After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (2 page)

By 1951, when Jim Williams first saw Savannah, it had become a shabby city. A few years earlier, Lady Astor said, “Savannah was a beautiful lady with a dirty face.” Her comment shamed Savannah, but not enough to do anything about it. Preston Russell and Barbara Hines summed up the problem in their history of the city: “Prominent businessmen who cared nothing for old architecture assumed there was little to save.”

In 1952, when Jim left the Air Force and decided to stay in Savannah, it was a time of economic growth and pride in America’s future. He was greatly disturbed at the destruction of houses in the historic district to make way for parking lots and garages. It seemed like every week, another house in the historic or Victorian district was destroyed. Ironically, the value of the old Savannah gray bricks as building construction material was greater than the value of the house, so some houses were torn down just so the bricks could be sold.

To make ends meet, Jim became a salesman for Klug’s Furniture Company at the corner of Victory Drive and Abercorn St., well outside the central downtown district. For a while, Jim invested his time and impressive knowledge of art and antiques in a joint venture with his friend Jack Kieffer. Kieffer put up the money and Jim put up the expertise, but the antique sales venture did not survive. Even though Kieffer remained a lifelong friend, Jim told close associates that Kieffer made out much better financially in the venture than he did.

Jim’s goal at that time and for a number of years in the future was to restore important historic homes in Savannah. What was going on in downtown Savannah was happening to cities everywhere. The inner city had become crime-infested and affluent people moved out to the suburbs, leaving once-lovely large homes to fall into disrepair. Most of these large homes in the historic and adjacent Victorian districts became tenements and apartments rented out to numerous large families, which further accelerated the decline in property values. Wealthy families built their mansions in suburban Ardsley Park, not far from middle-class neighborhoods of ranch and colonial-style homes. Two decades later, as executives from northern states with harsh winter climates planned their retirements, many of them were enticed by the gated communities and exclusive golf courses on Skidaway Island like the Landings and other Low Country club resorts, rather than settling in a city that was still in decay.

The early 1950s was a watershed time for the city. The Georgia legislature gave the city permission to raze the historic City Market, which was replaced by an ugly parking garage. Finally, the people of Savannah woke up, and although they couldn’t save the old City Market, an influential group created the Historic Savannah Foundation in 1955. As one Foundation member explained, “We needed one crisis, one central issue that would focus attention on the downtown area. This happened to be it.”

The decline of Savannah’s historic district worsened in the 1960s as suburban shopping centers and Oglethorpe Mall, Savannah’s first shopping mall, made it unnecessary to go downtown for any reason. Savannah’s banks, like banks all over the country that faced a deteriorating inner city, redlined the area. In other words, they would not lend money for restoration projects. Downtown property values plunged and large stately homes in the downtown and midtown districts could be purchased for less than $5,000.

Jim Williams
Courtesy of Jeanne Papy

For a man like Jim Williams, brilliant, ambitious and absolutely hellbent on becoming a major force in restoring Savannah’s architectural jewels, it was very challenging. The wealthy families of Savannah and the city’s financial institutions were extremely hesitant to invest any money in risky downtown restoration ventures. The fledgling historical foundation was a good start, but it wasn’t going to further the dreams of Jim Williams anytime soon.

Ever the businessman and opportunist, he came up with an ingenious—but unethical and ultimately illegal—solution to the problem of getting his restoration projects funded and increasing his friendships with important people. Jim was a very masculine gay man with a trim body, a handsome face, thick dark hair and penetrating dark eyes. Moreover, he was extremely intelligent, poised, and an expert in antiques and architectural design. He had attended the Ringling College of Art and Design and was blessed with exquisite taste. Jim was remarkably persuasive and struck most people as being extremely trustworthy. In short, he was one attractive and desirable bachelor.

Jim quickly learned that a number of wealthy and influential gay men were locked into the married life that Savannah society required its upper crust to embrace. Some of these married gay and bisexual men were at the top of important financial institutions and businesses that would ultimately determine whether or not there would be funding in the future to restore historic Savannah.

Jim understood the conundrum that these men faced. They may have dreamed about young gay boys as sexual partners, but the risk of seeking out such relationships was fraught with enormous risks. Yes, there were many young male hustlers hanging around the Bull Street squares, but engaging them was far too dangerous. There was great potential for scandal, extortion, blackmail and even personal injury if they were engaged in a homosexual relationship. To a businessman like Jim, the conundrum for Savannah’s wealthy gay men represented an opportunity. Jim used this opportunity to insinuate himself into Savannah’s old-money crowd and coax his new influential friends to fund his restoration projects. An extra bonus was to cultivate the spouses of his new gay friends and further insert himself into the fabric of Savannah’s high society.

Certainly, this did not happen overnight, but it began fairly early in Jim’s residence in Savannah. As a very cultured, handsome man with enormous charisma and persuasive abilities, developing sexual relationships with selected influential gay men was not difficult for him. To the gay socialite, Jim represented a “safe” relationship for men whose married life and reputation demanded the utmost discretion.

Jim didn’t work this avenue solely with his own charms. Some of his gay married friends hankered after sexual partners much younger than Jim, but could not afford to be seen cruising gay bars or making sexual overtures to employees or acquaintances. Opportunist that he was, Jim found a way to serve the needs of his friends. Unfortunately, the service Jim provided—which I first stumbled upon early in my research into Jim’s life and character—was immoral.

I was having some painting and wallpapering done at our home when Buddy, our wallpaper guru, overheard me talking about Jim Williams.

“My mother hated him,” he blurted out.

My ears perked up and I asked him why his mother hated Jim.

“She was the manager of the Burger King at the bus station back then,” he explained.

Greyhound bus station, Savannah

My thoughts focused on the downtown Greyhound bus station. There was only one in Savannah.

“She’d watch him [Jim] as the buses came in from rural Georgia and South Carolina. He’d look over the teenagers coming off the buses and go talk to the good-looking ones,” Buddy continued.

“Then what did he do?”

Buddy shrugged. “My mother saw him walk away with the boy he chose, but she didn’t know where they went.” He paused for a moment. “She knew what guys like that were up to. You see that kind of thing when you work at the bus station. He didn’t do that once or twice. He was around a lot, looking for runaways.”

Seeing Jim month after month checking out boys in their mid-teens and leaving the station often with them disgusted her. She assumed that he befriended the boys for his own pleasure, and that was partly true. Jim loved sex with young men and boys.

What she didn’t know was that Williams also vetted the kids back at his house. If they had left their small Georgia town because they were gay or were simply desperate enough to make some money satisfying Jim’s friends, he kept them around for a while to make sure that they weren’t a liability. Once he’d broken them in, Jim would introduce them to his friends.

Later, when he was much more successful, Jim didn’t have to hang around the bus station looking for young talent. All he had to do was to go out into the squares around Bull Street and persuade some of the teenagers to come to home with him. He got to know which ones he could trust.

Confirming this aspect of Jim’s character was very challenging. Although many in the gay community knew what Jim was doing, locating victims who would agree to an interview was difficult. Many of the “boys” that Jim had exploited over many years were dead from AIDS, drugs or urban violence, but eventually I was able to interview two who are still around. One was a hairdresser, the other a performer who also worked in a fast-food restaurant. Jim’s approach was the same in the years after the bus-station encounters. According to the two I interviewed, he’d invite them to his fabulous Mercer House for a drink. These kids, most of whom were 16 or 17 years old, were poor, absolutely awed by the opulence of the house and desperate for money. Once he selected boys that he could introduce to his friends, he’d groom them and give them money for their services.

There was at least one instance much later in Jim’s career when Jim admitted to Doug, one of the young men who worked in Jim’s shop, that an out-of-town client paid him for sending Doug over to service the man who was staying at a local hotel.

Oglethorpe Club, Savannah

It is unlikely that Jim procured boys for wealthy clients primarily for money, although there were exceptions. What Jim sought in exchange was influence. He needed acceptance into a level of society that normally would have been closed to him because he was not from a distinguished old Savannah family, nor was he “old money.” Gradually, because he was helpful, charming, and did not appear gay, Jim was able to use his interior design expertise, knowledge of antiques, and discreet sexual services to insinuate himself into the upper reaches of Savannah society. Savannah is very tolerant of sin in the rarified reaches of society, as long as it doesn’t become the subject of conversation at the exclusive Oglethorpe Club.

We can most accurately characterize Jim Williams’ early years in Savannah as very lean. He had only one suit to his name and frequently borrowed money for routine expenses. His longtime friend, Joe Goodman, met Jim when he was just 11 years old. They were both living around Washington Square in downtown Savannah. Jim was 18 years older than Joe and became like a father figure to him because Joe’s father was a merchant marine and frequently worked away from home. Jim was on a subsistence budget, so Joe’s mother frequently fed Jim, as did the Saseen girls who belonged to the Saseen Bonding Company family in Savannah. Joe explained that Jim was broke for quite a long time in those early years. He bought a lot on credit and borrowed frequently.