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The Fight When she cracked the ice tray over the spine of the sink and lifted a spoon too precisely from the draining board and then stirred the drink slowly, I heard the ice cubes warning me: This is meant for you, meant for you. And so she cupped the plastic glass in the curve of her hand and keeping her arm stiff, pivoted her body and threw the drink hard at my face. I remember thinking before the ice and vodka hit me, I want to remember this. And I have, especially the way my arm cocked back to throw a beer bottle at her, though I hesitated long enough that a friend could wrap me in a bear hug and stagger me out into the back yard where after a long time of trying to break free of him, I sat down on the irrigation hump that bordered the citrus grove behind the house and stared at the black sheet of unruffled water stretching through the rows of orange trees with their trunks painted white and their branches burdened with blossoms. And what emerged from the grove, behind flickering light and sloshing water was a man in hip boots. He stood in front of us. In one hand he held a valve wrench and in the other a gas lantern that sobbed and sobbed as it burned. 43 ...

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