Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

We have a saying: If you go to Atlanta, the first question people ask you is, ‘What’s your business?’ In Macon they ask, ‘Where do you go to church?’ In Augusta they ask your grandmother’s maiden name. But in Savannah the first question people ask you is ‘What would you like to drink?’”

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

“Rule number two: 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.

“Rule number three: Observe the high holidays—Saint Patrick’s Day and the day of the Georgia-Florida football game.

“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.

‘Two tears in a bucket. Motherfuck it.’ That’s Mama, she’s a okay girl.”

For me, Savannah’s resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.