by Jim Rose and Melissa Rossi from the book "Freaks Like Me"

Not that our sub-Motel Six traveling conditions across Canada were hampering the rest of the Jim Rose Circus in their pursuit of slumber. Bebe the Circus Queen had abandoned her letter-writing and crashed out, smashing her angular face into my left shoulder. She wore the high-cheekboned look well, but I didn't; my arm was asleep, I wished my brain would follow. Slug, the sword-swallowing insectivore, was passed out, slobbering on my right shoulder, blasting  bug  breath in my face every time  he  exhaled. Only God knew what strange insect bacteria lurked in his polymucalsac charide droolings that were now making a big wet spot on my shirt. A clunking sound from the seat behind alerted me that Lifto's fuchsia-haired, multipierced head had once again collided with Matt the Tube's bald one. The Tube, his hands still clutching the gas mask that he donned whenever I smoked, jerked his head to the right, colliding with the fitful thrashing of the Human Pincushion, whose book, Conspiracy's Greatest Hits, tumbled into the danger zone we called the floor.

After five days on the road that area below us looked like a trough: half-eaten cans of Spaghetti Os, smashed popcorn, hairballs, Marlboro butts that had spilled from the overflowing ashtray, a used condom or two.

Hanging out with freaks can be disgusting. I'd never had to for this many days in a row. Now they were making me sick. All the more so since they could sleep through this hell that could induce insomnia in a narcoleptic, and I couldn't.

It was May of 1992 and this was our first circus tour. For the past four months the Jim Rose Circus had been a loose-knit assemblage of odd humans, who by day held real jobs, and by night took their party tricks to the stage and transformed themselves into human marvels. We were the misfits of Seattle's grunge scene, the only club act in town that would rather swallow a drumstick than pound it.

Not only did we have nothing in common with most of humanity; we really had nothing in common among ourselves except a desire to perform mind-boggling physical miracles in the hopes of popping the audience's eyes out, and maybe making a few of them faceplant on the cool floor.

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