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.”