Pat folded her Tallahassee Democrat under her for extra cushion on the segregated wooden bench, bracing for shouts, but the station stretched empty except for the clerk and a Negro custodian, and neither of them said a word. The mousy clerk’s glare suggested unspoken curses, but she kept her mouth shut. She would leave enforcing Jim Crow for the next shift, apparently. “She sure looks like she’s itching to come do something about it,” Priscilla said. “If she does, she’ll wish she hadn’t.”
