Chatter; laughter; obnoxious shouting; it swirled about the cafeteria in an incomprehensible din, filling the mess hall to the brim. Cheap box televisions were mounted on cement pillars and the walls throughout the cafeteria, broadcasting news stations like WHiH World News and The Daily Bugle with closed captions. Orange jumpsuits lined the length of every table but one where a man sat alone hunched over a tray with the same shit everybody else was eating.

Today was a child’s dream come true. Hot dogs and macaroni and cheese—just like Mom used to make. There was even some chopped up broccoli mixed in to make sure the scumbags got their fucking vegetables. Three meals a day and a place to sleep. Clothes you didn’t have to worry about washing. You just lived, breathed, shit when you needed to shit, eat when it was time, and went outside to play when it was recess. It was elementary school all over again.

The table where that brooding individual sat was completely empty. The flies didn’t even go near that table for even they knew who Frank Castle was. The flies probably didn’t even go near his shit either.

“Whose shit is this?” asked the fly.

“That’s Frank Castle’s shit,” said the spider to the fly.

“Oh shit!”

Frank Castle, The Punisher, the vigilante who had an eternal grudge for as long as he was alive. He was a regular, so much so that the inmates who were doing life knew not to go near him if they didn’t want their sentence cut short. But the same old crimes were always committed, and with that new prisoners were enrolled into Riker’s Island Elementary home of the rapists, pedophiles, serial murders, and Frank.

Dark brows were heavy over blue eyes that were fiercely cast down at his tray. With a plastic spork, he scraped up the remains of his mac & cheese and washed it all down with a paper cup of diluted Kool-Aid (unfortunately without the poison). Wiping the remnants of red juice from his lips with his orange sleeve, Frank paused in his motion when he noticed a man standing in his peripherals. His blue spheres flicked upwards to see the man cheesing at him. He was a scruffy and thin-looking man. The poster child for trailer trash or a cast member from the Devil’s Rejects. He had a full beard, long brown stringy oily hair. He set down his tray right across from Castle who slowly lowered his arm like a beast with his hackles raised. His tongue was busy cleaning the remains of noodles from his teeth as his eyes moved from the inmate sitting in front of him to Billy Bob who sat to the right of him and Billy Joe who sat next to Grease Lightning (he gave them nicknames).

The noise started to slowly settle like a calming sea. Every head in the cafeteria was turned toward Frank’s table where the Three Stooges thought they could have lunch with him. The prisoners who had been sitting at a table behind Frank all got up and quickly abandoned it. The Stooges merely watched with indifferent smiles as the table behind them was next to swiftly empty.

“Thur afraid of us,” Greasy rasped out a laugh and Billy Joe followed with an annoying, shrill, rapid-fire of a chuckle, “Heh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!”

Frank’s eyes closed as he cringed internally at the sound. That laugh alone felt like an assault being fired into his brain—like he didn’t have enough problems up there already.

“I hear yer tha’ big shot! I hear you come up in here when you wanna, and you leave too. How you do it? How you get outta here? If you tell us yer little secret, we won’t hurt ya,” said Greasy—apparently the brains of the operation (was that a compliment?).

Frank glanced down at the hot dog he had yet to eat and he had contemplated remaining silent, but then he knew that these numskulls wouldn’t leave. Picking up the hot dog, he raised it to his mouth and decided to answer Greasy before he took a bite:

“Answer m-”

Billy Joe slapped the hot dog from his hand and commanded, “Answer’im!” in his impatience.

Frank watched the dog fly through the air, separating from its bun to go rolling like a log across the floor, leaving a ketchup blood trail. Similarly, his own hand had reacted. It might have been a reflex, but whether it was or not, he was glad that it happened.

Greasy’s and Billy Bob’s mouths were hanging open in stunned speechlessness. It had happened so fast. Frank’s plastic spork had been stabbed through Billy Joe’s left eye. The weight of the man’s limp head was bearing down on his neck to the point that his body sent him flopping lifelessly to the floor. As the spork slurped free from Joe’s eye socket, Frank glanced at the human syrup and ichor that dripped and hung from it in threads. His blue eyes shrank and lips rolled back to bare his teeth like a feral animal. He just couldn’t have lunch in peace. Of course not.

A prison guard quickly grasped his radio in an attempt to call it in and was jumped by a couple of inmates who had other plans. Other prison guards in the cafeteria were knocked down and beaten, while prisoners barricaded the cafeteria doors.

Meanwhile, the warden and security staff were in the surveillance room watching the prologue to a bloodbath.

“It’s Castle again,” said the security guard.

“Get the Riot Squad down there,” said the warden with an exasperated sigh. “If there’s anyone still alive by the time they get there, put them back in their cells. As for Castle, four weeks solitary confinement.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Billy Bob’s hand had been creeping toward his pocket for a makeshift shank he had formed from a toothbrush. When Frank made eye-contact with him, he lost all composure and swung at him. Frank in kind had jabbed the filthy spork into Bob’s esophagus. Bob had managed to at least plunge the shank into Frank’s forearm, stabbing him through the orange sleeve of his jumpsuit, but it hadn’t been significant enough to save his own life. Blood tumbled like a curtain from his neck, rolling hotly to douse Frank’s finger as he leaned into Bob to press the utensil deeper and deeper. Bob leaned back with Frank bearing down on him, his face going white as blood bubbled and fizzed from his lips. Frank let the man collapse upon his back and left the spork buried in his neck—it wasn’t like he was going to be eating with it anytime soon.

Greasy stood from the table with a horrified wail and Frank rose, grasping his tray and sending it flying like a Frisbee to connect with the back of Greasy’s skull. Pathetically, the man winced from the strike and fell to the floor, and Frank didn’t bother pursuing him for his sights turned to a group of men, approaching him with more shanks.

“You know that tall, black dude with the dreads you dun killed the last time you was here?” one of the thugs asked. “He was my cousin!”

Last time Frank was here, it seemed that he had left behind numerous vendettas. Not even one after another, they rushed him like a pack of wolves all seeking to overwhelm him, but Frank wasn’t stupid. He backed up, expanding the space the men tried to close until the one most eager to spill his blood bolted ahead of the rest and caught a vicious punch to the throat. The jab had forced the man back with his tongue lolling and hand grasping his soon-to-be bruised esophagus. Right hook; left hook; the man went whirling to the ground and Frank strode toward him to mercilessly stomp his foot down upon his neck. There was a disturbing snap as the man’s body briefly convulsed before going limp.

The second guy came at him slashing with his knife. Frank jerked back once and then once more before he caught the thug’s shank wrist and using the momentum he had given him, yanked him into a long table. The edge of the table connected with his abdomen and Frank came up behind him with a hand slapped against the back of his head. His fingers tightly curled into his hair and with a growl, Frank started slamming the thug’s head into the table. He slammed his head over and over until when the third goon ran toward him, he paused to intercept him with a forceful kick to the gut. The goon grunted loudly and folded over to drop to his rear. Frank returned to slamming the thug’s head, which probably had a concussion by now, into the table until a hand-slung ball of mac n’cheese struck his cheek.

There were three more men trying to get his attention and Frank peered down at the shank still clutched within the hand of the thug’s whose head he had been using as a hammer. Taking the shank, he turned to face the three other prisoners.

The surveillance room was growing crowded as a motley of guard personnel filled it, watching the screens as though it had all been real TV. There were several:

Oh!

OOOOoooh!

Popcorn bags were going around while the warden was away making sure the Riot Squad handled the situation the way he wanted them to.

“Oh fuck! Did you see that?” one guard exclaimed.

“That guy’s not gonna be pissin’ out the same hole ever again.”

“That guy’s insane!”

Frank was panting heavily as he jerked his fist that had a shank between his middle and ring finger from the stomach of a dead inmate. His hands were covered in blood, his sleeve where he had been stabbed earlier had a red spot from where he was bleeding, his cheekbone below his right eye was starting to swell with a lucky shot some punk had managed to land on his face, and he not only had mac n’cheese splattered on his other cheek, his jumpsuit had red Kool-Aid staining it (the weapons some inexperienced morons tried to use). Several prisoners who didn’t want to get involved remained crowded against the walls by the exit doors.

Surveying the cafeteria, with seven dead, it had interestingly fallen quiet. He was able to hear the Riot Squad shouting on the other side of the door, requesting for a hydraulic battering ram to get it open. Frank happened to notice lying on the floor a hot dog still within its bun upon the floor. He walked over to it and stooped down to pick it up in his soiled hands.



The battering ram destroyed the lock on the door and the Riot Squad pushed against the door and the long table that had been blocking it. Hastily spilling into the cafeteria, they hid behind their shields while other guards brandishing shotguns crept close.

“Get the fuck down!” a prison guard screamed.

Slipping the hot dog into his mouth, Frank hadn’t had much time to eat it before a sandbag round was emptied from a shotgun to slam against his stomach. Bread, dog, and a sprayed mixture of vomit, Kool-Aid and specks of mac left his mouth before he crumpled to the floor, coughing on his own chum. The Riot Squad were quick to surround him, one beating him with a riot baton, while it took about five idiots to handcuff one non-resisting man.

It hadn’t been long before he was taken to a small dark empty cell to spend a solitary four weeks. It was just the day in the life of Frank Castle at Riker’s Island.