Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil Part 2

"You can tell from the wording of the news item that Sadie Jefferson was black," she said, "because the courtesy t.i.tle of 'Mrs.' or 'Miss' is omitted. That was the practice until integration. It was also the practice to list blacks in a separate section of the city directory. That's probably why you didn't find her." Indeed, Sadie Jefferson was listed in the "Colored" section of the 1914 city directory-the wife of James E. Jefferson, a barber. She died in the 1970s.

The story of blacks in Savannah was, of course, a very different one from that of whites. Slavery was forbidden in Georgia in 1735 (Oglethorpe called it "a horrid crime"), but in 1749 the colony's Trustees gave in to pressure from the settlers and legalized it. Despite a long history of oppression, the 1960s civil rights movement in Savannah was almost entirely nonviolent. Civil rights leaders staged sit-ins at lunch counters, swim-ins at the beach, kneel-ins in churches, and a fifteen-month boycott of segregated stores. Tensions rose, but peace prevailed, largely because of the tireless efforts of a forward-thinking mayor, Malcolm Maclean, and a nonviolent strategy adopted by black leaders, notably W. W. Law, the head of the local branch of the NAACP. In 1964, Martin Luther King declared Savannah "the most desegregated city in the South." In 1980, the population of Savannah was half white and half black.

There was ample evidence in the records of the historical society that in Savannah's palmier days it had been a cosmopolitan city and its citizens an unusually worldly sort. Mayor Richard Arnold, the man who had sweet-talked General Sherman in and out of town during the Civil War, was typical of the breed. He was a physician, a scholar, an epicure, a connoisseur of fine wines, and a gentleman who took his social obligations seriously. He wrote in one letter, "Yesterday, I entertained the Hon. How ell Cobb at a sociable dinner party. We sat down at 3 o'clock and got up at half past nine." Mayor Arnold's six-and-a-half-hour dinner lent weight to what I had been told about Savannah's fondness for parties, and it put me in mind of the genteel merriment going on nonstop in the townhouse down the street from me at 16 East Jones Street.

My casual surveillance of the house paid off one day at noontime. A car drew up to the curb and screeched to a jolting stop. At the wheel was a neatly dressed elderly lady with white hair as neat as pie crust. She had made no attempt to parallel park but had instead pulled into the s.p.a.ce front end first as if tethering a horse to a hitching post. She got out and marched to the front door, took a ball-peen hammer out of her purse and methodically smashed all the little panes of gla.s.s around the door. Then she put the hammer back in her purse and walked back to her car. The incident did not seem to make any difference to the people in the house. The piano went right on playing, and the voices kept on laughing. The panes of gla.s.s were replaced, but not until several days later.

As I expected, it all became perfectly clear soon enough. One night after dinner, I heard the click of spike heels coming up the steps followed by a gentle knock on the door. I opened it to behold a beautiful woman standing in the moonlight. Her head was tucked into a platinum cloud of cotton-candy hair. She wore a low-cut pink dress, which she filled voluptuously, and she was giggling.

"Wouldn't you know," she said, "they've gone and turned off Joe's electricity again."

"They have?" I answered. "Who is Joe?"

She was momentarily confused. "You don't know Joe? I thought everybody knew Joe. He's your neighbor. I mean, he's almost your neighbor. Joe Odom." She waved in a westerly direction. "He lives a couple of houses down that way."

"Not the house with the piano?"

This comment sent the woman into gales of pretty laughter. "Uh-huh. You got it."

"And is Joe Odom the one who plays the piano?"

"He sure is," she said, "and I'm Mandy. Mandy Nichols. I don't mean to disturb you or anything, but I saw your light on. Anyway, we've run out of ice, and I was sort of hoping you could spare some."

I invited her in. As she brushed by me I breathed the essence of gardenia. I recognized her now as one of the many people I had seen going into the house down the street. There was no way I could possibly have forgotten her. She was a statuesque beauty with not a single angular contour on her soft and lovely body. Her blue eyes were set off by a bright framework of lavishly applied cosmetics. I took four ice trays out of the freezer and emptied them into an ice bucket. I told her I had been wondering who lived in that house.

"Officially, it's just Joe," she said, "but sometimes it's hard to tell, with so many people spending the night, or the week, or a few months. I live in Waycross, and I drive in to Savannah six days a week to sing at the clubs here in town. If I'm too tired to drive home at night, I just stay at Joe's."

Mandy said she had gone to the University of Tennessee on a half-scholars.h.i.+p for twirling. She also said she had been crowned Miss BBW in Las Vegas a year before.

"Miss BBW?"

"That stands for Miss Big Beautiful Woman," she said. "It's a beauty contest for large women. They put out a magazine and a line of clothing-the whole nine yards. I didn't really plan on entering the pageant, though. My friends sent in the application."

I gave her the ice bucket.

"Hey," she said, "why don't you come on over and join us for a drink."

I had been about to suggest that very thing myself, so I accepted without hesitation and followed her down the stairs and into the lane. Mandy walked gingerly; the pebbles clicked and skittered under her spike heels.

"It's a long drive from Waycross to Savannah, isn't it?" I asked.

"About an hour and a half," she said, "each way."

"Doesn't that get a little boring, day after day?"

"Not really. It gives me a chance to do my nails."

"Your nails?"

"Of course," she giggled. "Why not?"

"I don't know. It just sounds a little complicated," I said. "Doing your nails and driving at the same time."

"It's real easy once you get the hang of it," she said. "I drive with my knees."

"Your knees!"

"Uh-huh. Actually, I save my nails for last. I do my makeup first and then my hair."

I looked at the brilliant palette of colors on Mandy's smiling face. This was no simple application of lipstick and mascara. It was a complex composition that involved the blending of many hues and tints. There were pinks and blues and umber, topped by the platinum-blond nimbus of her hair.

"I back-comb my hair," she said.

"You must attract a lot of attention on the road," I said, "doing all that."

"Yeah, sometimes," she said. "Yesterday, I pulled into a gas station, and this truck driver followed right behind me and pulled up alongside. He said, 'Ma'am, I have been driving behind you for the last forty-five minutes, and I've been watching. First you did your makeup. Then you did your hair. Then you did your nails. I just wanted to get up close and see what you looked like.' He gave me a big wink and told me I was right pretty. But then he said, 'Let me ask you something. I noticed every couple of minutes you've been reaching over and foolin' with something on the seat next to you. Whatcha got over there?' 'That's my TV,' I told him. 'I can't miss my soaps!'"

We walked from the lane into Joe Odom's garden. Candlelight flickered in the windows of the darkened house. Two men crouched by the garden wall. One held a flashlight while the other knelt in front of the electric meter. The kneeling man wore big rubber gloves with which he gripped a large pair of pliers. He appeared to be splicing two cables together.

"Careful, Joe," the man with the flashlight said.

A shower of sparks jumped from the cable, and the lights in the house next door dimmed for a moment. As they came back up to full strength, the lights in Joe's house blinked on. Cheers came from inside. Joe stood up.

"Well, I guess I didn't get electrocuted this time," he said. "Maybe next time." He bowed silently to the neighboring house.

Joe Odom had a mustache and graying blond hair. He wore a light blue s.h.i.+rt open at the neck, chinos, and brown-and-white saddle shoes. He was about thirty-five and looked remarkably calm, I thought, for someone who had just pulled off a life-threatening, high-voltage act of larceny.

"I've got ice," said Mandy.

"And an ice man too, I see." Joe flashed a bright smile. "I don't usually putter around in the garden this late at night," he said, "but, well ... we had a few problems out here that needed tending to."

He took off the rubber gloves. "I reckon I'm getting pretty good at this. I can turn water and gas back on too. Remember that. Someday you may need my services. I'm only fair at telephones, though. I can reconnect a phone that's been cut off, but I can't make it do anything but receive incoming calls. No outgoing."

Somewhere under the steps an air-conditioning condenser clicked on.

"Lovely sound, isn't it!" said Joe. "Why don't we all go inside and drink a toast to it-and to the lights, and the dishwasher, and the microwave, and the refrigerator, and the Savannah Electric and Power Company. And to ..." He raised an imaginary gla.s.s in the direction of the house next door. "Whoever."

Joe Odom's townhouse was furnished in a manner I would not have expected for the home of a utilities deadbeat. On the parlor floor I saw a fine English sideboard, several good eighteenth-century oil portraits, a pair of antique silver sconces, a Steinway grand piano, and two or three impressive oriental carpets. There were people in every room, it seemed-not quite a party, more an open house.

"I'm a tax lawyer," said Joe, "and a real estate broker and a piano player. I used to be a partner in a law firm, but a couple of years ago I quit and moved my office into this house so I could mix business and pleasure in whatever proportion I wanted. That's when my third wife left me."

Joe nodded toward a young man asleep on a couch in the living room. "That's Clint. If you ever need a ride to Atlanta, Clint will be happy to take you. He drives trailer trucks back and forth, and he likes to have company in the cab. I should warn you, though, he makes the trip in just under three hours. n.o.body who's ever been on one of those wild rides has ever gone back for a second one."

A girl with a red ponytail was talking on the telephone in the kitchen. Joe told me she was a disk jockey for one of Savannah's Top 40 radio stations. He added that a man she was dating had just been arrested for dealing cocaine and for making terroristic threats against the police. In the dining room, a blond man dressed in a white s.h.i.+rt and white slacks was cutting a woman's hair. "That's Jerry Spence," said Joe. "He cuts all our hair, and right now he's doing Ann, my first and second wife. Ann and I were childhood sweethearts. We got married the first time while I was in law school and the second time on the anniversary of our first divorce. And, of course, you've met Mandy here. She's my fourth wife-in-waiting."

"What's she waiting for?" I asked.

"For her divorce to come through," said Joe. "There's no telling when that will happen, because her attorney's a lazy cuss who hasn't gotten around to filing the papers yet. I guess we can't complain about it, though, because I'm her attorney."

The social center of the house was the kitchen, which overlooked the garden. It had a piano in it, and it was from this room that the music and laughter spilled out over the garden walls up and down the street.

"I notice you leave your front door unlocked," I said.

"That's right. It got to be too much trouble going down to answer it all the time. That was one of my third wife's grievances." Odom laughed.

"Well, the front door happens to be one of my grievances too," said Mandy. "Especially since the burglary last week. Joe says it wasn't a burglary, but I say it was. It was four o'clock in the morning, and we were both in bed. I woke up and heard noises downstairs, and I shook Joe. 'Joe, we got burglars,' I said. But he didn't care. 'Oh, it could be anybody,' he said. But I was sure it was burglars. They were opening cupboards and drawers and I don't know what-all. So I shook him again and I said, 'Joe, go down and see.' Well, Mr. Cool just lifted his head a few inches off the pillow and hollered, 'Angus? That you, Angus?' There was total silence, of course. So Joe says to me, 'Well, if we got a burglar, his name ain't Angus.' Then he went back to sleep. But it was was a burglar, and we were lucky we weren't murdered." a burglar, and we were lucky we weren't murdered."

Joe started to play the piano in the middle of Mandy's story. "In the morning," he said, "three bottles of liquor and a half dozen gla.s.ses were missing. That doesn't sound like a burglary to me. It sounds like a party. And the only thing that annoys me about it is we weren't invited."

Joe's smile indicated that the matter was closed, at least as far as he was concerned. "Anyway, as I was saying, I originally left the door unlocked as a matter of convenience. But pretty soon I realized that whenever the doorbell did did ring, it was someone I didn't know. So the bell became a signal that a stranger was at the door. I've learned never to answer it myself when that happens, because it's likely to be a deputy sheriff wanting to serve me with some kind of paper, and of course I don't need to be home for that." ring, it was someone I didn't know. So the bell became a signal that a stranger was at the door. I've learned never to answer it myself when that happens, because it's likely to be a deputy sheriff wanting to serve me with some kind of paper, and of course I don't need to be home for that."

"Or for little old ladies with hammers in their hands," I said.

"Hammers? I don't believe I know any old ladies who carry hammers."

"The one who punched out your windows certainly had a hammer."

"A little old lady did that?" Joe looked surprised. "I was wondering how that happened. We thought somebody slammed the door too hard. You mean you saw her do it?"

"I did."

"Well, we've got our share of little old ladies here in Savannah," said Joe, "and it looks like one of them's unhappy with me." He did not seem the least bit concerned. "Well, now you know something about us," he said. "Tell us about yourself."

I said I was a writer from New York.

"Ah, then you must be the new Yankee I've been hearing about. Nothing escapes our notice, you know. Savannah's a real small town. It's so small everybody knows everybody else's business, which can be a pain, but it also means we know who all the undercover cops are, which can be a plus. Now, as for you, I should tell you that you've already aroused a fair amount of curiosity. People think you're writing an expose about Savannah, so they're a little wary of you. You don't need to fret about that, though. Secretly they all hope you'll put them in your book." Joe laughed and winked.

"Savannah's a peculiar place, but if you just listen to your Cousin Joe you'll get along fine. You need to know about a few basic rules though.

"Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know." That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know."

"I think I can live with that one," I said.

"Rule number two: Never go south of Gaston Street. Never go south of Gaston Street. A true Savannahian is a NOG. NOG means 'north of Gaston.' We stay in the old part of town. We don't do the Mall. We don't do the southside unless we're invited to a party for rich people out at The Landings. Everything south of Gaston Street is North Jacksonville to us, and ordinarily we leave it alone. A true Savannahian is a NOG. NOG means 'north of Gaston.' We stay in the old part of town. We don't do the Mall. We don't do the southside unless we're invited to a party for rich people out at The Landings. Everything south of Gaston Street is North Jacksonville to us, and ordinarily we leave it alone.

"Rule number three: Observe the high holidays-Saint Patrick's Day and the day of the Georgia-Florida football game. Observe the high holidays-Saint Patrick's Day and the day of the Georgia-Florida football game. Savannah has the third-biggest Saint Patrick's Day parade in America. People come from all over the South to see it. Businesses close for the day, except for restaurants and bars, and the drinking starts at about six Savannah has the third-biggest Saint Patrick's Day parade in America. People come from all over the South to see it. Businesses close for the day, except for restaurants and bars, and the drinking starts at about six A.M. A.M. Liquor is a major feature of the Georgia-Florida game, too, but the similarity ends there. The game is nothing less than a war between the gentlemen of Georgia and the Florida barbarians. We get all keyed up for it a week ahead of time, and then afterwards it takes a week to ten days to deal with the emotional strain of having won or lost. Georgia men grow up understanding the seriousness of that one game." Liquor is a major feature of the Georgia-Florida game, too, but the similarity ends there. The game is nothing less than a war between the gentlemen of Georgia and the Florida barbarians. We get all keyed up for it a week ahead of time, and then afterwards it takes a week to ten days to deal with the emotional strain of having won or lost. Georgia men grow up understanding the seriousness of that one game."

"Georgia women grow up understanding it too," said Mandy. "Ask any girl in south Georgia. She'll tell you flat out: You don't start wearing panty hose until after after the Georgia-Florida game." I felt myself becoming a fast friend of Joe and Mandy. the Georgia-Florida game." I felt myself becoming a fast friend of Joe and Mandy.

"So, look here," Joe said. "Now that you've come under our protective custody, we'll be unhappy with you if you need anything and don't ask for it, or if you get into trouble and don't holler."

Mandy climbed into Joe's lap and nuzzled his ear.

"Just make sure you put us in your book," he said. "You understand, of course, that we'll want to play ourselves in the movie version. Won't we, Mandy?"

"Mm-hmmm," she said.

Joe played a few bars of "Hooray for Hollywood" (another Johnny Mercer tune).

"In that book of yours," he said, "you can use my real name if you want to. Or you can just call me the 'Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia,' because that's pretty much who I am.

I'm just a sentimental gentleman from Georgia, Georgia, Gentle to the ladies all the time.

And when it comes to lovin' I'm a real professor, Yes sir!

Just a Mason-Dixon valentine.Oh, see those Georgia peaches Hangin' around me now.

'Cause what this baby teaches n.o.body else knows how.

This sentimental gentleman from Georgia, Georgia, Gentle to the ladies all the time.

Joe sang with such winsome charm, I had to remind myself that he was the same person who had tapped into the electricity of the house next door and who was, by his own admission, dodging process servers for financial transgressions of G.o.d-knew-what proportion. His ingratiating manner made everything he did seem like good-natured fun. Later, as he saw me to the door, he joked and bantered with such easy grace that I did not fully realize until I got home that in the course of saying goodbye he had borrowed twenty dollars from me.

Chapter 4.

SETTLING IN.

Having made what I took to be a promising, if unorthodox, start on a social life, I set about arranging my apartment so I could live and work in it comfortably. For essential things like bookshelves, file cabinets, and reading lamps, I visited a junk shop on the edge of town. It was a cluttered, barnlike warehouse that extended back into a series of rooms filled with Formica dinette sets, sofas, office furniture, and all manner of machinery from washer-dryers to apple corers. The owner sat like a Buddha behind a desk, barking h.e.l.los to customers and instructions to his salesman.

The salesman was an expressionless man in his mid-thirties. He had mousy brown hair parted at the center, and his arms hung loosely at his sides. His clothes were clean but faded, like the suits and s.h.i.+rts on a rack in one corner of the store. I was immediately impressed by the man's instant recall of the store's vast inventory. "We have seven of that type item," he would say. "One's like new, four work pretty good, one's broke but could be fixed, and the other's on lay-away." In addition to having a mental catalog of the place, the salesman was a virtuoso on the strengths and weaknesses of practically any brand of appliance, particularly brands no longer in existence. "Kelvinator made a good one in the early fifties," he'd say. "It had five speeds. It was real easy to clean, and you could get replacement parts right quick."

Impressed as I was by all of that, I was struck even more by something else-a carefully applied arc of purple eye shadow that blazed like a lurid sunset on his left eyelid.

At first I found it difficult to listen to what he was saying, distracted as I was by the eye shadow. I wondered what nocturnal transformation was built around this painted eye. I envisioned a tiara and a strapless gown, a fluttering ostrich fan at the end of a long white glove. Or was this something quite different? Was it, perhaps, the war paint of punk? Did this mild-mannered man spend his secret hours in jackboots, ripped T-s.h.i.+rts, and spiked hair?

Eventually, my attention wandered back to what the man was saying, and I bought what it was he was showing me. The next week, I dropped in at the shop again, and this time I tried very hard not to stare at the purple eye shadow on the man's left eye.

From time to time, while he was waiting on me, the boss would shout questions from his desk about whether such-and-such an item was in stock. The salesman would c.o.c.k an ear and call out the answer over his shoulder without looking directly at his boss. After one such exchange, the salesman said in a low voice, "What the boss don't know won't hurt him."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"He didn't like this," the salesman said, pointing to his left eye. "I don't do drag or anything sick like that. I just do my eyes. I used to do my other eye the same way too. The boss told me to stop, and I was all set to walk out the door and never come back. But then I figured, 'Wait a minute. He never gets out of that chair, see, and my desk is over by his left side. If I only do the eye away from him, maybe he'll never notice.' That was two years ago and he ain't said nothin' about it since."

On my next visit to the shop, the salesman was out to lunch but due back soon. The boss and I chatted. "Jack's a good man," he said, speaking of his salesman. "Best I've ever seen. He's a strange one, though. He's a loner. This shop and everything in it is his whole life. I call him 'Jack the One-eyed Jill'-not to his face, of course. He used to put that eye makeup on both eyes, you know. G.o.d, it looked awful. I told him, 'I can't have this in my shop! No more or you're out!' 'I can't have this in my shop! No more or you're out!' So what did he do? Came in the next day not wearin' any eye makeup at all as far as I could tell. But he was walkin' sideways around the store like a d.a.m.ned crab, twistin' this way and that. Then he went past a mirrored wardrobe, and I saw it plain as day: He'd put the makeup on the other eye. So what did he do? Came in the next day not wearin' any eye makeup at all as far as I could tell. But he was walkin' sideways around the store like a d.a.m.ned crab, twistin' this way and that. Then he went past a mirrored wardrobe, and I saw it plain as day: He'd put the makeup on the other eye.

"I was ready to kick his b.u.t.t clear out the door, then and there. But he's good at what he does, and it doesn't seem to bother the customers. So I kept my mouth shut. And from that day to this, he's kept that eye turned away from me. He must take me for blind or some kind of idiot, but that's okay with me. He pretends he's not wearing makeup, and I pretend I don't know he's ignored my wishes. Meanwhile, he keeps walkin' sideways, twistin' around, speakin' outta the corner of his mouth, and hopin' I won't notice. And I make out like I don't. I don't know who's crazier, Jack the One-eyed Jill or me. But we get along just fine."

Before long, I found myself settling into a pattern of daily routines: an early-morning jog around Forsyth Park, breakfast at Clary's drugstore, a late-afternoon walk along Bull Street. I discovered that my activities coincided with the daily rituals of certain other people. No matter how widely our paths may have diverged for the rest of the day, we overlapped again and again at our appointed hour and place. The black man who jogged around Forsyth Park at the same hour I did was one such person.