The Girl with Mahogany Eyes 

The apparition of these faces in the crowd: 
Petals on a wet, black bough. 
—Ezra Pound 

Because he’s invisible, literally a walking ghost, literally one of many walking ghosts. There’s no question there. No, sir.

Mathematically speaking, he’s one out of—what—seven billion, trillions if you count the dead and those waiting on deck. Just a pedestrian in a crowd in a big city where no one sees anyone. Invisible. If he could maybe appear smarter, maybe that’d lift him above the crowd. His dress shoes, tight leather that happen to be borrowed from his uncle, clomp on the icy sidewalk. A little sore at the toes for one thing, his walking pace slower for another. Maybe he should use his full name during the job interview, pronouncing it a cappella, pausing between each syllable so it’s felt: Louie Armstrong Tran.

Not that he lacks natural gifts that would impress any interviewer alive. There’s no question of that, he believes, noting the different scents all of a sudden tidal-waving in the frigid air: chocolate and coconut donuts, coffee, eggs and sausage and hash browns. Tidal-waving because of that girl pushing Jo-Jo’s glass door open, almost smacking him in the face—almost a pressure valve releasing smells. She wears a heavy coat, which makes sense, and a red purse hangs from her shoulder and her perfume announces her as someone who’s not from this big city. Chanel, about a year past expiration. Take the interpretation of aromas. As far as that one goes, there’s a natural gift that no one can take away. No, sir.

Without any doubt, the sausage is too fatty, the hash browns undercooked, the donuts two days old. For one frozen moment, they face each other beneath a pale sky that’s literally a dome distending between tall buildings, making it all like they were inside a city-sized snow globe unshaken. She has very dark eyes. A blue car moves carefully on the street, punctuated by that ice-cracking sound, while the wide lanes shove against the curb. Just a nice face-to-face meeting at an open door, though, plenty of time for him to smile and push consequence into the empty moment. On top of all that he’s starving and his stomach is full of water, which right now isn’t helping his concentration. All those smells now floating on the cold sidewalk each have precise significance. Categorically speaking, these he calls notes.

Well, all right, he’ll act smarter, then, and only say smart, calculated things—his full name uttered like lyrics, how he only sees good in people, how his ambitions drive him toward helping people—these add a particular rhythm that strikes at the heart. People coming from who knows where, people appearing on the sidewalk, they’re all ghosts of themselves at home. Even so, the walk to Quigley’s Department Store is cold and slow. This smelling of things, he figures, it’s the closest anyone will ever get to quantum reality and with practice, he also figures, one can detect microscopic notes ambling within the here and the now. Ditto past events. All this would not be good to bring up in an interview. No, ma’am.

He’s scheduled to meet Ms. Bunting, the HR supervisor who sounded way too precise during yesterday’s phone conversation, as if her way of viewing time is more limited than time itself. Chronologically speaking, it took seconds to go from “huh?” to “yes, ma’am, I can be there at nine sharp.” Louie pictures himself sitting before Ms. Bunting—her office resembles those boxes of carpenter’s nails tightly packed—tossing those words punctuality, teamwork, conflict resolution into the conversation like pitching anchovies into the ocean. How queasy he gets agreeing with things he’s never thought about before. Why, yes, the customer is always right. Yes, ma’am. No, it doesn’t bother me when someone starts shouting. He rehearses those sentences again, playacting right there beneath a domed sky and between super-tall buildings. He must remember to pay attention to her movements.

Historically speaking, Uncle Groucho assumed the role of Louie’s departed father. That began about a year ago. A noble thing. Yes, sir. Out of nowhere, Uncle Groucho tried to teach him things about how the world “really worked,” things that might “improve your character” and help him “stand out in a crowd.” It was Uncle Groucho who explained how water is a smart substitute for eating, for a short time, in order to quiet rumbling abdominal nerves. Because food and nerves equals gas. He also taught Louie how to dissect smells, explaining how every single aroma, smaller than the size of atoms, is nothing short of FBI evidence and that, like analyzing the curves and swirls of fingerprints, a person like Louie could become an expert at detecting a fair amount about people. Groucho isn’t his real name and Louie hardly knew him before a year ago.

Physically speaking, Louie doesn’t look anywhere near eighteen, not in anybody’s eyes. He’s been told that way too many times, so he figures today a change is in order. He now strolls slower to appear calmer and one hundred percent in control, unfazed by weather and by people whose faces are the color of roses. Although the glasses aren’t necessary, they do add time to the face. Yes, ma’am. Earlier, when Nanay put that bowl of oatmeal on the lime-green kitchen table—something she does every morning, giving the impression it’s a gunny sack full of gold coins she discovered under the sink—she advised Louie to wear a wool dress coat as well, which she said was both “stylish and mind changing.” Then a very familiar whisky scent started moving about the kitchen, slowly coiling around like a python, tightening itself in Louie’s stomach. The coat felt heavy. He left without touching the spoon. Did he even say goodbye? He should have. Outside the apartment the homeless air loitered up and down the block.

Quigley, though, looms in the distance. The fact is, he’s in no hurry, because being in a hurry never makes a good impression, tactically speaking. Being rushed proves that time’s a micromanager. He’s doing everything he can think of to control the future. If the department store doesn’t pan out, if his homework on its history and current sales don’t pay off in the interview, he can always go to Hollywood and become an actor. Yes, sir. There’s a substitute future no one knows about, occupationally speaking. Even Uncle Groucho doesn’t have a clue. Louie’s secret dream: dead model actor. The fact is, being dead might be the hardest thing anybody can do in life. It takes natural talent to lie motionless when the camera’s rolling, unfazed while seconds turn into hours, while a whole room full of people do what Hollywood people do whenever they’re in the same room. Yes, ma’am. No breathing, no reacting to an itch or an annoying empty stomach. Not just anyone can be convincing under such conditions. Nanay—this is a huge consideration—she would fall to pieces.

Analytically speaking, vital details about the store race through him, information he’d stayed up most of the night memorizing and rehearsing, information that he thought would be noteworthy to recite during his interview. Over four million people ride elevators every day in every city big enough to get its own dot on a map. Given such mathematics, it’s actually safer to ride an elevator than to pet a dog. That’s not to say there haven’t been accidents. No, sir. Stepping into an empty shaft, for example. The first passenger elevator, steam-powered, it turns out, was installed in New York in 1857. Eighteen-fifty-seven, for crying out loud. Hydraulic elevators were inefficient and needed a lot of energy to produce lift. Quigley’s elevators happen to be a rope design. Traction steel ropes provide lift, ropes that are attached to a pulley called a sheave. This sheave is connected to a big electric motor. The ropes are also connected to a counterweight, with perfect balance achieved when the car is—what—forty percent full. It’s like a seesaw, with roughly equal weight on each end. Yes, yes, yes, customers are always right. He’s ready to give the smartest interview of his life.

Architecturally speaking, Quigley’s Department Store signals cinematic luxury. Those turnstile glass-and-oak doors suggest a time that’s now pretty much forgotten—actually, a time never known to anybody other than actors in old movies—as if the entrance is designed to remind customers of an era when life was choreographed and anyone could break out into song and dance at any moment, publicly displaying unconscious cravings. Giant windows allow light in but block the cold air. It’s—what—forty feet to the ceiling, where those glass chandeliers are sparkling galaxies, supernovas—correction, supernovae—exploding, past time illuminating the here and now. Wait: he should become an astronaut. It’s obvious how this functions. Peaceful, inviting, as if ancestors going back generations are all standing there wanting to shake his hand and welcome him to a great and satisfying shopping experience. Golden marble pillars support the ceiling. Ms. Bunting, will she ever be impressed by Louie’s appearance and his recognition of such details. Yes, ma’am.

He pictures himself in a long hallway with old reddish-brown carpet, ninth floor. The names of corporate officers are engraved on brass labels under portraits done in really thick paint, paint that has texture so he could feel the colors if he reached out his hand, tactilely speaking. No, ma’am, no touching. The air tastes like burning coffee tamed by too much sugar. He’ll try to put job duties to the names but will get sidetracked by corporate notes: the sweat, cover-up deodorant, fresh printer ink, and, of course, that burning coffee. There on the left, there’s soft talking behind that closed door but he can’t make out those words. Then they’ll both sit in Ms. Bunting’s tight office with two chairs and a small desk constructed of fake wood. Maybe there’s a calendar on the wall, days X-ed in red as a visual proof of progress. Different fragrances will stretch and curl and settle into each other, synthesizing new notes. Ms. Bunting will be in a gray suit sharply ironed, cotton mixed with forty percent polyester. A slight afterburning of shoe polish persists under signature layers of Flowerbomb and laundry detergent and scorched ironing. Ah, Louie concludes, this person’s new to her HR job.

But the lobby’s also a cathedral. Louie knows where the elevators are, all four of them. Call it applied research, promoting inner confidence that has to be evident in his steps, even if his toes are sore. The one he chooses is big enough you could put a bed inside. Out of nowhere, just as he’s reaching for the button, he notices her again. A blunt angle of shoulder presses through dark hair like a rock jutting through falling water. She stares right through him, studying the advertisement behind, a poster of Leopold’s Restaurant, eighth floor. Prime rib on a fork, dripping au jus. Because of the expired Chanel, the way notes arrive in increments, he’s certain she’s searching for something in particular, that she’s been to three other stores that very morning, stopping only for some breakfast at Jo-Jo’s to curb a complaining appetite. The entire store is having a giant 15% off sale. Shoes, thousands in stock. At Quigley’s, and only at Quigley’s, you will discover exactly what you’re searching for.

Louie pushes the button for the sixth floor. Electronics, televisions, computers, cell phones, sporting apparel. HR is also located on the sixth floor. His own hunger twists inside and he inhales with force to push it away. “Bridge over Troubled Water,” a piano-only version minus any frills or talent, emanates from speakers hidden within the bird’s-eye maple paneling.

She fixes her dark eyes on the numbers above the elevator’s metal doors. It rises from 1 to 2, a hypnotic red light showing each floor that’s passed. Creamy and sour. Those aromas don’t compete: they reintroduce each other over and over, with Chanel floating between. 2 becomes 3. Ah, she only had sausage and gravy. She ate alone and didn’t talk to anyone. Socially speaking, she must be lonely. She adjusts her purse strap. Long fingers taper gradually toward their tips. 3 becomes 4. Her lips part as if she’s taking in more oxygen. She’s still watching those numbers, her dark brown eyes watching while 4 becomes 5.

And 5 becomes 6. The elevator hesitates, hangs for a moment, then relaxes into position. Through the opening doors the sixth floor is a movie scene. A man holds a bulky shopping bag that rubs his knee with a papery sound. The man almost bumps into a small boy gawking at the fluorescent lights and television screens all showing some cartoon with talking dogs. The small boy holds a woman’s hand. This woman pulls him and his head whiplashes back as an exaggeration. The boy starts crying and the woman shakes her head. The man with the shopping bag pulls a ringing phone out of his coat pocket. It sounds like “Peter Gunn.” He has fat fingers. Three other customers hover over a glass display case, pointing.

Maybe the girl’s lost in thought and mesmerized by the mechanical properties of their elevator. Maybe he should tell her what he knows, all those convincing details he’s memorized. He lifts his shoulders. The wool coat feels tight. Of course, there are other possibilities that need reckoning. Maybe she wants to keep a safe distance, cautious, the way her mother taught her to act with strangers. Maybe she’s afraid of people in big cities and doesn’t want to let on that she has pepper spray in that red purse and that her hand’s not far from its trigger. There’s an undertone of spearmint, a not-so-clever cover-up for breakfast, another act of loneliness, psychologically speaking.

“You know, you can stop staring,” she says, stepping through the doors and disappearing between televisions.

That whole moment is a knife pushed into the stomach from the point of view of someone mugged in an alley. Of course she’s lonely. Yes, sir. She said, “stop staring.” She never even looked at him. Working through these details, he punches a button. Thirty minutes early would give Ms. Bunting a wrong impression about his sense of punctuality, that maybe he’s way too eager and is trying to force things, that maybe he’s only a kid trying to appear older, a candidate who’s not really in control of time but is controlled by it. He might want to become a museum guard.

During that fishing trip last summer they anchored near the shore and Uncle Groucho showed Louie how to put hooks into anchovies so that when they were in the water they looked appealing and fooled bigger fish into thinking they were actually swimming instead of floating lifeless on the current. The sky was bright blue and pressing down. “Pierce through the chin and out the mouth.” His uncle cast a line into the water, letting its weight control the plunge. He leaned on the railing. “Smell that ocean breeze? Those seals over there are hungry, see. They make all that noise once they smell what you have.” He tossed a handful of anchovies overboard. “They’re hungry and want what you have.”

The elevator’s doors do their job and mechanically open onto the lobby. There are only a few shoppers moving between the displays of china, crystal glasses, and skillfully stacked towels. The air is full of notes of floor wax, ammonia, dust, and soapy mops. Ah, the floor people only partially cleaned. Yes, sir. Then they napped. Through the big glass window winter has deposited a thin veneer of ice on the street and sidewalk and buildings and parked cars. Maybe when he steps into Ms. Bunting’s office and after declining any burned coffee he’ll go straight into reciting every detail he can remember about the store. No provoking. Yes, ma’am. Then the iron-faced Ms. Bunting will have no choice but to clasp her hands across her ironed lap. “Wow, Louie Armstrong Tran, you sound far too smart to not get hired on the spot, with top pay to seal our deal.” But there’s the alternative hanging like a weight near the hook. Maybe he’s not getting any job. Maybe the girl with dark eyes from the elevator marched straight to Ms. Bunting and complained face to face about this stalker riding in the big elevator.

When Nanay saw Louie come into the kitchen all dressed up for the first time ever, she clapped her hands a little too much. She jumped up from the squeaky chair and brushed closet dust off his uncle’s wool coat. “Mr. Louis, you give those people a good picture of who you are. Do that for me.” She patted his shoulders and tried to button the coat. That whisky scent suggested that Nanay had a troubled night, that memories prodded her and kept her awake. He decided then and there that his not eating also meant she’d have more for herself.

Yesterday, Uncle Groucho sounded way too excited on the phone. “Here’s what happened. This civet escapes from the zoo, see. The whole town starts looking for it. They search in the supermarkets, the bus station, underneath taxi cabs. No civet.” Uncle Groucho tapped the phone to tick off seconds. Louie imagined Keystone Cops tripping and running into each other. “So the whole town is panicking, see. ‘Where’s the civet?’ they shout. Two days go by. Then another. Hey, you remember Bessie Rogers?” Louie did recall peanut butter cookies she made during that summer he spent with his uncle, but he couldn’t picture her face. “Bessie Rogers said, ‘He’s here. Eating my gladiolas.’ The authorities raced over.”

“So they found the civet?”

“Yeah, in a tree. Nobody could coax it down. I mean, what do you say to a civet? Old Bessie tried to get up the tree using anger as a propellant. No wonder the civet wouldn’t come down.”

There was silence on both ends of the phone.

“Uncle Groucho.”

“Yes?”

“What’s it got to do with me?”

“Everything. That’s why I’m telling you. Civets run away, especially when you chase them. Don’t be too desperate.”

Outside of Quigley’s it’s a pandemonium of notes: Damp animal fur. Greasy fries bathed in catsup. Fried fish. Old Spice cologne. Frozen tree bark. The blue, gaseous contact point of a welding torch. Metal. Sparks. Garbage, egg shells, busted salt packets. Ah, someone running on this very sidewalk last night, freezing. Someone getting chased. Roaring gas engine. Carbon monoxide. Torn rubber embedded in asphalt. There, the edge of a curb that held someone from falling for just one second, before iced asphalt and tire-scratched lines and fender and wool and denim met and froze the moment in the air. Then the scream that bent those pungent molecules into thorn shapes, distorting them, multiplying the assault of automobile on flesh. All of it grows stronger, reshaping toward catastrophe. Metaphorically speaking, a monster panic now grabs hold of him.

Louie covers his nose with the coat’s collar. His own blood, pushed by his heart, feels at the point of bursting out of his chest.

Back in the lobby his mind is not at all controlling things. Standing with his hands on his knees, he tries to slow down to regain some control. He tries holding his breath. His lungs feel swollen and shut against hundreds of smelly notes. Seconds tick past. Then he bursts open in a drowning gasp and all the closed-out aromas flock in. Nostrils flare like solar collectors. Shoppers keep their distance.

In the dim light of that same elevator his fingers are the color of snow. They’re numb. He thinks maybe menswear is the fourth floor. Is there a sale on polo shirts or pajamas? He can’t make out the song coming from the embedded speaker. Musical parts fade in and out. Piano or violins? Those sounds mix with screeching tires with the bird’s-eye maple paneling, fusing rapidly now with prime rib on the Leopold’s poster, swirling with dim lights, more paneling, au jus, red purse, paneling, lights, beautiful brown eyes, metal doors, numbers. Carpet fibers smack against his face like a pillow on the bed. Ah, synthetic. Not imported.

He closes his eyes to stop the spiraling.

A fragrance of Chanel layered with eggs and sausage and spearmint slips quietly into the elevator.

“Are you all right?” Her voice is so soft.

Those words—what kind of meaning presses behind them? They seem to contradict everything, her notes, the notes outside, his own breathing that slows all by itself.

Louie Armstrong Tran waits for her to touch him and figures he might just lie there as long as it takes, not moving, like the actor he thought he might one day want to be, and still can once these present plans slip into the past.

DAVID LUOMA

David Luoma is a professor at Johnson County Community College. Originally from Los Angeles, he currently lives in Kansas with an incredible wife. Among other places, his short fiction has appeared in Fleas on the Dog, Book of Matches, 45th Parallel, The Literary Review, The McNeese Review, decomP, and Third Coast.