Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (19 page)

“Don’t start!” said Chablis, “’Cause I know what the trouble with me is! The trouble with me is I buy a whole wardrobe of gowns, and then I spend hundreds of hours sewin’ on beads and sequins and rhinestones, and I don’t get paid for any of that. I buy records so I can learn new songs, and I get hormone shots for twenty dollars twice a month to maintain my feminine image, and nobody pays me for that either. Then I spend hours fixin’ my hair and makin’ my face and gettin’ into my drag so I can come down to this filthy piss-hole of a place that looks like somebody’s attic and do my best to create an illusion of glamour. Honey, the rafters in here are so low I’d be afraid to come out on that stage wearin’ a tiara!” Chablis glared at Burt, her dark eyes blazing.

“Well, Chablis,” he said, “if you—”

“The trouble with me is I work for a man who thinks he’s
doin’ me a favor by lettin’ me parade around on his stage. He thinks I have so much fun puttin’ on dresses and shakin’ my butt that I don’t care if I get paid or not. Well, let me tell you somethin’. There are times I don’t feel like puttin’ on a dress or makin’ my face. But I come down here and do it anyway, because it’s my job. It’s how I make my living. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else: It’s damn hard work bein’ a girl full time!”

“Chablis,” said Burt. “You’re not being fair. You know I think of you as family.”

Chablis sighed. She had one hand on her hip and a sardonic smile on her face. “Sure, baby,” she said softly. “I suppose that’s why you got that sign down by the front door that says ‘Fifteen Dollars Membership Fee.’ The fee that only black folks are asked to pay, ’Cause black folks are not welcome in this club as guests—only as the hired help. The hired help that don’t always get paid.”

Chablis took another handful of dresses off the rack. “Stand back, bitch,” she said. “This member of the family is leavin’ home!”

The hall outside the dressing room was now crowded. Chablis tossed out gown after gown. “Hold ’em up high, honey! Don’t drag the drag! Hold ’em up over your head, baby!”

When the rack was empty, Chablis turned to Burt. He was still holding the silver lamé dress. “Don’t forget your gaff, Burt,” she said. “You’re gonna need it to hide your dick when you wear that dress.” Burt said nothing. Chablis shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. “But when the time comes and you ain’t got a gaff to wear, whatcha gonna do, huh? I’ll let you in on a little trade secret. There’s something else that works just as good as a gaff: Put on four pairs of panty hose. Do that, honey, and everyone’ll swear you got a pussy!”

Chablis tossed the last dress to Julie Rae. “Okay, Miss Thing!” she said, “I am
ready!”
Then down the stairs she went, followed by a cascade of glitter and fluff. Chablis strutted out onto the dance floor, her long train of gowns floating behind her like a colorful, twinkling Chinese dragon. Other dancers joined
the line, raising their arms to support the winding canopy of dresses. Chablis was radiant. “Ooooo,
child!”
she called out, “I wish my mama could see me now!” She bumped and wiggled and shook her butt. The gown-bearers fell into step behind her, hooting and hollering as Chablis led them snaking around the dance floor, into the bar, down its entire length, past the man with the baseball cap and the stringy hair, past the sign that read $15
MEMBERSHIP FEE
and out into Congress Street.

She turned and headed east, still dancing to the music, her long train flowing out behind her. The streetlights glinted off the rhinestones and the sequins, igniting sparks of light in the billows of peach and red and green and white. “It’s like I told you, honey,” she called out as she passed me. “You’re gonna have to travel if you wanna see me do my shit from now on. Macon, Augusta, Atlanta, Columbia…. They all know The Doll, honey! They all know Chablis!”

Traffic on Congress Street slowed to a crawl in order to take in the glittering procession. The air was filled with honks and whistles and shouts in a mixture of good-natured cheer and lusty derision. The motorists were unaware, of course, that the spectacle they were witnessing was that of the Grand Empress of Savannah parading every wig, gown, and gaff in her imperial wardrobe. Chablis waved to her subjects. “Sistuh’s movin’ out!” she shouted. “Yayyiss, honey! Mama’s on the move! I am
serious
, child!”

“Lord, you Yankees are something else,” said Joe Odom. “We do our best to set you on the straight and narrow, and look what happens. First you take up with folks like Luther Driggers, whose main claim to fame is he’s gettin’ ready to poison us all. Then you drive around in an automobile that ain’t fit to take a hog to market in, and now you tell us you’re Hangin’ out with a nigger drag queen. I mean, really! Your mama and daddy are gonna pitch a fit when they hear about this, and I reckon they’ll blame it all on me.”

Joe was seated at a table in a huge warehouse space that was soon to open its doors as Sweet Georgia Brown’s, a piano bar with an 1890s atmosphere. Joe Odom was to be the proprietor, president, and featured performer in a three-man jazz combo. He was just now writing checks and handing them out to the workmen who were putting the finishing touches on the place. A carpenter was buffing the U-shaped oak bar to a lustrous sheen. In the center of the U, a white merry-go-round horse reared up over a hillock of liquor bottles. Mandy, who was to be part owner of the bar and a featured vocalist, stood on a ladder focusing spotlights on the bandstand, where Joe was having an afternoon scotch and signing checks.

Joe’s parting from Emma’s had been perfectly amicable. Under the circumstances, it had been the only gentlemanly thing he could have done. His part ownership of Emma’s had drawn all of his creditors out of the woodwork, and they had pounced on the little bar with writs and lawsuits in the manner of depositors staging a run on a failing bank. Joe had become a liability to Emma’s, so he withdrew and took the warehouse space across Bay Street. He was not really sure how Sweet Georgia Brown’s would be any less a target of his creditors than Emma’s had been. An indifferent shrug was the best answer he could give to that question.

Meanwhile, Joe and Mandy had been evicted from 101 East Oglethorpe Avenue for nonpayment of rent. They had taken up residence a few blocks away in a handsome white frame house on Liberty Street. Joe’s entourage followed him to his new house, and so did the tour buses. The only people who were unaware that Joe had moved into the house were the absentee owners and the real estate agent, Simon Stokes, who had taken him through it. Joe had pretended to be undecided and in no particular hurry the afternoon Mr. Stokes had shown him the empty house. The next day Mr. Stokes departed for a six-month stay in England, and the day after that Joe moved in—furniture, piano, entourage, and all. He was a glorified squatter, but no one knew it at the time.

By the end of the first week, Joe was giving tours and lunches at three dollars a head. He greeted the tourists with a slightly altered version of the welcoming speech he had used at his other houses: “Good afternoon! My name is Joe Odom. I’m a tax lawyer, a real estate broker, and a piano player. I live in this house, which was built by a Confederate general who died in what we like to call the War of Northern Aggression. Feel free to walk around and make yourselves at home. If you see a closed door, though, please don’t open it, because you’re likely to find dirty socks and unmade beds and maybe even people sleeping in them.”

Mandy climbed down from the ladder. She was wearing a tight, floor-length beaded gown with a plunging neckline. A peacock feather was attached to her bejeweled headband. She had been trying on her Diamond Lil costume to go with the 1890s theme of the place.

“How do you like my look?” she said, striking a sexy pose against the piano.

“I like it just fine,” said Joe.

“Marry it then,” she said.

Joe gave Mandy a kiss. Then he went back to the business of writing checks. He gave one to the man who had installed the lights. He gave another to the carpenter and a third to the general contractor. Joe and the men bantered lightheartedly, as if all of them really believed the checks were good.

After the workmen had left, an old black man appeared beside Joe at the piano. He was leaning on a cane. He had been at the bar most of the afternoon, making coffee for the workers and keeping the place swept clean. “Quittin’ time, Mr. Odom,” he said. He cast a glance at the checkbook.

Joe shook his head. “Uh-uh, Chester. You don’t want to fool with those things. Always insist on the real McCoy when you can get it.” He pulled out his wallet and gave the old man the only bill in it, a twenty. The man thanked him and hobbled off.

“Now about these folks you’ve been consorting with,” said Joe, turning his attention once again to me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of like the people I’ve been meeting in Savannah. I’ll admit I might have to upgrade the car though.”

“Then maybe there’s hope after all,” he said. He lit up a cigar. “’Cause you know, Mandy and I are fixing to rent a house with a pool out in Hollywood for when they make the movie out of that book of yours. But it’s starting to look like our costars are going to be nothing but a bunch of creeps. We need to do something about that.”

“Who do you have in mind?” I asked. “The mayor?”

“Lord no, not him,” said Joe. He thought for a moment.
“We’ve got a lady staying with us at the house that you might be interested in. She writes a sex-therapy column for
Penthouse
magazine.” He looked at me expectantly. “No? No.”

I reached into my pocket and took out a note I had jotted to myself. “As it happens,” I said, “I am about to widen my circle of acquaintances. See if you approve.” I handed him the note. It read: “Jim Williams, Mercer House, 429 Bull Street, Tuesday 6:30
P.M.
”

Joe nodded with the solemnity of a jeweler appraising a rare gemstone. “Well now!” he said. “This is much better. So much better. Jim Williams is a stellar individual. He’s brilliant. Successful. Much admired. A little arrogant, maybe. But rich. And the house ain’t bad either.”

And so it happened that I spent that extraordinary evening in Mercer House in the company of Jim Williams and his Fabergé trinkets, his pipe organ, his portraits, his Nazi banner, his game of Psycho Dice and—briefly but memorably—his tempestuous young friend, Danny Hansford.

“Well, what did you think?” Joe Odom asked me when I stopped in at Sweet Georgia Brown’s afterward.

“I think I’ve met the young man you found in your bed,” I said, “the one with the tattoos and the ‘Fuck You’ T-shirt. He works for Williams.”

“So that’s who it was,” said Joe. “He must be the kid who drives that souped-up Camaro that’s always parked in front of Mercer House. He hot-rods it all over town, whips around the squares like they were his own personal Indy 500.”

Danny Hansford was unknown to most of the residents of Monterey Square. At best he was a nameless presence, someone seen entering and leaving Mercer House, parking and taking off in his black Camaro, wheels squealing. One of the few people who had met him was an art student named Corinne, who lived on the top floor of a townhouse just off the square. Corinne had soft white skin and a tumbleweed of auburn hair. She designed
her own clothes, which were always black and usually emphasized her best features—her bosom and her buttocks. She breakfasted regularly at Clary’s drugstore, and she was not ashamed to admit that she knew Danny Hansford. “He’s a walking streak of sex,” she told me.