Thirteen.

Thirteen.

It always goes back to thirteen.

The body of Corpse-o the Clown was discovered at 1 AM… The Witching Hour.

Some would call it Thirteen o’clock.

Corpse-o was working on perfecting his clown-y craft that night…

Of course, the same way a group of geese is called a gaggle, a group of clowns is called…

A giggle.

This giggle of clowns was practicing the ol’ “Everybody Pile Into a Very Tiny Car and then Get Out and It’s Like Whoa How’d They Fit All Those Clowns Into That Tiny Car” schtick.

Guess how many clowns were in the car?

Fourteen.

And with Corpse-o a corpse…

Oh.

Yep.

That leaves thirteen.

Corpse-o’s eyes stare lifelessly straight ahead.

…Apparently, that’s also how his eyes looked when he was alive.

He also didn’t move or talk, and his heart didn’t beat.

…But! He didn’t have an arrow sticking through his skull. That’s a change.

That’s the mystery that lay before us here… Who would want to kill a clown whose whole shtick is being dead?

I stare into the backseat of the clown car… my gloved finger ghosts ever so carefully along the arrowtip.

HISSSSSS, I suck in air, sucking on the tip of my index finger… The arrowhead is real.

My fingers trace the soft flesh of our victim’s neck….Corpse-O’s skin is cold… Like a frozen banana

But unlike a banana, the killer isn’t gonna slip me…

”Triskaidekaphobic Clown!” One of the thirteen suspects, hands pressed against the wall.

”That’s DETECTIVE Triskaidekaphobic Clown to you!” I mutter, as I spin around, my polka dot trenchcoat blowing in the breeze… I flash my badge in their direction.

I squeeze my badge. A honk sound comes out. My badge is made of rubber and has a squeaker.

In Clown City, that’s how you demonstrate a police badge is authentic.

Badges that don’t squeak? Those are funny business.

And there are thirteen letters in "funny business".

”...Right. Um…” Suspect #1, Trepidatious Clown, stammers nervously, tugging at his bow tie, which naturally makes it spin whimsically around his collar. ”Not to second-guess your investigation. It’s just… um.. Well… your partner… Should he… I mean…”

“SHOULD HE BE LYING ON TOP OF THE BODY LIKE THAT?!?” Shouts Suspect #2, Outburst Clown.

…I spin backwards.

…My partner, Ennui Clown, is lying facedown…

Right on top of Corpse-O’s lap in the backseat of the clown car.

”EC!” I hiss irritatedly. ”You’re contaminating the crime scene!”

”...Am I?” Ennui Clown exhales disappointedly, looking up at Corpse-O’s dead form… "Sorry…”

”That’s so unsanitary…” Mutters Suspect #3… As his hands hover, just barely not touching the wall.

”Somebody doesn’t like getting their hands dirty…

”Of course I don’t like getting my hands dirty! I’m Germaphobic Clown!” muttered Germaphobic Clown, as he quickly breathed on the wall and rubbed a spot of dust with his elbow.

”And I’m sure you hated working with a working stiff like Corpse-O! Having a dead guy off your crew would certainly make it a little cleaner around here wouldn’t it?”

”Wait, Corpse-O’s dead?” Suspect #4, Inattentive Clown looked up from her phone suddenly. ”When did that happen?”

”So! Maybe you paid one of these other clowns to knock off Corpse-O, Germaphobic Clown!”

”Gross!” Germaphobic Clown would suck air in horror if it didn’t have microparticle-sized germs in the air. ”Do you know how many germs are on money? I’d NEVER carry cash on me!”

”Mmmm. A clue.” I grunt. ”Make a note that says that, EC.”

”Okay…” Ennui Clown reaches into his pocket for his diary labelled ‘Ennui Clown’s Sad Thoughts’...

He pulls out a pen from his diary and draws…

A picture of a cartoon note with a speech bubble that reads…

Quote:Mmmm. A clue.

”This is a massive waste of time!” Grunts Suspect #5, Time-Anxious Cop. ”Shouldn’t you actually be trying to extract clues instead of letting us talk one at a time until you reach the thirteenth one! Comedy has a rule of three’s! Not thirteens!”

”One golden rule of comedy. The rule of Threes.”

”One. Three. Makes thirteen.”

”Don’t one and three make four?” Pondered Basic Addition Clown.

NOTE: Basic Addition Clown is not a suspect, he was simply walking by the Apartment where the murder took place and has an excellent sense of comedic timing.

”EC!” I clap my hands.

My hands squeak when I clap them… My hands have squeakers in them.

All clowns have squeakers in their hands.

It would actually be sillier in Clown City if your hands didn’t squeak when you clapped them.

If you showed a group of clown residents of Clown City stock footage of an audience of humans clapping their hands and it sounding just like clapping?

They go fucking nuts and start clapping their squeaky clown hands.’

”Check the body for clues!” I reach into my pocket and retrieves…

A set of tweezers…



Humorously large. As required by Clown City law.

I gently squeeze the tweezers.

They compress, my hands lowly and slowly squeak, the sound of a dying animal.

And that animal is this city’s innocence.

I toss the tweezers to Ennui Clown…

…

Ennui Clown makes no effort to catch them, they clatter loudly against the clown car interior’s side door.

The thirteen suspects on the wall all jolt in surprise.

When they jolt, they all quietly squeak.

There’s a lot of ambient squeaking in Clown World, basically all the time.

If you’re mentally picturing this scene in your mind’s eye, and you’re only imagining two or three backgrounds squeaks a second, that’s not nearly enough squeaks.

I sigh, leaning over my partner.

“EC. You doing okay there, bud?”

EC sighs, lying facedown against the lap of the dead body.

“...I don’t feel like doing anything…”

…Sigh.

I try to use a bit of that mandatory training I was assigned a few weeks ago.

How to Be Empathetic as a Clown That Also Despises the Number 13

I was in the class with two other people.

Neither of them despised the number 13, they just needed quarterly training credits.

Posers.

I empathetically lean a little closer, hovering over my partner’s head.

“EC… Do you wanna… talk about why you don’t feel like doing anything?”

“...No…”

“Why not?”

“...Because talking about it would be doing something… And I don’t feel like doing anything…”

“You can’t keep us here forever!” Demands Suspect #7, Attorney Clown! “The Clown Constitution clearly states seizures of a clown person have to be REASONABLE… and HILARIOUS! This is neither!”

NOTE: Suspect #6 is Deaf and Mute Clown and he will not be speaking in this story.

“Comedy is subjective!” I bark back… before exhaling and bending on one knee to get down to EC’s eye level.

“EC, I totally get your whole deal is being vaguely listless and weary with the world and feeling like you can’t do anything to fix it…”

“But!” I point a clown finger in the air! (It sounds rubbery like waving a balloon animal around)... “You and I are solving an actual clown murder! This is literally among the most direct ways to effect positive change! Taking a killer off the streets!”

…EC’s eyes widen about one-thirty-second of an inch, which is the most he’s moved in a long while. “...Do you think maybe it’s my mission to solve this murder? My mission is to find out my mission… Maybe *this* is the mission?”

“Could be!” I grunt, trying to be encouraging.

“Wait, so if we’re still doing the ‘mission to find a mission’ story, does that mean he’s still an alien? Are we all aliens?” Ponders Suspect #8, Continuity-Focused Clown.

“Oh! If we are, that must mean Clown City is ON the Clown Planet, right? So that’s where we are currently!” Excitedly Shares Suspect #9, Intuitive Clown.

”...Wait, but isn’t Clown Planet hundreds of thousands of lightyears from Earth? How would Ennui get to and fro for his matches in weeks. Lightyear literally means the distance you would travel moving at the speed of light for one year.” Informs Suspect #10, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Not a clown version of Neil deGrasse Tyson. The Neil deGrasse Tyson is suspect #10.

Aside: He also has a motive. Corpse-o was having an affair with his wife.

“WHAT?!?”

“Stop talking to the detective’s internal monologue!” Complains Suspect #11, Clown-Who-Thinks-Fourth-Wall-Breaking-is-Hacky.

“And we're twins!” Share Suspects #12 and #13, the Clown Triplets Becil and Decil.

(No one has the heart to tell them their third triplet, Fecil, died in the womb.)

“EVERYONE SHUDDUP OR YOU’RE ALL GOING TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN THE POKEY WHILE WE SORT THIS OUT!”

If you’re picturing the pokey as not a jail for clowns, but a small room with a big hand that pokes the people in the room, you’re one-hundred percent correct.

I kneel back down to EC.

“Partner. I ain’t gonna lie to ya… Maybe helping me solve this crime is your mission… maybe it isn’t… But, I can tell you this.”

“Your mission? Probably ain’t lying facedown on the floor, not moving. If you want to find your mission? You should do… something.”

“...I guess you’re right…” EC sighs…

His clown hands scoop up the large set of tweezers.

He wraps them around the arrow lodged in Corpse-O’s skull…

“Here we go… The murder weapon. This will tell us everything we need to know… Pull it off.”

EC pulls the arrow…

…

Up?



…

“Oh… It’s a gag arrow!”

“Corpse-O isn’t dead at all!”

EC sighs, lying face down on Corpse-O’s lap. “Ohhh… I could have told you that…”

“...Wait, you knew Corpse-O was alive?”

“...Yeah.”

“How? Corpse-o doesn’t move or blink! His heart doesn’t beat!”

“...Yeah… But since I’ve been down here, he’s had an erection.”

EC lets his head sink…

And Corpse-O’s penis honks.

---

Thirteen.

It all comes back to Thirteen.

Mister 6-1-9, El Landerson. The Bit Luchador.

6 - 9? Is -3

Which leaves -1 and -3.

Negative thirteen.

Appropriate given what a negative impact you’ve had on the sport of wrestling.

I’m a fucking clown and I’m taking this more seriously than you are, Señor Bit Luchador.

All your promos you talk about your best friend, Razor Blade.

The man who’s outshone you every single time you’ve shared a ring.

At the Spirit Halloween Anarchy, Razor kicked your ass up and down the aisle.

At War Games… Razor single-handedly bailed your flailing team out, rescuing you from a 2-1 deficit.

You couldn’t even beat Ace Sky.

Some would describe your run thus far in the XWF as…

Unlucky.

But, luck is a product of hard work and effort.

Something you’ve failed to show and may simply be completely incapable of.

And now, my partner will cover Latoya Hixx.

...

Sigh…

...C’mon, man. We said we’d each take one of our partners this match to do trash talk on.

Don’t you have anything to say about Latoya? The Storm.

...I like storms.

Rain is nice.

Do you want to mention how she lost against Captain Future and YKW? Maybe the only two guys on the roster that are bigger clowns than us?

...I’m taller than both of them. They’re not bigger clowns than us.

...

Sigh.

My partner didn’t write any gags for Hixx.

Because we aren’t joking around this week.

And we may be all funny business when solving crimes…

But in the ring? With a shot at the Anarchy Tag Titles on the line?

It’s no laughing matter.