Johnny America

 

 


JOHNNY AMERICA

Is a little ’zine of fiction, humor, and other miscellany, published by the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society since 2003.

Photograph of Johnny America 10Photograph of Johnny America 10

Our latest zine is Johnny America # 10, a steal at three bucks from our online shop. And we have a new collection of fiction by Eli S. Evans that’ll knock your socks off: Various Stories About Specific Individuals in Particular Situations.

—§—

Photograph of Johnny America 10Photograph of Johnny America 10

Johnny America has been bringing you fresh fiction and humor since 2003.

Our latest zine is Johnny America # 10.

—§—

Mrs. Heimerdinger

by

Illustration of glasses with earrings floating around ghostly face

Mrs. White was old and not just by the stan­dards of sixth-graders. On the first day of the year, she an­nounced that this would be her last. 

Sandy Moore joked that Mrs. White wasn’t re­al­ly mar­ried, that she got her name from her hair. Mrs. White’s hair re­al­ly was ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly white, the col­or of ic­ing on a wed­ding cake on­ly fluffy, like cot­ton can­dy. She may once have been a com­pe­tent teacher; but, by the time we had each oth­er, she wasn’t. She couldn’t re­mem­ber our names. At first, she mixed them up, then said “you” or just pointed. 

Mrs. White avoid­ed ac­tu­al­ly teach­ing. She as­signed us a lot of re­ports. We would have to read these out to the class while she re­treat­ed to a chair be­hind the last row. The first re­port was to be about our fa­vorite books. Af­ter Glenn Evans fin­ished telling us about, Guadal­canal Di­ary, we found she had dozed off. We laughed in hushed voic­es and went qui­et­ly about needling each oth­er and gos­sip­ing. The same thing hap­pened dur­ing Vi­vian McMahon’s mawk­ish­ly ador­ing ac­count of Lit­tle Women.

In sixth grade, la­ten­cy is wind­ing up. Child­ish­ness and ado­les­cence min­gle like gin and ver­mouth. Bod­ies change; feel­ings trans­mo­gri­fy. Our class­room was a hor­mon­al hot­house with as many ro­mances as a Re­nais­sance court. Who liked whom and in what way? Ex­cit­ed girls whis­pered and teased. Shy, con­fused, re­sis­tant boys ex­pressed them­selves in small, some­times af­fec­tion­ate cru­el­ties, for­bid­den words, scraps in the school­yard. Girls gig­gled and passed notes. Boys swore and shot spitballs.

One morn­ing in No­vem­ber, Mrs. White wasn’t there at all. Af­ter the first few min­utes, we went rapid­ly out of con­trol. There was a game of tag, scream­ing, a scuf­fle in front of Mrs. White’s desk, some banged their rulers on the ra­di­a­tor. Then the prin­ci­pal, Miss Gibbs, came through the door. We all re­spect­ed Ms. Gibbs, a for­mi­da­ble spin­ster. We feared her dis­plea­sure, sensed her dig­ni­ty, but liked her kind face and that she nev­er raised her voice. She had been in charge of our school since long be­fore we start­ed kinder­garten. For­ev­er, so far as we knew. Her au­thor­i­ty had an air of eter­ni­ty, was god­like. Even the row­di­est of us sat down and shut up. 

She looked us over with a frown that con­veyed dis­ap­point­ment rather than anger.

“Boys and girls, I’m afraid Mrs. White is in­dis­posed today.” 

“In­dis­posed?” whis­pered Sally.

“It means she won’t be in to­day. The sub­sti­tute teacher will be here short­ly. I’m sure you’ll do your work for her as well as you’ve done for Mrs. White.”

Sub­sti­tute. The word pin­balled silent­ly around the room. Sub­sti­tute sig­ni­fied li­cense; it meant any­thing goes. Every­body knew that what­ev­er you did didn’t count. 

Then it got bet­ter, al­so worse.

“The substitute’s name is Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Miss Gibbs.

Heimerdinger! There was gig­gling. Heimerdinger.

Miss Gibbs frowned more se­vere­ly this time, then said some­thing we didn’t un­der­stand at the time. 

“Mrs. Heimerdinger has just been through a dif­fi­cult time. Treat her well. I have to get back to the of­fice. She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

So, the sub­sti­tute had a ridicu­lous name and she was vul­ner­a­ble. Bet­ter, and al­so worse.

“Who’d mar­ry some­body named Heimerdinger?” Judy mocked. 

“A dif­fi­cult time?” said Glenn, laugh­ing. “Not like she’s in for today!”

In the five min­utes af­ter Miss Gibbs left and the sub­sti­tute ar­rived, chaos had come again. Pig­tails were pulled. El­bows, in­sults, taunts, and black­board erasers were thrown. The clam­or rose to the lev­el of a prison riot.

Then it got even bet­ter and, again, worse.

Mrs. Heimerdinger stepped al­most re­luc­tant­ly in­to the an­ar­chy then stopped short, ob­vi­ous­ly ter­ri­fied. Weak, we thought. Any­thing goes. What fun!

Mrs. Heimerdinger was odd­ly dressed up. Every­thing was white and pink. Her glass­es were big and had pink frames. She wore pearl ear­rings and a long pearl neck­lace. There were bracelets too, and her hair was odd and fussy. She looked like an un­hap­py moth­er of the bride. 

“Please, boys and girls, take your seats,” she said in a voice we bare­ly heard.

“Please,” she begged. It was pathetic.

Glenn Evans smiled wicked­ly and told us all to sit. We did. 

“Good morn­ing, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” he crooned with a wicked smile.

Heimerdinger. More giggling.

“Thank you…?”

“I’m Glenn,” he said, then pro­ceed­ed to point to each of us and rat­tled off thir­ty-two names at top speed.

“Oh, thank you, Glenn. Well then. Good morn­ing, every­body. Now, can any­one tell me what home­work Mrs. White as­signed for to­day? I’ll col­lect it for her.”

“Mrs. White nev­er gives us any home­work, Mrs. Heimerdinger,” said Glenn.

There was scarce­ly re­pressed gig­gling from the back of the room.

The woman didn’t look du­bi­ous but scared. “Well then,” she stam­mered, “what has Mrs. White had you work­ing on this week? It’s Wednes­day, what do you usu­al­ly do on Wednesdays?”

Ge­og­ra­phy, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

His­to­ry, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

Frac­tions, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

Art, Mrs. Heimerdinger!”

“Can we go to re­cess now, Mrs. Heimerdinger?”

Even those in the last row could see the dis­may, the help­less­ness, could al­most smell the sweat.

Then Fred­dy threw a book at George across the room. George ducked and it hit Jill.

“Ow!” screeched Jill rub­bing her shoulder.

George re­trieved the book and hurled it back at Freddy.

Joey pur­sued his courtship of Suzanne by punch­ing her on the arm. 

“Ouch, Joey! Mrs. Heimerdinger, Joey hit me!”

A bar­rage of spit­balls was launched from east to west. Balled-up loose-leaf pa­per flew from west to east. Sam­my be­gan singing a ver­sion of “Jin­gle Bells” with im­prop­er lyrics. This evoked gen­er­al hi­lar­i­ty and much off-key, off-col­or repetition. 

Mrs. Heimerdinger tried. “Please, chil­dren,” she begged. “Please set­tle down.”

Judy start­ed a duet with Jer­ry. “Heimerdinger! Heimer Dinger! High Mer Dinger!” 

On­ly those who had yet to un­der­go their growth spurt, to suf­fer the first waves of pu­ber­ty, those whose de­fault was obe­di­ence be­cause their fa­thers had belts, be­cause their moth­ers used sar­casm, be­cause they feared the with­draw­al of al­lowances and love, held back. But in less than half an hour, even they didn’t. That Wednes­day was a Feast of Fools.

Mrs. Heimerdinger grew fran­tic. “Please, please,” she im­por­tuned as though she were pray­ing to God and not us. Her face was near­ly as white as Mrs. White’s hair. Her trem­bling grew worse. Her hands flopped about spas­ti­cal­ly, and when they went to her throat the day reached its cli­max, its catastrophe.

The sound of three dozen pearls bounc­ing on the hard­wood floor qui­et­ed us, briefly. They bound­ed every­where, like pop­corn. They bounced be­tween our desks, rolled un­der the radiators.

Mrs. Heimerdinger was open­ly weep­ing now. She dropped to all fours and tried des­per­ate­ly to gath­er the pearls. Our laugh­ter turned al­most mad. Mrs. Heimerdinger be­gan to scream.

That was when I thought, quite right­ly, “I’m nev­er go­ing to for­get this.”

Filed under Fiction on May 9th, 2025

Care to Share?

Consider posting a note of comment on this item:

—§—

Mouse Died Today

by

Illustration of a block of cheese and a mouse-sized coffin.

Mouse died today.

Who could have known.

But some­times, many times, it hap­pens this way. You get a call out of the blue. Hel­lo? Hel­lo? Palmer’s dead. Palmer who? Palmer Fish. Someone’s alive in the morn­ing, some­one you may have even for­got­ten ex­ist­ed, and then they’re dead.

I didn’t know what to do. Who to call. What to re­port. How to dis­pose of the body.

I thought maybe I should call Siob­han. Siob­han bought mouse. When she left the apart­ment, she left mouse. We nev­er even named mouse. Af­ter a time, it just felt nat­ur­al. Did you feed mouse to­day? Is there enough wa­ter in mouse’s bowl? Where is mouse hid­ing now? 

Siob­han left last Thanksgiving. 

With Thanks­giv­ing din­ner still hot on the table.

No one we called had come to din­ner. No one had RSVP’d.

It was a dis­as­ter, Siob­han said. How could I be so unmoved? 

The turkey had fi­nal­ly come out just right. The zuc­chi­ni and sour cream casse­role wasn’t sog­gy like usu­al. We had each oth­er. Why couldn’t we just be thank­ful for that? I said.

Siob­han left with just her purse and a David Bowie album. 

She nev­er came back for her oth­er things.

Not even mouse.

And now mouse was dead.

I called Palmer Fish. 

It was odd, and maybe not very nice, that I had used Palmer Fish as an ex­am­ple of a dead man you might have for­got­ten ex­ist­ed. But what comes to mind comes to mind.

Palmer Fish an­swered on the fifth ring. He said, “I’m in the mid­dle of some­thing. Can you make it quick?”

“Oh,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you.”

“But you just called.”

Palmer Fish, a big man, was breath­ing heav­i­ly. He may have just come in from a jog. Or maybe just pick­ing up the phone was an ef­fort these days.

“Mouse is dead,” I said.

“What’s that?” Palmer Fish said. “Mouse?”

“Siobhan’s mouse,” I said.

“She had a mouse?”

It was ob­vi­ous­ly news to him. 

“I think maybe it was a heart at­tack,” I said.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It wasn’t old age.” 

“You nev­er know.”

It was true, I guess. With trees you could count rings, but with mice? 

Palmer Fish said, “What can I help you with, Dono­van?” Palmer Fish was a chemist by train­ing, though these days I heard he’d been DJing in clubs where every­thing was pitch black ex­cept for the glow-in-the-dark blue paint the dancers wore. Palmer Fish stood on a daïs of sorts, spin­ning vinyl maniacally. 

“I don’t know what to do with the body,” I said.

“You don’t know what to do with a mouse?” Palmer Fish said. It sound­ed like a trav­es­ty. Like every­one buried mice every day and knew just what to do. Every­one but me.

As we spoke, mouse was ly­ing on his side on a bed of fresh Ro­maine let­tuce I’d put there as an af­ter­noon snack. To a passer­by, he could have been nap­ping. His hind paws were stretched just so, as if in rever­ie. His eyes were closed.

“Do you even bury mice?” I said.

“How much does it weigh?” Palmer Fish said.

“An ounce?” I said.

“That mouse does not weigh an ounce,” Palmer Fish said. “Don’t you have an in­gre­di­ents scale you could use?”

It was true, maybe Siob­han had left one be­hind. But I wasn’t putting a dead mouse on a kitchen ap­pli­ance, not even mouse.

“She must have tak­en it,” I lied.

I wait­ed for Palmer Fish to sug­gest oth­er­wise, be­cause maybe he knew some­thing I didn’t. But Palmer Fish wasn’t go­ing to fall in­to that trap. He said he need­ed to check something. 

“Right,” he said a mo­ment lat­er. “Was your mouse obese?”

What an odd ques­tion, I thought. The kind of post-mortem chem­i­cal analy­sis you would ex­pect from a man who’d nev­er cried in a movie the­ater in his life. “Mouse was av­er­age,” I said.

“Ok,” Palmer Fish said. “We’re talk­ing be­tween four and six ounces then. That’s what it says. If that’s the case, I’d just flush him.”

I thought I must have not heard right, that Palmer Fish had said “fold him” or “feel him.” But he was adamant. “Flush him,” he said. “You don’t have a yard. You’re not pay­ing for a casket.”

“Where would I find a cas­ket?” I said.

“That’s what I mean. Flush him, Dono­van, he’ll fit down the pipes. I googled it.”

I stayed in the apart­ment for the rest of the af­ter­noon, ques­tion­ing my di­ag­no­sis of death. Had I jumped to con­clu­sions? Palmer Fish nev­er sug­gest­ed I take mouse’s pulse. For ob­vi­ous rea­sons. I wouldn’t know how, etc. But there were oth­er ways to de­tect the breath of life. 

Twice I thought I saw the white hairs on mouse’s chin stir, but both times I’d just walked by his cage. It was prob­a­bly on­ly the wind of my passing. 

In ret­ro­spect, Thanks­giv­ing din­ner was prob­a­bly on­ly the tip of the ice­berg of Siobhan’s leav­ing. Palmer Fish had al­ways been a good down­stairs neigh­bor. He was big but he moved with grace, even del­i­ca­cy for a man his size. He wasn’t on a ca­reer path but he had a sta­ble in­come. He wore a beard well.

Palmer Fish was handy, too. Those evenings I was late com­ing home from drinks with the boys and Palmer Fish was still there fix­ing a bad fil­ter on the dish­wash­er I knew noth­ing about, they added up now. 

Al­so, Siob­han be­gan to dress different. 

Al­so, she be­gan to kiss dif­fer­ent. She start­ed us­ing the dread­ed phrase “ca­reer path” at about this time, which is prob­a­bly why I use it now. I should have seen it com­ing frankly.

The first thing they did as a cou­ple was in­stall a plant out­side their apart­ment down­stairs, pos­si­bly to dif­fer­en­ti­ate their union from ours. I had nev­er liked or seen the need for apart­ment plants. It was se­mi-trop­i­cal, not a Fi­cus or a snake plant. A dif­fi­cult plant to grow in an apart­ment hall­way, I’d say. 

Still, it bloomed ef­fort­less­ly. The yel­low spots on its leaves widened. 

Soon they bought a big­ger pot. A tub really. 

In a month, it near­ly reached the door lintel.

I googled “flush dead mouse toilet.”

I googled “bury dead mouse pot­ted plant.”

I googled “ex’s de­ceased mouse disposal.”

I googled “what is ca­reer path.”

I googled “how to be handy video.”

I googled “fi­ancée liv­ing down­stairs with neighbor.”

I googled “fi­ancée liv­ing down­stairs with neigh­bor video.”

I googled and googled and googled and googled and googled and googled. 

Filed under Fiction on April 25th, 2025

Care to Share?

Consider posting a note of comment on this item:

—§—

The Nim­busile

by

Illustration of clouds.

Shit shit shit. I’m ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing, I’m ma­te­ri­al­iz­ing— I am late, I am rac­ing, I am — woof — yes, here. I am HERE.

Wait, where is… ?

Oh god. Oh lord no. How could I space? How could I miss the moth­er­fuck­ing memo for the SECOND TIME this month?

To: ALL CLOUDS. Sub­ject Line: Sat­ur­day — Not An Us in the Sky.

Per­fect. Ju­u­u­u­u­ust per­fect. I can guess how this is gonna go. “Clas­sic Craig. His uncle’s a tsuna­mi, that nepo-va­por nev­er de­served the job in the first —”

Wait. 

Omg, omg I’m not alone. I think that’s Ja­son. JASON!

Fuck me, it’s a seagull. 

Cmon, bud­dy, keep it to­geth­er, Everybody’s look­ing. Why wouldn’t they? Bright blue sky. Ran­do at­mos­pher­ic element. 

My con­den­sa­tion dysmorphia’s kick­ing in. They’re say­ing I’m too fluffy. If they’re not say­ing it they’re think­ing it. Big dumb ball of bitch ass H2O.

Breathe. You’re spiraling. 

Maybe text your ther­a­pist. Sure it’s the week­end. But you pay her a for­tune and it’s all out of pock­et. Plus this is lit­er­al­ly what she’s for. 

I can’t. She’ll judge me. She’ll roll her eyes like she did that one time when I brought up my ex; she de­nies it but I’m not blind. I’M NOT BLIND, BARBARA.

Christ, I promised my­self I wouldn’t pre­cip­i­tate. Ack, can’t hold it. Here I go. Don’t you rain. Don’t you rain now.

I know… I shouldn’t… but maybe… (mist) maybe (MIST)…  it’s bet­ter this way.

Filed under Fiction on April 11th, 2025

Care to Share?

Consider posting a note of comment on this item:

—§—

Recent-Ish Posts

Make Mine a Double
The New Dentist
The Ju­nior
Failed State
The Man Who Hat­ed His Job

Additional Miscellany

Join our Irregular Mailing List

For very occasional ramblings, word about new print ephemera, and of course exciting investment opportunities.