Countless are the antelope hooves that have pounded this floor. No wonder the linoleum is worn.This is the room where the black virgin was kidnapped, later to be caged in the grand mosque at Mecca. After all these years, they are still interrogating her about the location of true north. “Why won’t the polestar stand still?” is what they want to know. That and . . . One Other Thing.In this room, the salamander was squashed between the pages of the rhyming dictionary, thereby changing poetry forever. Here, Salome walked around with a big red fish held high up over her head. Old Father spanked her with a ballet slipper, sending her to bed without milk or honey. Dance was changed in this room, too.So this, then, is the chamber of the hootchy-kootch. Its bathtub full of orchids. Its closet full of smoke.And on the wolfmother wallpaper, little beads of dew.MAYBE ELLEN CHERRY CHARLES didn’t look like a million dollars, but nobody could deny that she looked like the tax on a million dollars.
