Free Suckerpunch by David Hernandez Page A

mind spiraled and shuffled pictures of my dad, his rage, Enrique, his blood, the gun. There was no way I could possibly sleep.
    Ashley scraped off her nail polish and dropped the flakes of maroon into the car’s ashtray. When she saw me looking at her and not Enrique, she winked. I turned back to the road ahead that rolled under the car like a giant conveyer belt.
    Sometimes I fantasized that Ashley was with me and not my brother, which I did then, post-wink. I imagined us doing it in a movie theater, on a Ferris wheel, a ski lift. I pictured her on top of me in the backseat of a convertible speeding toward a canyon, both of us coming at the same time in the air before we pull the ripcord on our parachutes and watch the convertible explode into a bouquet of flames on the canyon floor.
    Enrique snored quietly, his mouth cracked open.
    I want to make a little pit stop, if you don’t mind, Oliver said.
    Not at all, I said.
    It would be good to stretch out my legs, Ashley added. She arched her back and twisted her body to the side. Her shirt rose above her skirt and I could see the butterfly tattoo inked there, perched on her hip-bone, the wings splayed and green.
    The highway curved and Oliver took the next exit and made a left down another road and soon I could see the planes glittering on the horizon, lined up in a row like toys.
    What’s that? Ashley said.
    It’s an airplane graveyard, Oliver said. The world’s largest, supposedly.
    No shit, I said.
    When we were close enough to see the logos on the tailfins—the dark blue arrow of Delta, Virgin Atlantic’s scrawled handwriting, the abstract and smiling face of Alaska Airlines—Ashley fished out her digital camera from her backpack. What a trip, she said, and took a picture. There must be at least two hundred of them.
    Look at the doors and windows, Oliver said. They’re all taped over.
    How come?
    Probably to keep the dust out, I said.
    What I want to know is how the pilots who flew these planes got back to wherever they came from. Ashley snapped another picture.
    Good question.
    Oliver pulled off to the side of the road. Let’s check them out, he said.
    What about him? Ashley motioned toward Enrique, who was still sleeping with his head against the window.
    Screw him, I said.
    I already did, Ashley said, smiling.
    Oliver walked ahead and his boots kicked up beige clouds of dust. He hopped over the chain-link fence first, then me. Ashley climbed the fence last because she didn’t want Oliver or me to peek under her skirt while she went over. Once we all made it over the fence we headed toward a 747. In the chrome of the fuselage we could see our reflections, distorted like a carnival mirror. Ashley reached up and slid her handacross the aircraft as if she were petting a whale. Jesus , she said to herself.
    Oliver dug up a stone and tossed it at the plane’s tailfin and it gonged like a church bell.
    I never felt so puny as I felt while standing beside that massive plane, next to a girl I wanted but couldn’t have, in a place that was no place at all. I reached up and pressed my palm against the airplane and felt the cold metal.
    Can I ask you something? Ashley said.
    Sounds serious.
    Not really.
    What is it?
    Well, Ashley said. Your hand.
    I took my hand away from the aircraft and held it before her, wiggling the stump. Let me guess, I said. You want to know what happened.
    I already know. Your brother told me.
    Oh.
    I was wondering if you could still feel it.
    What do you mean, like a phantom limb?
    Yeah.
    I lifted my hand and curled and uncurled my fingers.
    Sometimes I feel like I can, I said. You know when there’s a word on the tip of your tongue, and no matter how hard you think and concentrate, the word won’t appear?
    Yeah?
    It sort of feels like that.
    Ashley smiled. The stud in her nose shined in the bright sun. The wind played with her hair and it rib-boned across her face. I wanted to kiss her. Another