Chapter 2

Less than an hour later, JC found himself doubled over with laughter, leaning against Lance's side to try to catch his breath.

"Are you guys serious? You really did that? Ya know, Larry never found out who did that. He thought that he had spilled cologne in the ticket booth while he was drunk." Joey and Lance began laughing along with him, but Justin just looked at him, confused.

"Who's Larry?" JC looked up at him and caught his breath.

"My uncle. The manager."

"Oh. I had never heard his name before." Justin was puzzled at how he could live here his entire life, with the manager as his only father, without ever hearing his name. It didn't seem right to him. Not right at all. He stopped thinking about it, though, when JC reached over, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Justin my man, you should come over to the other side of the tent and have dinner with me and some of the other guys tomorrow night."

"Really?"

"Yeah, all of you guys should come. You should bring your other friends with you, too."

"Seriously?" The three other men seemed very skeptical about JC's invitation.

"Seriously. It'll be great. I gotta go now, though. Gotta go to bed, but I'll see you guys later." JC got up and walked away toward his trailer, as the other three continued to eye each other skeptically.

"Do think we should really go and eat with them, guys?" Lance answered first, though hesitantly.

"I think we should go. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

"They could make fun of us and throw us out." Joey's eyes gleamed, showing the emotion of his entire face, hidden beneath the hair.

"And, they don't already?" Justin and Joey both looked toward the ground, shame filling their faces.

"Come on guys. What is the probability that something like this will happen again?" Joey and Justin did not answer him, and he sighed.

"You guys have been ridiculed your entire lives, but I haven't been. I remember a time when people didn't cringe from looking at me. I remember a time, a long time ago, when people like JC gladly talked to me and thought nothing of it. Tonight I felt like that again, guys. It's a great feeling, and I want to feel it again, if I can." Lance sighed again when he still did not get an answer.

"I'm going to bed." He stood up and walked to his trailer in complete silence.

"I want to have dinner with them, Joey." Joey looked over at Justin and pulled him in for a hug, before getting up to leave, too.

"Then we'll go." Joey walked away, and Justin hoisted himself up onto his arms, walking on his hands toward his own trailer through the darkness of the night.

~

The next night Lance, Justin, and Joey congregated in their usual spot between Justin and Joey's trailers, waiting for something to happen. The show had just finished a few minutes earlier and they didn't know what to do. Finally, Lance spoke up.

"Should we go to the other side of the tent, or should we wait for JC to come and get us?"

"I don't know." They all looked at each other nervously in the dark, until JC came out of the shadows to greet them.

"Are you guys still coming?" Justin glanced at the faces of his two friends before answering.

"Yeah. We're coming."

"Alright then, let's go." JC clapped Joey on the shoulder as he led the three men to two picnic tables covered with food, and surrounded by other people. There were JC, Jessie, Chris, a couple of other clowns, the bullfighter, a lion trainer, and a couple of other animal trainers sitting at the tables before them. Their eyes went wide as they took in the sight of all the other performers eating dinner. They had never seen them all together before.

"Hey, guys! I didn't know you were gonna be here." Chris got up and walked over to them, smiling.

"Hi, Chris. JC invited us." Joey extended his hand to Chris, and it was taken in return. After greeting Chris, JC led them to sit at the end of one of the tables beside Jessie.

"Do you guys know Jessie? She's my sister." Jessie turned toward the three men sitting beside her. She hesitated and then smiled, taking Justin's hand in hers.

"This is Justin," JC commented, before she took Joey's.

"Joey, and Lance." She patted Lance on the shoulder before turning back to her food, and Lance smiled. He had told Joey and Justin that it would be okay. Nobody was bugging them at all.

"Why don't you have something to eat?" JC pushed three plates and glasses their way. Justin looked around and them began eating along with Joey. The food was good, and it made them forget the prying eyes of some of the men at the other table.

"Aren't you gonna eat, Lance?" He suddenly felt much more self-conscious as he watched everyone holding forks and glasses in their hands. He lifted up his legs to his lap and looked toward JC's face.

"Aren't you hungry?" He looked back to his plate and felt his stomach growling.

"Yeah, but do you think anyone will mind?"

"Of course not, Lance. They're all eating, so you should, too." Lance smiled and slowly lifted one leg to the table, picking up a fork with his toes. The men who had been watching them got up and left at that. JC followed them out behind the tent, and touched a shoulder to get their attention.

"What's wrong, guys?" One of them glanced around the area and then spoke to JC.

"Jace, why are those freaks eating here?"

"I invited them." The man sighed and turned away.

"Oh come on guys, they're good guys. I talked to them last night, and they're real nice." He grabbed an arm, and pulled him back toward the tent.

"Just come back to the tables."

"They're unsanitary, Jace."

"How?" He stood his ground with arms folded across his chest.

"The wolfman is going to shed in the food, and the armless man had his feet on the table. How is that sanitary?" JC gasped.

"For one thing they're names are Joey and Lance. For another thing, they can't help it. Joey can't help having that much hair, and he does not shed anyway. As for Lance, he needs to eat. That's the only way that he can eat, so just let him be." The other man pulled away his arm from JC's grasp and they all turned to leave the tent.

"Whatever, Jace. You can do whatever you want with those freaks, but we don't want to have anything to do with it."

Chapter 3