JOHNNY AMERICA
Cardboard Crown
by Jim Ray DANIELS
The sky never got bright enough to turn the streetlights off. 4:30 p.m., walking on the sidewalk littered with random shoveled chunks that had half-melted then refroze, he presses the button on his watch cap, and its attached spotlight shines down, reflecting off black ice, showing him the way. The day had been so short, it was an afterthought, already banished, forgotten.
A ball of ice rolls down into his chest and disintegrates with every breath. Ice cream-headache wind blows down the empty trail near the river lined with homeless encampments. He spots a couple of small fires blinking through the bare trees like eyes trying to stay open. He turns off his light. They might think he’s police, a representative of trouble arriving. He’s just passing through, a man without a car. A man walking home from Burger King smelling of layered, thick grease, that rubs off on his jacket through friction like it does every day. The burger jacket. He’d stolen it off the back of a chair while some guy was in the BK bathroom. The jacket makes him hungry and nauseous at the same time.
Walking because his car has died. He’d been priced out of his car by the repair estimate. A new transmission for a fifteen-year-old rusted-out van. He crushes the estimate in one hand inside the pocket. He tilts his head down and scrunches his shoulders, but the wind blasts his forehead, following the dark river in its sinuous path, silent and nearly invisible, nearly lethal.
He’s not homeless, but he lives on the frayed lifeline of minimum wage. Rent vs. car? Two miles each way. Not impossible. Even in February.
A homeless shadow at a distance from a small fire shouts, “What you looking at, mother fucker?” In truth, he isn’t even looking at the man. Is the man looking at him? Does it matter? In the dark, he can see his future self in the empty night mirror.
His story turns like the half-frozen river. He lugs his dinner in his other hand, the bag- rattle magnified by cold absence. Takeout from BK. The usual Whopper/fries combo. Already cold, but he’ll zap it in the microwave in the apartment above Jack’s bar where alcoholic rats scratch through his dreams. They start early at Jack’s and stay late. There isn’t a Jack. It’s not that kind of place.
He shares the room with his cousin Stevo. A room, all they share. Stevo will not get one French fry ever. He will not get one ketchup packet. Stevo stole some money from him once. He has no proof. He has the absence of innocence. Stevo, like the last present in the Yankee Swap, better than the alternative of nothing. He remembers his parents arguing over even that. No one had enough to give everyone a present. They all did the mental math of the costs of each gift. A math error had landed his father in prison. His mother was living with another guy in another town. He doesn’t drink at Jack’s or anywhere else. Anymore is his secret word.
He’s got a ways to go to get to Jack’s. His numb forehead caused by his own lack of hurry. He veers toward the homeless encampment, vague figures around a vague fire, the rustle of tarps. He opens the bag and pulls out a stack of flattened BK crowns and starts handing them out. The ragged figures turn the useless crowns over in their hands as if trying to read another language.
They don’t all insert slot A into tab B and put the crowns on their sorry-ass heads and dance in a circle around the fire, everyone their own king or queen, prince or princess. He doesn’t tears open the bag and share his burger and fries like Jesus’ loaves and fishes. This isn’t about miracles or parables.
This is for me, he says, clutching the BK bag as it crackles against his side. I worked for it. In truth, BK had HELP WANTED JOIN OUR TEAM up on their marquee forever. Then one morning it read GOOD LUCK WE ALL QUIT after the entire night shift walked out, leaving the restaurant empty and unguarded. Then all the letters were stolen. They still need help. He takes all the hours he can, needing help himself.
Homeless is a complicated word, another distant cousin he’s only met once. One by one they toss the flattened crowns into the fire and reach their hands out to feel the brief but dramatic new warmth, ignoring him entirely. He just nods and walks away, a little jump in his step like a secret he’s keeping even as it threatens to escape. He clicks his watch cap back on and strides into the darkness, chasing his own light.
Filed under Fiction on June 6th, 2025
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Mrs. Heimerdinger
by Robert WEXELBLATT
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
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Mouse Died Today
by Max SHERIDAN
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
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