He kept his gloves on when he removed his head. I know that probably shouldn’t have been the thing I noticed, shouldn’t have been the thing that bothered me. I guess the gloves could be viewed as a formal or even respectful touch, but they made the act a kind of sideshow affair. They were cheap gloves, and dirty, and they put his head down on the coffee table with a graceless sort of thunk after which he made rude noises. “Put it back on,” I said. “Put it back on, put it back on” he said, as if to say I’d been whining. I looked over at his body, sitting with his hands held out like some robot doll. “You’re really in a fix now,” I said, “how are you going to put it back on?” “I can read your mind,”he said, “you think I’ll put it back on just to prove I can.” “It worked last time,” I said, “and I hate those creepy fucking gloves.”