Continued from... The Big Honk

It was about a quarter past eleven.

That was what my first case was about, someone threw a quarter in between eleven different Clowns and they each laid claim that it was their quarter.

I was walking by, eating a pastrami sandwich on rye. As I often did, as Pastrami-Sandwich-on-Rye Clown.

“Pastrami-Sandwich-on-Rye Clown!” they called me, back in those days. “Help us figure out whose quarter this is!”

“Who do I look like, Detective Clown?” I sneered back, as I finished the last bite of my sandwich.

“Well, right now, you look like you got a big mustard stain on your shirt from eating all those pastrami sandwiches.” One of the clowns pointed at my chest.

…

I still hear those words when I close my eyes.

“Big.”

“Mustard.”

“Stain.”

It was the last moment I thought there was good in Clownkind.

In a state of emotional shock and naive unquestioning faith in the goodness of the clown soul, my mind demanded I seek visual proof of this putative mustard stain.

I had no reason to doubt the existence of this condiment-based discoloration.

It made so much sense. The sandwiches came with mustard. I ate with the youthful abandon that comes with a lifetime of never suffering the consequences of trusting too deeply.

I never once got napkins with my sandwich. What am I, Napkin Clown? Of course there’d be a stain there.

My critical mind took a backseat in favor of filling in the gaps in his cream-concentrated claim with details that made this stranger/assaulter’s clown narrative plausible.

I was young. Foolish. I trusted Clown City and its people as a native-born son of the city that was actually a planet.

My Clown Brain sent 70 Clown millivolts of Clown Electricity down my Clown spinal column so my Clown body would tilt downward (clownward) at approximately 8.2 Clown degrees.

And that.

That moment.

Is when that clown flicked me in the nose.

…

I still remember the sound as his nefarious clown finger slowly extended into the bulbous mass that hit my large red rubber nose… The subsequent honk… mournful… haunting…

Like the wailing cry of the lake fowl that migrates north as the winter winds howl, knowing he’ll never return home to the lake from whence he was wrought.

…

Do ducks return home?

I don’t know.

I’m not Ornithologist Clown.

Nor would I ever be Pastrami-Sandwich-on-Rye Clown again.

I learned two things that day.

One. I could never consume another pastrami sandwich on rye again. Those days of innocence were behind me.

Two. I would never trust Nose-Flicko “The Traitor” McJudas Clown ever again.

Three. This Clown City needs a protector. A watchful eye. It needs someone to walk its streets, untangling the wicked web of deceit and tomfoolery that plagued these Clown people.

It needed a Noir Clown.

I swore I would unravel the surreptitious secrets in which this city’s most sinister sins seek shelter.

…

Anyway, long story short, the eleven clowns ended up splitting the quarter eleven ways.

Using the Quarter-Splitting laser at the Clown Bank.

Each eleventh of the quarter was equally worthless.

And to this day, I’m still not sure why Lazo the Bank Clown that Operates the Quarter-Splitting Laser and Charges $100 Per Lazing threw the quarter between those eleven clowns in the first place.

Some mysteries will never be solved.

I don’t know.

I’m not Mystery-Solving Clown.

I’m Noir Clown.

---

Clown City Friday 20th February

It’s been almost two hours of following my client’s husband…

On Twitter.

Thankfully, just when I was wondering if I’d get a lead, I got lucky and he tweeted.



Admittedly, he’d also tweeted that every hour on the hour for the last two hours.

Which is twice.

But this second time, he also checked in on FourSquare.

What a clown. Who still uses FourSquare?

Besides FourSquare Clown.

My car pulled up to the roadside clown motel where Adultery Clown parked his clown car.

I could tell it was his from the bumper sticker:

My Other Car is the One I Have Sex With Clowns Besides My Wife In But I Also Have Sex With Clowns Beside My Wife In This Car Also Outside Of This Car And Outside In General Hello I’m Adultery Clown

The Bumper sticker hung down off the bottom of his bumper and draped onto the road like a little cape.

Like the cape of this city’s innocence, flying into the jet engine that is corruption! And I’m the goose that is justice, flying into the…

…

Look, I’m not Extended Analogy Clown.

Extended Analogy Clown isn’t even Extended Analogy Clown these days. After I stopped being Pastrami-Sandwich-on-Rye Clown, he took the mantle faster than a jackrabbit doing…

A…

Thing Very Quickly.

…

Clown City has had a shortage of extended analogies in recent months.

One time, I asked New Pastrami-Sandwich-on-Rye Clown if he ever missed making extended analogies.

He said he missed it less than a clown misses the chance to honk his nose.

It was a great analogy.

He had a big mustard stain on the center of his shirt.

…

Adultery Clown checks into his room… a dame on his arm…

Literally balanced on his arm, this broad is carefully perched on his bicep as he lets her ride it like a set. Strong like a circus strongman.

Which is a kind of person I’ve only read about in books about Circus Strongman City.

Which is also a planet like Clown City is a planet.

The door closes… But I can see everything through the window with my X-Ray glasses.

…Or I’m supposed to. I pull off the glasses and smack the side of them! Stupid GagCo product!

I catch a look at myself in my rear-view mirror.

Which is a mirror in which I can see my own rear-end.

I tilt the mirror to look at my face.

…

Yep. Two black circles around my eyes.

Dammit Gagco.

I toss away the X-Ray glasses… I stroke my clown chin which honks as I slowly stroke it. There’s gotta be some way to catch this guy in the act.

Ah, lucky break.

Adultery Clown opens the shades.

And also sets up a spotlight in the hotel room towards the bed.

And also starts a Clown Twitch stream entitled “Adultery Speed Run - Four Minutes or less - CUM%”

…

This guy’s a pro. He did almost everything right to get away with it.

Except for one thing.

The part where his wife hired me. Noir Clown.

I retrieve my camera from the glove compartment of my car.

Which, as you can imagine, is fucking filled to the brim with gloves.

Gloves spill everywhere into the cabin.

Which, the inside of my car I’ve decorated to look like a cabin.

Including log walls and a singing Billy Bass above the rearview mirror.

I aim the camera at the hotel room and snap pictures wildly.

I snap a picture of the two bumping uglies.

They each brought an ugly clown to the hotel room and are shoving them against each other in a bumping fashion.

“Hey! I’m not even that ugly!” Complained In-Denial-Regarding-His-Ugliness Clown!

“Wheeeeeeeee!” Said Taxidermist Clown, who is very ugly and isn’t frequently invited to things, but that’s not all of him, he’s also Clown City’s taxidermist and, okay, yeah, now we’ve covered all of him.

“Hey! Down in front!” Calls a voice from my backseat. Actually a number of voices, all clowns, all trying to get an eyeful of the show in Adultery Clown’s Hotel Room.

By Clown Law, anyone driving a car has to have nineteen other clowns in the car with them, as twenty is the minimum number of clowns to have in a car to achieve legally-mandated hilarity.

Nineteen clowns in a car isn’t funny. Twenty is hilarious.

I don’t make the rules of comedy.

I’m not Comedy-Rule-Making Clown.

I don’t make the rules of the road either.

Twenty clowns in the car also helps me get in the car pool lane.

Which is a lane on the highway submerged in water.

I shush the clowns in my backseat.

“You can watch, but keep it down, you clowns!”

I scrunch down in my car seat to give them a better view.

My spine honks as I slouch, snapping another picture. This time, Adultery Clown and this clown floozy are playing a game of Hide the Sausage.

“THE SAUSAGE IS IN HIS HAT!” Calls out Yells-Angrily-at-Live-Events Clown! “CAN’T YOU SEE THAT, YA DUMB BROAD!?!?”

“Hey!” Someone raises a flashlight into the car! “You creeps got TICKETS to this PEEPSHOW?!?”

…

Twenty hands raise, each holding a ticket.

“Very good then.” Nods Usher Clown, checking a box on his ticket summary before strolling away.

Finally, after watching these two jump bones, knock boots, butter each other’s biscuits, roll in the hay, toss a hot dog down a hallway, AND perform squat thrusts in the cucumber patch…

Eventually, they check the last item off their list of things to do and decide to celebrate by having Clown Sexual Intercourse.

---

”Hi. I’m Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

“I have a summer home on the Clown Planet where I vacation.”

“I bet you’re wondering how the Clown species procreates.”

“The reproductive process between two clowns is a beautiful and surprisingly loud biological wonder.”

…

“But. As I said, I’m here on vacation.”

“This has been Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

---

The twenty clowns in my car excitedly mutter and buzz as Adultery Clown commits adultery.

“Beautiful form. Simply exquisite.” Says High-Class Clown, watching through a pair of opera glasses.

“And check out the you-know-whats on her!” Says Confident-His-Own-Niche-Fetish-Has-Universal-Appeal Clown. “All of them! You fellas know what I’m talking about, right?”

“This is doing NOTHING for me.” Grumbles Only-Aroused-By-Rhetorical-Minutiae Clown, his chin grumpily resting on his hand.

As the clowns all wildly honk and react in ways that are consistent with the specific type of clown they are…

My thoughts kept going back to my client…

Damsel Clown.

She was a dream.

If you were dreaming a dream about a clown named Damsel Clown.

Her sad eyes were like two pools of glistening sapphires…

Small pools the size of eyes, except instead of pools they were eyes, and the sapphires were blue irises belonging in the head of a clown named Damsel Clown.

An-...Oh what the fuck, I hear an unmistakable sound coming from my backseat!

“Hey! You clowns!” I rebuke! “Which one of you sick fucks is beating your meat back there?”

“Ja! Ist me!” Calls Butcher Clown, smacking the side of a hanging slab of beef with a mallet. “Sorry! Ist mein work from home day!”

“Then shouldn’t you be at home working?”

“I am! I live in dish car!”

“...Well… keep it down!” I mutter angrily, as I raise my camera again toward the action. “My client wants her husband caught cheating!”

Butcher Clown peers toward where I’m snapping photos.

“Vat? Your client is vife of Adultery Clown, ja?”

I sneer. “Ja.”

“Vhy would she vant him caught? She and he have und mutual understanding!”

“...Wait…” …My clown eyes widen… As they do, the bags under my eyes gently honk. “No… What?”

“Ja ja!” Butcher Clown nods. “Zey each have und free pass. Why else would a clown woman marry Adultery Clown if she wasn’t into an open Clown relationship?”

“How the Hell do you know that, Butcher Clown?”

Butcher Clown points to the hotel window. “Because ZAT is mein Clown Wife, Butcher Clown’s Wife Clown!”

“Aren’t you ashamed?!?” Gasps Morally-Outraged Clown!

“Ja!” Butcher Clown nods bitterly. “I cannot belief it took her so long to find ze hidden sausage!”

“...Wait…” I scratch my head. “This is… this doesn’t make sense!”

“I agree! How can he be ‘Adultery Clown’ if he’s not actually cheating on his wife!” Complains Making-Sure-Other-Clowns-Are-Consistent-With-Their-Whole-Deals Clown. “If he’s not cheating, shouldn’t he be… like… Ethical Non-monogamy Clown!”

“Well, actually…” Replies Well-Actually Clown, pushing up his stupid glasses on his dumb nose, god I hate him. “Did you know there’s no deceit component to the Oxford Definition of adultery? It simply covers voluntary sexual intercourse between a married clown and anyone besides their clown spouse?!? Permission doesn’t make it not adultery, speaking on a strictly technical level!”


“OH GOD, I’M GETTING THERE. OH FUCK.” Moans Only-Aroused-By-Rhetorical-Minutiae Clown.

---

”Did you know, according to the Hebrew Bible, it’s not technically adultery if the woman is unmarried?”

…

”Sheila, I’m sorry. I was drunk and I believed her when she said ‘What happens in Clown City, Stays in Clown City’.”

“My penis honks now when I put on my pants, which immediately drop my ankles.”

“Please let me come home, baby.”

“Please.”

---

“But then…” I scratch my big white-painted scalp, which honks as I drag my fingernails along it… “Why would Dame Clown send me here if not to catch her husband riding the bony pony?!?”

Inside the hotel room, they’re riding a giant skeleton horse and high-fiving in recognition of the awesome sex they’ve had that their partners were cool with.

“Why indeed….”

BANG!

A shot rings out behind the car!

“HANDS IN THE AIR!”

All twenty clowns pull off their hands and throw them toward the sky.

It was a setup all along.

But why?

I peek in the rear-view. And I see three clown mooks with finger guns.

Black Militant Clown.

Foot Fetish Clown.

And Third Clown That Speaks Spanish Sometimes But Really Doesn’t Have A Thing Clown.

The Clown Thugs stroll up to my side window.

“Which one of you is Noir Clown?” Sneers Black Militant Clown.

The clowns try to point towards me… Unfortunately, they threw their hands into the sky for a bit.

Which gives me a window to KICK the door open into the face of Black Militant Clown!

Black Militant Clown does a pratfall back against the asphalt!

The nineteen other clowns all scatter! Fucking tons of honking sounds everywhere!

I break into a jog, trying to hoof it to safety…

“Where you going with them piggies!?!” grunts Foot Fetish Clown as he cuts off Noir Clown’s retreat!

Foot Fetish Clown wrings his hands fiendishly. They quietly honk as he brings them together and then apart…

I grit my teeth… before my eyes light up with an idea.

“Hey fella! You know there are people buying tickets to Bonetown in that hotel room?”

Foot Fetish Clown looks unimpressed. “Yeah? So?”

“They have feet!”

Foot Fetish Clown’s eyes zoom out of his head! He rushes to the window to watch them do the horizontal monster mash!

“Ugh! How can you be into FEET, when they both have THOSE!” Chides Confident-His-Own-Niche-Fetish-Has-Universal-Appeal Clown, pointing in a way that’s impossible to tell which part he’s pointing at. “Look at their shape and size and the amount of them!”

I’ve almost beaten a path to escape this Thug Clown ambush!

*click*

“Not so rapido, cabron!” Calls out Third Clown That Speaks Spanish Sometimes But Really Doesn’t Have A Thing Clown. He raises his finger in the air, pointing it right at Noir Clown.

My eyes glint dangerously… I go to point back at TCTSSSBRDHAT Clown!

…Unfortunately, while I still have my arms and my arm, I did throw his hands away.

Remember? I said twenty clowns all threw their hands away? That included me. Continuity.

“Jajajaja!” Laughs TCTSSSBRDHAT Clown spanishly! “Looks like you’re already un hombre muerto! Or as we say in my native country… Cualquiera puede usar el traductor de español a inglés de Google.”

…This is it, I exhale… Even now… Even as I believe I’ve been betrayed by her… My mind lingers on Damsel Clown

“Ennui Clown! Now!” A voice calls out!

…

“Now! Ennui Clown!”

…

“Sigh.”

From the top of the hill above the hotel parking lot, Triskadekaphobia Clown elbows the sad sack clown beside him, lying face down on the asphalt, ass in the air.

“What’sa matter bud? We planned this. This is the part where you spring into action!”

“...I don’t really like springing.”

…Triskadekaphobia Clown sighs… Before nodding. “Okay. I have an idea.”

TC gently pushes Ennui Clown with his toe.

Ennui Clown starts slowly rolling down the hill… Somersaulting faster and faster!

Picking up speed!

“Ay dios mio!”

WHAM! Ennui Clown crashes into Reggie Estrada TCTSSSBRDHAT Clown!

“Ay… chihuahua…” TCTSSSBRDHAT Clown mutters in defeat, as he loses consciousness.

Noir Clown scrambles to the asphalt scooping up two hands and slamming them on his wrists!

He points his fingers at this depressing clown, who hasn’t moved from his spot on the asphalt!

“Who the hell are you?!?”

“The real question…” Triskadekaphobic Clown mutters as he steps closer, standing beside his sadsack partner. “Is who set you up?”

“And we think it’s the same person…” Triskadekaphobic Clown reaches into his pocket and pulls out photos. “Who’s killing all the detective-themed clowns!”

Triskadekaphobic Clown raises one photo of a dead clown in a trenchcoat!

“Gumshoe Clown!”

Another! “Inspector Clown!”

He raises a third!

“Dick Clown! And you and I might be nex-”

…

Triskadekaphobic Clown squints, before pulling the last photo to his eyes.

“Wait a minute.”

…

He pulls the photo closer.

…

Further back.

“Waaaaaaaaait a minute.”

…

Close again.

…

“Now that I look closer… I don’t think Dick Clown is a detective.”

To Be Continued…