Mother Nature and the Saint—still our romantic subplot.

Then the Missing Link lifts his hands and shakes back the sleeves of his coat. With an index finger pressed to each temple, he says, “Then I'm channeling her.” Channeling Comrade Snarky. And, channeling Mr. Whittier, he's saying that human beings need to accept the wild-animal side of their nature. We need some way to exhaust our fight-or-flight reflexes. Those skills we learned over the past thousand generations. If we ignore our need to hurt and get hurt, if we deny that need and let it pile up, that's when we get wars. Serial killers. School shootings.

“You're saying we have wars,” Saint Gut-Free says, “because we have a low threshold for boredom?”

And the Missing Link says, “We have wars because we deny that low threshold.”

Agent Tattletale videotapes the Earl of Slander, who tape-records the Missing Link, all of us looking for a telltale bit of physical business we can relay to an actor, on a set, someday. Some detail to make our version of the truth more real.

Reaching one hand up, underneath the layers of her skirts, Miss America lets her eyes roll down to stare at nothing on the carpet. While the fingers of her hand work under her skirts, her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, it stops.

When she brings out her hand, the fingers shine, wet with something clear. Not blood. She brings her hand to her nose and inhales the smell. Frowning, her skin pulls together into deep wrinkles between her blue eyes.

Poor Director Denial has stopped crying, oh, forever ago. Since then, she just sits, watching Miss America. Following her from room to room. Waiting.

“You have a bacterial infection,” the Missing Link says, looking at the scratches on Miss America's arms. “Bartonella bacterium, an infection of the lymph nodes.” And he stops talking long enough for people to take note. Letter by letter, he spells, “B-A-R-T . . . ,” while the Earl of Slander scribbles.

“And if I'm not mistaken,” the Link says, sniffing the air, “your water's just broke . . .”

Miss Sneezy coughs into her fist, and against the quiet, the sound of the pen scribbling on paper is loud as thunder.

When Miss America's wet hand goes to her nose, Director Denial's eyes follow it.

Each of us, the camera behind the camera behind the camera.

Brushing the loose fur from his coat sleeves, without looking up, the Missing Link says, “The common name for your disease is ‘cat-scratch fever.'”

“I have a migraine headache,” Miss America says, and she wipes her wet fingers on her shawl. Lifting handfuls of her skirt, she topples forward out of her chair. She pulls her shawl up, higher around her scratched neck. On her feet, Miss America starts toward the stairs, saying, “I'm going to my room.”

The leather seat of her chair is dark. Wet. With water, not blood.

As Miss America disappears, dropping lower and lower as she steps down the stairs, only then does Director Denial move.

As soon as Miss America is out of sight, Director Denial starts after her.

And the rest of us watch, and write this down. The way the Director's hands each hold a fistful of her uniform, a Clara Barton–long skirt and bib apron with a red cross on the chest and a folded nurse-cap pinned to the top of her wig, her fingers grip the skirt so tight they look blue. The way her chin tucks to her chest so her eyes roll up to see out from under the shelf of her brow. Her mouth is shut so tight, the muscle at each corner of her jaw is balled up, big. Without a sound louder than our pens on paper, Director Denial starts off after Miss America.

The rest of us sit, waiting for the scream.

Something gristly needs to happen.

Something ghoulish needs to happen.

The mythology of us—only with the royalties split one less way.

Agent Tattletale flops on the floor, resting on his side, panting and shiny with sweat. His caftan showing billowy harem pants underneath, his wig pulled down low and warm on his head. To the Missing Link, he says, “To test your own theory,” Agent Tattletale says, “who did you kill to get here?”

Evolution

A Poem About the Missing Link

“What will you do today?” asks the Missing Link. “How will you justify it?”

That mountain of dead animals and ancestors on which you stand.

The Missing Link onstage, his eyes stare out, yellow eyes,

from deep in the shade of his brow bone.

His eyes and nose, they're crowded into the clearing, the small open space

between the hair bushy on his forehead and the forest of his beard.

His hands hang too near his knees,

his knuckles hanging with black curls.

Onstage, instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment:

The sixteen-millimeter footage of a monster covered with red fur,

tall as a man on horseback, with a pointed top to its head,

running away from the camera.

A sunny day along a river, with pine trees as a backdrop.

This documentary monster, superimposed over the Missing Link,

her red-furry breasts swinging,

she turns to look back.

Onstage, the Missing Link says, “Every breath you take is because something has died.”

Something or someone lived and died so you could have this life.

This mountain of dead, they lift you into daylight.

The Missing Link, he says, “Will the effort and energy and momentum of their lives . . .”

How will it find you?

How will you enjoy their gift?

Leather shoes and fried chicken and dead soldiers are only a tragedy

if you waste their gift

sitting in front of the television. Or stuck in traffic. Or stranded at some airport.

“How will you show all the creatures of history?” says the Missing Link.

How will you show their birth and work and death were worthwhile?

Dissertation

A Story by the Missing Link

It turns out this wasn't a real date.

Sure, it was beer in a tavern with a pretty-enough girl. A game of pool. Music on the jukebox. A couple hamburgers with fried eggs, French fries. Date food.

It was too soon after Lisa's death, but this felt good. Getting out.

Still, this new girl, she never looks away. Not at the football game on the television above the bar. She misses every pool shot because she can't even watch the cue ball. Her eyes, it's like they're taking dictation. Making shorthand notes. Snapping pictures.

“Did you hear about that little girl getting killed?” she says. “Wasn't she from the reservation?” She says, “Did you ever know her?”

The rough cedar walls of the bar are smoked from years of cigarettes. Sawdust is thick on the floor to soak up the tobacco spit. Christmas lights string back and forth across the black ceiling. Red, blue, and yellow. Green and orange. Some of the lights blinking. Here's the kind of bar where they don't mind you bringing your dog or wearing a gun.

Still, despite appearances, this is less of a date than an interview.

Even when this girl's stating a fact, it comes out as a question:

“Did you know,” she says, “that Saint Andrew and Saint Bartholomew tried to convert a giant with a dog's head?” She's not even trying to line up her next shot, saying, “The early Catholic church describes the giant as twelve feet tall with a dog's face, the mane of a lion, and teeth like the tusks of a wild boar.”

Of course she misses, but she won't let up. Just: yak, yak, yak.

“Have you ever heard the Italian term lupa manera?” she says.

Bent over the pool table, she muffs another easy shot, the two-ball straight in line for a corner pocket. All the time, she's saying, “Have you heard of the French Gandillon family?” Saying, “In 1584, the entire family was burned at the stake . . .”