The only occupants of the waiting room at the train station when Horace gets there early in the morning are a couple. The man is characterized by the "overalls" he wears and the "rumpled coat" he carries (167). The woman wears a "calico dress," a "dingy shawl and a new hat" and carries both a parcel and "a straw suitcase" (167).
The novel refers to men in the Square several times. In Chapter 17 they are seen "drifting back toward the square after supper" (134). In Chapter 19, looking through the window of Ruby's hotel room, Horace can see "men pitching dollars back and forth between holes in the bare earth beneath and locusts and water oaks" of the courthouse at the center of the square (161).
Lying in the dark at Miss Reba's, Temple remembers being in her dorm in college, talking with other women students as they all dressed for a dance. One of them is accused by the others of knowing too much about sex and another, "the youngest one," is made sick by the conversation (152).
"A fattish man with thin, curly hair," whose eyeglasses seem to be worn only "for decorum's sake" (149), Dr. Quinn treats Temple when she first arrives at Miss Reba's. Initially he refused to make a house call on Sunday, but Reba reminds him that she "can put him in jail three times over" (148).
According to Miss Reba, among the women who have sought attention from Popeye over the years is "a little married woman" who "offered Minnie twenty-five dollars just to get him into the room" (145).
Miss Reba's description of the police commissioner who patronized her brothel is memorable: "a man fifty years old, seven foot tall, with a head like a peanut." Her description of his behavior with one of her prostitute is even more unforgettable: when his cronies broke into the room "they found him buck-nekkid, dancing the highland fling" (143).
To hear Miss Reba tell it, the men who have patronized her brothel during the 20 years she's been running it include "some of the biggest men in Memphis" - "bankers, lawyers, doctors" as well as "two police captains" (143). When Horace visits the brothel to talk with Temple, Reba tells him that she's done business with many lawyers, including "the biggest lawyer in Memphis" - and when she adds that this man weighed 280 pounds and "had his own special bed made and sent down here," "biggest" acquires an additional meaning (211).
Mr. Binford is the name of both Miss Reba's male dog and (as Minnie puts it) "Miss Reba's man." Explaining the dog's name, Minnie tells Temple that the man "was landlord here eleven years until he die about two years ago" (154). In a sentimental mood after attending Red's funeral, Miss Reba herself says "he was such a good man," "a free-hearted spender than never give her a hour's uneasiness or a hard word." Still according to her, they lived together "like two doves" (254-55).
Proud to be known to everyone in Memphis as the owner of her brothel, Miss Reba is a colorful character. When readers first meet her she is carrying a "rosary" in one hand and a "tankard" of beer in the other (144). Fat, asthmatic, church-going and hard-drinking, with some pretensions to gentility but no illusions about life, she respects Popeye and is willing to look after Temple for his sake. The great love of her life, someone named Mr. Binford, has died, and in tribute to the 11 years they lived together "like two doves" she has named her two dogs Mr. Binford and Miss Reba (255).
Minnie works for Miss Reba as a maid and also a kind of confidant. Either because Popeye pays her, or because she is afraid of him, she also looks after Temple during the time she spends in the brothel.
