Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

While Chapter 22 opens with “the gala parties were over” (291), this chapter shows that incarceration has not stopped Williams and focuses on a party at the Mercer House that Williams arranges from jail for his mother to thank his supporters. The day of the party, news breaks that there are two new defense witnesses who will testify that Hansford tried to get them to murder Williams. While everyone wants to congratulate Williams’s mother on this turn of events, they also know that the details of this testimony are not for polite company, so they indirectly allude to it.

As Berendt wanders the party listening in on different conversations, he hears Mrs. Mayhew discuss her sadness at not having the famous Christmas party to attend this year: “There won’t be anything to do in Savannah the night before the Cotillion anyhow” (303). Others discuss the new evidence and assume Williams paid for the testimony. Odom is there also, saying that soon “he and Jim might be trading places before long” (305) due to his legal predicament. Even the Adlers are at the party, despite their known vocal support for Lawton. Williams says he invited them because he figures “it’s never too late to hold out an olive branch” (307); he doesn’t want to make the Adlers resent him further and jeopardize his new testimony. Even Minerva is at the party, working her black magic on the Adlers. 

While Williams is in jail, using “little tricks to convince himself and others that he was not really in jail” (310), it’s clear that, despite Seiler’s attempts at appeals, there would be no release for Williams, at least not in time for the Christmas party. Berendt decides to learn more about the black debutante ball that occurs on the same night Williams used to hold his Christmas parties. The Savannah State College’s black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, sponsors the ball: “The graduate Alphas were representative of the upper level of Savannah’s black community” (310). Although their members include doctors, lawyers, and teachers, they are unable to enter the upper elite of Savannah: “Notably absent [from their membership] were bankers, partners of the city’s most influential law firms, directors of big corporations, and people with inherited wealth” (310).

Dr. Collier organized the first ball in 1945, and he explains to Berendt the qualifications the girls need to be included: “The girls have to be of good moral character. That’s most important” (311); they must be enrolled in college, and there must be no evidence of misconduct. Collier explains that once integration began in the 1960s, hotels would rent their ballrooms to them for the ball. He believes that soon, the society pages will also include their ball: “In time, that, too, will come” (312). Collier invites Berendt to join him as his guest.

When Berendt tells Chablis about the invitation, she begs to attend as Berendt’s guest. He adamantly refuses, saying that it would not be appropriate since the debutante guests all have “spotless reputations” (314). After the presentation of the debutantes and their minuet dances with their fathers and escorts, Berendt soon spots Chablis at the ball. Mortified, he worries that the others will think he invited her and hold him responsible for her behaviors.

Chablis does not show that she knows Berendt, but her suggestive conversation with the guests at the table make Berendt extremely uneasy. She easily persuades one of the escorts to dance with her, “not so much dancing as writhing to the beat” (322). Berendt is sure that her behavior will rapidly deteriorate, and he is eager to leave to avoid responsibility. Before he can do so, Collier traps him in conversation. Chablis finds him soon after and threatens to scream if he tries to leave. Berendt expresses his anger at her actions, and she promises to behave. She then goes on to analyze the social implications of the ball. She says that all of those assembled for this party are merely trying to copy the behaviors of rich white people, which disgusts her. She says that the blacks there are even copying a type of racism since the lighter-skinned blacks get more privileges in the African American community than the darker-skinned blacks: “Y’see, when it comes to prejudice, black folks are right up there with white folks” (325).

At the end of the night, Chablis eats at the table where Berendt is seated. She talks with two older women at the table, who tell Chablis that they have been admiring her gown all night. Chablis responds by pretending that she is the cousin of one of the debutantes, LaVella. She then proceeds to destroy her reputation as she talks about LaVella’s “whorin’ around” (327) in Atlanta. The conversation rapidly goes downhill as Chablis states that she herself always wanted to be a real debutante at the Cotillion ball since she could pass as white: “I can be whatever I choose to be, and if I choose to be a rich white girl, honey, that’s what I will be” (327). When Chablis gets up to give her phone number to several escorts, Berendt is finally able to make his escape.

Berendt chronicles how life in Savannah seems to be heading for a downturn after Williams’s sensational trial. The economy in Savannah is heading into a decline. While the beginning of the book depicts how the residents reveled in their town’s unique isolationism, rebuffing outsiders’ attempts to “improve” the city, this chapter suggests that such actions may have made Savannah less profitable:

Northern businesses were relocating in the South, but they were putting down roots in Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Charleston, not in Savannah. Downtown real estate values, after rising sharply for twenty years, had softened (330).

In addition to this financial news, the FBI releases a shocking report announcing that Savannah is the murder capital of the United States. With these financial and social concerns, the spotlight no longer shines on Williams’s predicament.

The author gives legal updates on some of the other characters as well. Odom is still running his “nonprofit”: the Hamilton-Turner Museum Foundation. When the law prohibits him from selling liquor, Odom claims that he is merely serving liquor. During the linguistic debate, he is still able to make money. In addition, we learn that Serena Dawes and Luther Driggers have split up, and they too have their own encounter with the law due to drunk driving.

Amid these transgressions, we learn that the Georgia Supreme Court has overturned Williams’s conviction again, questioning the validity of a detective’s “expert” testimony as well as faulting Lawton for introducing new evidence in his closing argument. Williams will have a third trial for murder and is back in the spotlight.