Lemuel starts off the day with a brisk walk through the aisles of the E-Z Mart. On his way out he drops off a note in Dwayne’s in box pointing out which items are in dangerously short supply. “There were many more low-calorie yogurts yesterday than today,” he writes. “Ditto for the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, also Mrs. Foster’s crumble-proof chocolate-chipped cookies.”
As the bell in the steeple of the freshly whitewashed Seventh-Day Baptist church on North Main strikes nine, Lemuel turns up at the Institute, flirts for a moment with his girl Friday, a large-bodied woman named Mrs. Shipp, who blushes when he grazes the back of her hand with his lips. Inside his office, he adjusts the Venetian blinds until he gets the lighting right, paces off
