PUNISHER MAX: IN THE DARK WOODS is my adaptation of the MAX story lines “In the Beginning” and “Up is Down, Black is White.” This is a means of paying homage to the works of Garth Ennis and showing how a viable Punisher film could be made of his work. Parts of this story and some dialog are directly from the works of Mr. Ennis and I take no credit for them, larger portions are my own. I hope you enjoy.
The story so far:
Part One/Intro: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=16286
Part Two: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=16791
Part Three: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fan_fic/news/?a=17484
SCENE XIII – “Disiecti membra poetae” - Horace
The garage, Frank pulls the van into the service entrance. Soap is laying in the back of the van a fresh field dress covers his right shoulder blade. He is drawn and pale.
[Javier Bardem as Frank Castle circa 1981]
Frank: C’mon
Frank helps the detective out of the van.
[Paul Rudd as Det. Martin Soap sporting his 70’s look minus the stach.]
Soap: Where are we?
Frank: Red Hook. I’ll let you bust this place in a few days. Once I clear it out.
Soap: Great. Am I dying, Frank?
Frank: No, I stopped on the way to patch you up a little; stopped the bleeding for the most part. Your scapula absorbed the buck shot. Won’t be using that arm for a while, things are a bitch to heal. Gave you a shot of morphine, too.
Soap: Is that what that is? Stuff is awesome.
Frank: Comes in handy.
Frank sits his companion up in the chair in the kitchen. Frank is limping badly, his left pant leg and shoe is gone, the leg is dressed in a heavy hastily applied bandages. His left arm looks much the same. He trots back with a pitcher of orange juice, and sets an old cup in front of Soap.
Frank: What blood type are you?
Soap: What?
Frank: Blood type. Drink up, you need this. You may need a transfusion. I’ve got O neg and IV fluids in the freezer. You don’t perk up in an hour I’m going to have to stick you.
Soap: How do you do this? Take a beating and keep coming back?
Frank: I have to. I’m down maybe a fourth of the time recuperating; ideally the other guy takes a bullet.
Soap swigs the juice. He looks around.
Frank heads to the bathroom and begins removing pellets and splinters from his
leg.
Soap: Not a big believer in furniture are you?
Cavella and his boys are ditching the Lincoln in a seedy neighborhood in Bed-Stuy.
[Viggo Mortensen as Nicky Cavella]
Cavella: Leave it unlocked; it’ll be stripped by morning.
Barrucci: I can’t believe we got away.
Pittsy: You was screamin’ like a [frick]in’ siren the whole way. Prob’ly though we was one a’ them; [frick]in’ cry baby, [frick].
[Joe Pesci as Carmine “Pittsy” Grazerra.]
Pittsy has a blood soaked sock held to his eye with a belt, his clothes are dirty. He checks his nickel plated .380 auto to ensure it’s loaded. Cavella does the same with his .357.
Barrucci: Oh, my God. They know it was us, don’t they? The cops. What are we gonna do?
Cavella: We lay low and lick our wounds. Nothing’s changed, we still nail Castle and I still run the Cesares.
[Alfred Molina as the woe begotten Larry Barrucci.]
Barrucci: Are you nuts? We killed cops. They’re never gonna stop lookin’ for us now.
Cavella: I am the boss here. No [frick]in’ cops are takin’ that away from me. If I kill Castle every hood in New York will keep me from getting’ popped in gratitude. Now go find a phone and call someone to pick us up. And tell them to bring a doc.
Back at Piero’s Commissioner Sellers walks through the restaurant towards the front door. He looks at the nearly headless body of Zaso and three other dead mobsters scattered about the dining area. As he walks out the bullet riddled front door, he sees four more mobsters on the sidewalk, five bodies covered with tarps lying in the street. Across the way there are two more in the coffee shop. Shell shocked officers stand in clusters near their fallen brothers. They eye Sellers angrily, he can’t meet their gaze.
Mayor: Sellers!
[Kurtwood Smith as Commissioner Sellers.]
Sellers: Mister Mayor.
[Dominic Chianese channeling his best Ed Koch as the Mayor of 1981 NYC.]
Mayor: What the hell happened here?
Sellers: We received a reliable tip that Cavella was here, sir. We thought we could sit on him until we had a chance to take him and Castle, if he showed. I sent Emergency Services, and available officers… We had him coming out the door. We were going to take him on the street, but it… it went sideways, sir.
Mayor: Sideways? This is beyond [frick]ing sideways, buddy boy. This is a [frick]ing train wreck. Where is Cavella now?
Sellers: In the wind.
Mayor: “In the wind?” What is that? In the goddamn wind.
Sellers: He got away, damnit! I’ve got eight officers dead, ten wounded, twelve dead suspects, two civilians dead, and another half dozen injured. And the whole reason for it is nowhere to be [frick]ing found.
Mayor: Okay, then. You find this son of a bitch. He’s killed our people now, [frick] letting Castle have him. This son of a bitch answers to the City of New York.
Sellers: Yes, sir.
Mayor: Oh, and Sellers. When this is over you’re [frick]in’ fired.
SCENE XIV - Curriculum vitae
The Garage: We see Frank seated behind Soap in the bathroom using alligator clamps to remove the buck shot from the back of his shoulder. Soap is now hooked to an IV and sits sullen.
PWJ: [Punisher War Journal: voice over by Frank] Bringing Soap here was not a good idea. I couldn’t leave him to bleed out. Last thing I need is a [frick]ing roommate. Kid’s tougher than I gave him credit for. I guess I owe him for saving my ass now.
Soap: Starting to feel it again.
Frank injects the area around the pellet holes with a syringe.
Soap: You learn this stuff in ‘Nam?
Frank: No, we had Corpsmen for this. I never did anything more than field dressing back then. This was all on the job training. I read medical books in my spare time. Getting good at self surgery. Can’t risk the hospital that often.
Soap: How are you doing back there?
Frank: Fine, fixed myself up while you were passed out at the table.
Soap: They’re going to rebury your wife and kids tomorrow.
Frank: I know. Heard it on the radio.
Soap: Thanks, for saving my ass back there.
Frank: Yeah.
Soap: Can you drop me off at my place later?
Frank: No.
Soap: You can’t keep me here, man.
Frank: Grazarra saw your face. You’re laying low till this is over. Deal with it.
Soap: Great. So while I have you forming whole sentences; why do you do this? I don’t mean revenge, you got that already. Why keep doing it?
Frank hesitates to answer. His face transitions from the brink of a smart assed dismissiveness to something more quiet.
Frank: It’s a war. It’s my war.
Soap: I read your service record. You were a real hard ass in the war. Three tours, the last in 71, you were at Fire Base Valley Forge. You were the only survivor. All those guys died, but you walked away from it.
We see the images through a haze as Frank speaks. The dark night pierced by the harsh glare of flares, beneath a roiling sky, the image of a thousand NVA troops racing over the defenses of a fire base. They swarm like angry wasps, shooting GI’s, bayoneting them in their trenches. We see Frank ordering men pulling them further back up the hill. He is shot, then stabbed fighting for all he is worth, seeing his men fall around him. Images of his wife and infant children flash before him.
Frank: We weren’t ready. To my marines the war was over, counting the days to the accord. They forgot the war is never over. Nathanial Victor came. He came hard. Right through the storm. No air cover. No support. They came in a wave, like the Bonsai charges in World War II. Slammed into us, washed over us, amongst us. In the end all I wanted to do was live, to fight, I wasn’t going to die there. To live through that you have to give yourself over to it, a place where all you have is the fight, the killing. You leave yourself, disconnect, you step outside yourself. Sometimes you don’t come back. In the end the dawn came. The choppers arrived. But there was no one left to save.
We see the image of Frank standing atop the hill draped in smoke. The downdraft from the landing Hueys push the dense smoke and fog of war away from his shadowy frame revealing the horror around him. He is in tatters, bloodied, filthy, hair burned in places, bleeding from a dozen wounds. His eyes staring into nothingness so deep that you can see he has gone to a place beyond. He holds a broken M-16 by the barrel, its stock is shattered and covered in gore it is no more than a club now. In his other hand is a K-Bar. Its blade snapped off a third of the way down. We see him sitting on the Huey as it pulls away, staring into the nothingness. We see him come home to his wife, she holds his infant son in her arms, his daughter only a toddler smiles at the clean cut man in his dress uniform. They rush to embrace him, but his eyes never close. He stares over his wife’s shoulder. Tears well in his eyes, but the look never changes.
Frank: I think in the end they were my last chance. My family. When they died whatever was in me, whatever I became that night at Valley Forge, had no reason to hold back.
Soap says nothing. He stares at the floor as Frank sews him up. The look on his face is clear. He has misread the nobility of The Punisher, he is not a broken man bent on revenge. Frank Castle is something darker, something Soap cannot fathom, something born long before that day in the Sheep Meadow on that sunny afternoon. He will never look at Frank Castle the same way again.
SCENE XV – Faber est suae quisque fortunae
The men’s club in Little Italy; there are raised voices coming from the meeting room on the second floor. The soldiers outside look up to the window behind which their captains and boss are in heated session.
Cavella: I am the boss. You will do what I say or you will…
[Vincent Curatola of Sopranos fame as Vincent Napolitano, Capo of the Cesare Crime Family]
Vincent: We’ll what? What? What’a you gonna do? Whose gonna do it? Pittsy? Pittsy ain’t lookin’ so good there Nicky. Neither is Paulie Zaso or Guido Stapano, nobody even knows where the hell Angelo went, Punisher swooped in an snatched him up. Seems to me you came here promising you could give us Castle and let us get back’ta earnin’, all we seen so far is Punisher still killin’ our people an’ you making it so the cops and feds are gonna be up our ass for the next ten [frick]in’ years! Where is this great plan of yours? What; dig up a few bodies and take a piss? What is that a Halloween prank? Hell all that got us was down like thirty more guys. And John James Toomey is blaming us for getting his crew hit. What; getting us in bad with the chinks wasn’t enough last time around now ya gunnin’ to piss off the moulinyans? Have half the hoods in Harlem breathin’ down our necks? Christ man, we have to work with these people. Killin’ those cops was the icing on the frickin’ cake.
Cavella: You done?
Vincent: To hell wit’ you. I voted we send ya the [frick] back to Boston in a box. You bring too much heat and start too much shit to be the boss Nicky. I’m not alone on this. You ain’t welcome here no more.
Cavella: And whose the new boss? You?
Vincent: The reformed Commission met this morning the heads of the other New York families have decided to call Frankie Marino in from Kansas City to take over the Cesare Family with our blessing. They want you gone. We want you gone. Frank Castle wants you dead. Good luck with that. You’da been whacked already, but the cops want you for themselves. Figure they might lay off us a while they chase after your psycho ass.
With that the Capos leave Cavella and Barrucci, filing passed him two of the remaining six capos actually spit at his feet. Cavella stands there in near shock. After a moment Larry approaches.
Barrucci: Nicky, I don’t know what to say. I…
Cavella: Shut up. I’m a dead man. Castle, the cops, now The Commission. They’re not going to let me walk, The Commission will have me whacked as soon as I settle in prison if the cops don’t kill me first. The cops and Castle will hunt me down one way or another. There’s only one thing I can do now.
Barrucci: Run?
Cavella: I’ve got to kill Castle.
Barrucci: But they said… Nicky, its [frick]in’ over.
Cavella: Kill the Punisher. The man that does that can write his own ticket. The Commission will have to give me a pass, then all I’ll have to do is lay low somewhere warm for the rest of my life. Only way I live is if Castle dies. I need your crew Larry.
Barrucci: My guys? But I can’t. You’re persona non grata, Nicky.
Cavella: You can ride the wave with me on this Larry. The men responsible for killin’ this bastard will be royalty in New York. Screw being an underboss, you’d be a legend. I can’t do this alone Larry. Do you really want to be middle management the rest of your life? Course not, or else you wouldn’t have called me.
Pittsy enters having been patched up in the other room. He now sports a bandage over his eye. It has not improved his mood.
Pittsy: Where are those [frick]s goin’? Castle’s still out there, when’re we gonna rip his dick off and feed it…
Barrucci: Pitts The Commission has rejected Nicky, the heads of the other four families want his ass for the mess in Bensonhurst last night.
Pittsy: Shit. [frick]’em! I say we kill Castle and send The Commission his head in a [frick]in’ box; see what the useless old [frick]s say then.
Nicky: My thoughts exactly. I was trying to convince Larry this could make or break him, lend us his crew to go after Castle or take the blame for bringing me in and causing the ruckus last night.
Pittsy: You don’t an’ I’ll break yer [frick]in’ skull way before The Commission does.
Barrucci: Now wait a minute. Nobody said my ass was on the line here.
Nicky: Of course it is, Larry. I am your responsibility. You vouched for me. I’d watch my back. Then again the odds of you seeing it comin’… (clicks his tongue) Stick with us and we’ll look out for you. Or good luck on your own.
Larry stares at the pair finally realizing that he is a dead man. Someway, someday, sooner rather than later, someone would come for him he was faced with few options and the only route was the deal before him. Cavella smiles at the weaker man. As always he gets what he wants.
SCENE XVI - Vivere commune est, sed non commune mereri
The sun is setting as Soap stares out the slated windows of the garage in Red Hook. He looks back to Frank who is loading the van with the last of the arsenal he had stockpiled. Soap is still uncomfortable around Frank, no longer seeing him as a dutiful and vengeful father gone wrong, but more of a true killer whose impulses have found a morally convenient, if not acceptable, outlet.
Soap: Where are we going?
Frank: There is no “we,” Soap. You saw me at the shootout at Piero’s made the move to arrest me and I ended up taking you hostage in my escape resulting in you being wounded by Grazarra. I took you here and held you captive until I could clear out. I left after warning you to back off, that you were getting too close. You got loose after I left and called in the cavalry. You have no idea where I am. That is how you get out of this with your ass and career intact. You heard the news, they’re throwing that bastard Sellers under the bus and the feds are taking over the hunt for Cavella and me. This way you come out free and clear, hell they may even call you a hero.
Soap: What are you gonna do, Frank?
Frank: I’m gonna kill Nicky Cavella and all the [frick]s he brings with him. You are going to make the papers and take a long vacation. Cavella is not going away; he’ll keep coming, and the further you get from this the safer you’ll be. Grazerra saw you help me so Cavella will put two and two together pretty quick. The further you are away until this is settled the safer you’ll be.
Soap: Come on Frank when did you start worrying about anybody else?
Frank: I owe you.
Soap: You don’t owe me shit, man.
Frank: Yeah, I do.
With that Frank punches Soap in the face knocking him out. Frank hefts the unconscious man over his shoulder and takes him into the bathroom using Soap’s own cuffs to bind him to the pluming beneath the sink. He then duct tapes the detective’s feet.
Frank: You’ll thank me in the morning.
Frank gets into the van and drives to a near-by service station the gets out and casually walks to the pay phone outside. He pulls a small piece of paper from his pocket and dials the number.
PWJ: Cavella wants a war? I’ll give him a [frick]ing war.
Frank: Missus Barrucci? I need you to call your husband… No, you don’t know me, but he’ll be very interested in what I have to say.
Larry is sitting at the meeting room table in the men’s club, his head in his hands. The phone rings and Pittsy answers.
Pittsy: What the [frick]youwant? Who? Yeah, the sad [frick]’s sittin’ right here. Yo, dickhead, its ya [frick]in’ wife.
Pittsy roughly shoves Larry the phone.
Barrucci: Honey, I can’t talk right now… What?! When did he….? What’s the number? I’ll… I’ll call you back. No, I’ll call ya back. Take the kids and go to your mother’s in Jersey. I’ll call ya back.
He tosses the phone back to Pittsy, and rushes into the lounge.
Barrucci: Nicky! You’re not gonna believe this.
SCENE XVII - De inimico non loquaris sed cogites
Frank pulls up to a deserted factory’s fence. He gets out and uses bolt cutters on the lock.
PWJ: The old Revere Sugar Refinery closed this year and the old Todd Shipyard’s Offices have been closed for a decade. They sit on their own pier here in Red Hook, one way in; one way out, the Richards Street entrance, surrounded by the Erie Basin on the other three sides. My own little Fort Defiance.
Bonus is the basin’s entrance is only 100 feet wide. I can block it off to keep the harbor patrol off my ass. That’ll take a little doing, so will getting away if I make it through this. I told Barrucci’s wife to have good old Larry call me at 2:00 AM to find out where to bring Cavella and whatever “soldiers” he can beg, borrow, or buy by then. By 3:00 Cavella will have his war. By 4:00 if all goes well Nicky and I will be having a little chat somewhere more quiet.
Frank drives the van to a loading dock and begins to unload. We see scenes of him leaving weaponry in select areas around the rusting aluminum refinery and the brick shipyard offices surrounding it. Richards Street runs right down the middle of the complex here he places charges among the debris. He places claymores and snipers nests throughout the buildings as well as various other more primitive booby traps.
At last we see him spray paint a rough skull on a bulky tactical bullet proof vest. He pulls the vest over a black wet suit top. He inserts steel plates into the breast and back. He holsters his Colt M1911 .45s in his shoulder holster and two silenced Beretta 92s, on his thighs. He drops a sawed off Browning Auto-5 into a holster on his back, its strap carries spare shells. Finally he slings an Uzi under his left arm and pockets as many spare magazines as he can carry. He covers all this with a rain coat and checks his watch. 1:30 AM.
PWJ: Time to block the basin.
Frank walks down Richards Street hooking a right on Beard Street walking briskly to the next pier where a tugboat is docked at the Todd Shipyard. He cuts the fence and enters the dock area. Frank slips onboard the tug and quietly walks into the pilot house, once there he tears out the radio. He follows the sound of voices to the galley. The captain and first mate sit idly drinking coffee and smoking. Frank enters pointing his .45 at them.
Captain: What the hell is this?!
Frank: Sorry skipper, but I’m going to need to borrow your boat. Hope you have insurance.
We see the bound and gagged crew squirming in a small shed on the pier as Frank tosses them a large bundle of cash and closes the door.
Frank: Shut up and stay here if you want to live through this.
Frank drops the mooring lines and steers the vessel into the basin. He then angles the boat to wedge the ship into the pier nearest Beard Street. Once he makes contact with the bow he engages reverse thrust it takes a few moments but Frank finally causes the bow and stern to lock under the two piers flanking the entrance. He descends into the engine room and places a sizable bomb comprised of several sticks of TNT and a radio controlled detonator
Frank tosses a line to the upper Beard Pier and climbs up. He walks two blocks north towards a battered pay phone which is franticly ringing.
Frank: Yes.
Cavella: Castle?
Frank: If you want me come to Red Hook, Richards Street the abandoned sugar refinery. Bring what you’ve got left.
Cavella: You son of a…
Frank hangs up the phone.
Cavella stands in a phone booth in Oueens. He turns revealing six car loads of thugs behind him. Larry is vomiting beside his car.
Pittsy: Where is the [frick]er?
Cavella: Red Hook. Follow me. I’ll pay a hundred grand to the guy that brings me Castle’s scalp.
The cars pull away from the lot in a convoy. The men inside begin readying all manner of weapons from Uzis to Mini 14s and an assortment of shotguns.
Cavella displays a quiet rage and determination as Larry drives; Barrucci is sullen on the verge of tears. Pittsy mutters to himself in the backseat cleaning a 12 gauge with a handkerchief, the left side of his face is swollen, his eye covered by a decidedly bloody bandage.
Frank climbs to the roof of the refinery and drops a large satchel. From it he unloads several ammo boxes and a large German MG42 machine gun, a M79 grenade launcher, an AK-47, and a Marine M40 sniper rifle.
PWJ: The old MG 42 “Hitler’s Buzz Saw” the GI’s called it in WWII . I had a army colonel friend of mine from ‘Nam who’s stationed in Germany with the 10th Special Forces Group smuggle this out for me a piece at a time in a care packages. Said he won it in a card game with an old Wehrmacht sergeant. The old Mouser ammo was a little tricky to come by, but I managed to get my hands on a couple thousand rounds. With a cyclic rate of 1500 rounds a minute, that’s 25 rounds of heavy 7.92x57 every second, the barrel will melt before I get that far if I’m not careful, he only sent me one spare. The M79 grenade launcher, “The Thumper” we called it in the sticks, always a favorite amongst the squad, too bad the NVA loved to target the grenadier first in a firefight. The AK is a jackhammer I would have carried one of these in ‘Nam if I could. The M16 round bores a nice neat hole, but the Russian 7.62 can push guts through exit wounds, shatter bones, and take off limbs at the joints. Last is my girl. The good old M40, I carried one of these on my second tour. A Marine sniper’s best friend, I’ve killed men at over a thousand yards with one of these.
He lowers himself to the roof and removes a pair of binoculars scanning the neighboring docks and streets for the enemy he knows is rushing his way.
Cavella stops his convoy behind the loading docks on the far end on the Erie Basin. He has one of his thugs crash the gate so he can walk to the basin side of the buildings and look towards the Revere Sugar Refinery.
Cavella: Larry, which one is it?
Larry: The pier with the big dome-lookin’ thing and the light boat by the docks.
Cavella: Nice. And you say the street runs right through the middle of the thing? Right?
Larry: Y-Yeah.
Cavella: Good we can send the cars quick and have the boys rush the place. Send Pittsy over here. I think I got an idea ‘a how to get him in there unseen. And tell one of yer boys to climb up on the roof with a rifle on this docking bay here. I wanna check something.
Cavella looks over the refinery for a few moments and then exits the loading dock in time for Larry to wave to him.
Larry: Nicky, I sent Rico on top o’the…
There is a thud as Rico suddenly drops limply on the aluminum roof of the loading dock; the sound is followed by the sharp crack of a high powered rifle. Rico’s body slides off the sloped roof and tumbles over the side bouncing off a trailer parked at one of the docking doors. The body finally falls at Larry’s feet as he stands beside the tractor trailer, blood splashes his clothes and face. He looks down and sees Rico’s head has been cleaved nearly in half vertically by the shot of the sniper rifle. Pittsy walks over and nudges the man’s shattered head with his foot.
Pittsy: Not [frick]in’ bad.
Larry: Oh, Jesus. He’s really out there. Oh, Christ.
Cavlla: Shut up you pussy. Of course he’s out there. That was the whole [frick]in’ point.
Pittsy: Weepy [frick].
Cavella: Pitsy come’er I got a plan for ya.
PWJ: Now at least I know they’re here. I wasn’t expecting Cavella to scope the place out. He may have more brains than I give him credit for. He’s testing me. Probing. All that means is when he sends his boys they’re gonna come hard, but in the end the brains end with Cavella. Set these mooks out on their own and it’s just the same babes lost in the woods as always. Let them come to me I’ll tear them apart by inches.