lanky, wiry brown taut like wound hemp. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad idea after all. He could’ve worn my shirts so he’d be closer to me. Now, that could be interesting, a fellow with a fetish for me. Maybe Alex didn’t actually have anything to wear, hummh.
Anyway I met him at this place that had one of the deepest juke boxes, had the greatest B.B. King, The Orlons, The Cadillacs, even The Five Satins. For fifty cents I could enter any rollicking summer of my life, any New Year’s Eve, every teenaged dream and take Alex with me. I probably was too hard on him, expecting familiarity with a past I didn’t share or refer to, unless some ditty by Ruby and the Romantics or Mary Wells grabbed me up.