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“Look at this,” Ellison grumbles from her last remaining chair, waving a copy of the San Francisco Examiner. “Have you seen what they charge for rent in San Francisco? It’s highway robbery. What’s the damage on your new place? Wait, no, don’t tell me. I want to stave off the inevitable aneurysm when I finally find out.”
Karen smiles and rolls her eyes, finishes taping up a box labeled “Kitchen”, and ignores her former boss.
“I’m serious, Karen,” he continues, undaunted. “Guy I know, great journalist, wrote an amazing long form piece on the housing crisis out there. You’re going to be paying $6,000 a month for a roach infested rat trap with a roommate called Sky who spends all day smoking pot and trying to convince you that she should be able to pay her half of the rent in— in reiki healing sessions, or sound baths, or something.”
“Sky sounds fun,” Karen replies, examining her bare apartment. “At least she’ll be at home all day to keep us from getting robbed. And I won’t need to leave the house to score some weed.” Spotting the pile of mail on her kitchen counter, she goes to sort through it.
“Ah; that’s where you’re wrong!” Ellison exclaims triumphantly. “Sky’s boyfriend, Thunder, will be basically living in the apartment rent free, and you’ll slowly find your belongings are mysteriously disappearing. Thunder is stealing them to sell for quick cash.”
“Maybe Thunder needs the money for his sick grandmother,” Karen notes absentmindedly as she begins flipping through the mail, discarding most of it in a pile to shred and stick in the recycling. She stops when she comes across a small but thick padded envelope.
Her name and address are written in thick, blocky capital letters, and something about their shape causes a spike of adrenaline from the lizard part of her brain.
Why does she know this handwriting?
Karen flips the envelope over, searching for clues, but there’s no return address. It’s a standard padded beige Manila envelope, you could buy it in any stationery store in the country. There's something inside - something light and rectangular- she can feel the edges through the padding.
She stares at her name, written out on the envelope, and tries to place it. Her brain is telling her she’s definitely seen this handwriting before. Blunt, blocky, unpretentious. Definitive.
It’s not until she sees the postmark that she makes the connection.
Ellison is still waffling on about what a mistake she’s making by leaving the city, but Karen doesn’t hear him. She feels her blood rush to her face and for an absurd moment she thinks she might cry.
The envelope is postmarked from Whitmere, New York. It’s a small town about two and a half hours drive from the city, if you don’t hit traffic on the Sawmill. Karen’s only been there once, about ten years ago, and she hadn’t ever been back.
It’s the closest town to the former home of Colonel Ray Schoonover.
Swallowing against a suddenly parched throat, Karen grabs the pair of scissors on her countertop and, slitting the envelope open, peers inside.
“Karen!” Ellison’s voice is closer than she expected, and she jumps.
“Sorry,” she says a little breathlessly. “I… spaced out for a moment. What were you saying?”
But Ellison’s staring at her with a strange look on his face.
“You ok?” He asks, frowning with concern. His eyes flick down to the envelope in her hands, looking at it like it’s a bomb, which, knowing her, it could very well be. “What’s in the package, Page? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Karen tries for a nonchalant laugh.
“Maybe I have,” she teases lightly, coming up with a quick lie. “I, uh, forgot I ordered this off eBay.”
She reaches into the envelope and shows Ellison her prize.
It’s a cassette tape of Earth Wind and Fire’s 1975 album “That’s the Way of the World”.
Ellison raises an eyebrow at her.
“That’s not a ghost, that’s a fossil. Are you even old enough to know how to work that thing, Page?”
“Ah, more old man jokes. I’ve missed these little chats, boss.”
“Seriously, why would you buy that?” Ellison makes a face. “Even if you could play it, that is not their finest album.”
Karen lies again, easily. “I was drunk. And who says I can’t play it?”
“Okay, so you can work the ancient machines. Look, I wasn’t expecting to have to impart my technological wisdom on someone so young and well versed in the ways of the modern world, but you know they have these things called computers now—”
Karen rolls her eyes and turns towards the fridge, still clutching the tape in her hand, trying to keep her face neutral and her breathing under control.
Frank. It has to be. He’s sending her a message.
But she really doesn’t want to try and figure out what it is with Ellison here.
“Hey, boss,” Karen interrupts. “I’m not leaving until tomorrow morning— feel like a trip to Zabar’s with me to pick up some road bagels?”
Ellison harumphs but gets his coat.
“You know how I feel about the bagels at Zabar’s, Page,” he grouses at her, winding his scarf around his neck. Karen takes the moment to shove the cassette tape back into the envelope and stuff it into the bottom of her purse, before pulling her own coat on and gently teasing her former boss as she leads him out of her apartment for the last time.
***
Karen’s goodbye with Ellison was bittersweet. He’d refused to act like their parting was anything other than temporary, like he’d see her next week for dinner, but he’d caved and given her a firm hug as they parted on the steps to the 79th street 1 train.
“Don’t be a stranger, Page,” he murmured into her ear.
“Sure thing, boss,” Karen replied, the lump in her throat threatening her ability to speak. Ellison shook his finger at her.
“None of that,” he warned gruffly, but his eyes were bright with tears. Without any further ado, the balding man clapped Karen on the shoulder, then turned and headed down into the station.
Karen stood on the corner, bag of bagels and other various snacks in her hand, and thought about her empty apartment. Thought about the long road ahead of her, the road to California, that she’d be setting off along tomorrow.
Thought about the tape in her purse.
It was still early enough, and Karen’s feet were on the move before she was conscious she’d made a decision.
A subway ride, a used electronics store, and a hop into a convenient CVS to grab some batteries later, Karen perches on a bar stool in a mildly Instagrammable bar, sipping at an Irish coffee. Settling her prize on the counter, Karen manages to scratch her way into the pack of AA batteries and slip them into the “used, good condition” Walkman she’s purchased from an intensely geeky boy who wouldn’t stop reciting the sound quality of various cassette player models at her.
Once she’s set herself up, Karen slots the tape into the player on side A. It’s been rewound, and all she has to do is press Play.
She takes a deep breath. Takes a sip of her boozy coffee. Hits the button, that familiar click from her childhood reverberating through her limbic system.
The funk beats of ‘Shining Star’ begins to play over the flimsy headphones she’d purchased with the Walkman, and Karen closes her eyes, letting the memories float up.
Wounded eyes staring at her from a hospital bed, fluorescent lights turning skin waxy and pale, the face like a living corpse.
Strong hands, wrists cuffed to a metal table, a hint of amusement in the twitch of his lips.
A claustrophobic court room, their arms gently brushing against each other’s, feeling the downy hairs on her arm shiver and stand at the touch.
The feeling of his body against hers, pressing her down to the floor, hands tangled in her hair as he protected her from bullets and shrapnel.
Fingers tapping along to a beat on the steering wheel of her car.
A quick smile, and laughter, gone too soon, hidden behind a coffee cup.
The smell of diesel and smoke mixing with the fishy smell of the Hudson, an explosion making her flinch, her heart breaking.
A villain holding a gun held to her head, but with a few notes of music, the utmost certainty that she isn’t alone.
Kneeling on an empty road, trying to quell the soul-deep sobs wracking her body, and failing.
Gunshots, and a man in silhouette on a rooftop. Standing amidst the chaos, Foggy’s voice hissing “Karen, what are you doing? Get down!”
Her name coming from a shape huddled under a blanket, shooting straight from his lips into her heart.
Wrapping his body in her arms. Feeling the solid weight of him, like he’s the still point of the turning world.
A cold night. A kiss on the cheek that takes one of her tears away with his lips.
Dark eyes, furious and terrified. The beating of her heart against the arm of her captor. “I will come for you.”
More smoke, the smell of burnt flesh, but the world receding as his hand combs into the fall of her hair. Her body pressed against his, cold metal of a gun against her neck.
His eyes on her lips. Breaths mingling as they stand still, just for a moment, and let the world turn around them.
Her stockinged feet against hospital laminate flooring. His hands on her waist. Regret in his voice. “I gotta walk out of here and you can’t do it with me.”
The stab of pain as she elbows a fire alarm, the shrill clanging in her ears. Whispering his name.
‘Shining Star’ fades out, and Karen opens her eyes. Takes a deep breath.
There’s a message hidden here, she’s sure. He wouldn’t just send her a cassette tape for the fun of it. She looks critically at the plastic case, picking it up and pulling out the J card, and that’s when she sees it.
A tiny scrap of paper, smaller than a fortune cookie slip, has been tucked into the folded card, and it flutters onto the bar before she quickly snatches it up, looking around to see if anyone noticed.
Satisfied she isn’t being observed, Karen carefully looks down at the note, concealing it in her palm, heart thundering so hard it echoes through her whole body.
The writing is faint, written in pencil. It’s the same blocky handwriting as her address on the parcel.
Just a phone number, and the words:
“Use Signal. Save as ‘Pete Mechanic’ and text the right track number.
Destroy this.”
Karen rolls her eyes, but punches the number into her phone. Thinks about saving it under FRANK CASTLE, THE PUNISHER, just to be contrary, but only for a moment. Saves it under “Mechanic” like he’s asked, then rolls the note up, looking around for an easy way to ‘destroy’ it, and settles on just sticking it in her mouth and sipping it down with her Irish coffee. She has a hysterical urge to laugh at the bizarre Communion she’s just held for herself– the body and blood of the Punisher, secret messages and coffee, accepting him into her very being.
But it’s not like he isn’t already there.
Knocking back the rest of her drink, Karen signals to the bartender.
“Jameson, rocks.” He nods and brings the bottle, pouring her drink and sliding it over.
“Retro,” he comments.
“Excuse me?”
“The Walkman,” he clarifies, pointing at the item resting on the bar. “Nice. Kickin’ it old school.” He looks about 12 years old, and Karen can’t tell if he’s trying to flirt with her.
“Well, I’m an old-fashioned kinda girl,” she replies, and there’s maybe a bit too much bitterness in her voice because the bartender gives her a confused smile and heads off to attend to some trendy looking tourists.
Karen sips at her refreshed drink. Opens the Signal app on her phone and opens a new message. Selects “Pete Mechanic”. Clicks “New Message”. ‘Shining Star’ is the first song on the album.
>> paranoid much? Track 1. The postmark was a nice touch.
She hesitates for a moment, then knocks back the rest of her drink and hits Send.
***
Karen’s almost home again when she feels her phone buzz in her pocket.
She resists the urge to drop all her bags and check the message, managing to wait until she’s back inside her empty apartment, the snacks are unloaded into the fridge and she has another double of Jameson in a paper cup (her glassware has all been packed away) sitting in front of her. Thus fortified, she takes a deep breath and swipes the message from “Pete” open.
<<it’s called a reasonable amount of caution, ma’am.
Karen rolls her eyes, fondness and bitterness rising in her like twin serpents twinning about her neck, choking her. She resists the urge to throw the phone against the wall.
>> Guess I don’t have to ask what prompted the sudden open line of communication.
She sits back on her one remaining chair and sips at the paper cup of whisky, one eye on her phone.
There’s no answer, and Karen is getting up to pour herself another shot, when her phone… rings.
It’s a blocked number, and her hands are shaking when she swipes to answer the call.
“Karen Page.”
“Hey, Karen,” comes the gravelly voice through her phone. “It’s, uh, it’s Pete.”
Karen lets out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
“Hey. Uh, Pete.”
There’s silence.
It’s a heavy silence, and Karen doesn’t want to be the first to break it. She doesn’t know what to say.
Doesn’t know what there is to say.
She hears him swallow.
“I was. Uh. Sorry to hear about your friend.” Frank’s voice is hesitant, almost awkward.
Karen closes her eyes against the heat that begins to prickle there. Breathes around the lump in her throat.
“Thank you.”
The silence returns.
“Are you… you keeping well?” She asks, after its stretched on for too long.
“Well enough.” Karen can only imagine what that means. “And you?”
“Well enough,” she echoes.
“I take it you know I’m headed out of town,” she adds, when it becomes clear Frank isn’t going to do much in the way of conversing. He grunts.
“Mighta heard somethin’ about that, yeah,” he admits.
“You spying on me, Fr… Pete?” Karen asks, and in another life she would have put a flirty intonation on the words, but she’s so tired and her friend is dead and her other friend has frozen her out so completely he might as well be dead too, and the man she’s talking to has picked a living death rather than try to live a different kind of life (a life with her), and so she doesn’t. The question comes out flat, unaffected.
Frank snorts.
“Keepin’ an eye on that Bullseye fuck. Real piece of shit, right there.”
“Poindexter is in jail,” Karen says. “And he’ll go to trial, and he’ll get life in prison.”
“You sure about that?” Frank asks, skeptical. Karen swallows.
“The amount of evidence we have— it’s overwhelming. I’d be surprised if he even tries to plead Not Guilty. He’s going away for the rest of his life.”
“Yeah, rottin’ in a goddamn cell,” Frank says, and Karen’s struck with a sense of Deja vu. “You want that? You want him hangin’ around, on this earth, breathing the same air as you?”
“No,” Karen snaps before she can think about it, “but I don’t always get what I want.”
Silence.
Karen closes her eyes and puts a hand over her mouth. Takes a shaky breath.
“Why now?” Karen asks softly. There’s no reply, so she tries again. “Is it because of Foggy, or because I’m leaving?”
She can almost hear the gears turning in Frank’s head as he tries to articulate his thoughts in a way that will keep her at a distance.
“Just wanna make sure you’ve got an ace in the hole, for when you piss off every criminal element in the Greater Bay Area.”
“That what you are? My ace in the hole?” Karen snorts. “You’re just going to, what, hop on a six-hour flight and show up to rescue me from across the country?”
He’s silent on the other end of the phone. Karen closes her eyes and sighs.
Maybe it’s the Jameson. Maybe it’s the grief. Maybe it’s the tiny flicker of hope, now dashed, that Frank had called her for… something other than this. Maybe it’s the exhaustion, just being so tired of men who shut her out and make decisions for her. Maybe it’s the loss of her entire life, the single bullet that took both of her best friends from her and started an avalanche that obliterated everything she’d built in Hell’s Kitchen.
And maybe it’s the silence on the other end of the phone.
Whatever it is, Karen feels something small snap inside her, like the clean, elegant breaking of an icicle, and she finds herself speaking before she can really think about what she’s going to say.
“Remember when I said I thought that all of us are fighting not to be alone?” Her voice is steadier than it has any right to be. “I was wrong. You’re fighting to stay alone.”
Karen hears a huff of breath from his end, and she shakes her head.
“This isn’t what I wanted for you,” she says quietly. “This isn’t the after I’d hoped you’d find.”
She hears him shift.
“Yeah, well, It’s the only after I can have,” Frank says with finality, and she feels the words stab her right in the ribs. “You take care, Karen.” His voice has gone lower, gruffer. “New York’s gonna miss you.”
“Yeah,” she says bitterly. “Sure. I’d tell you to take care, but you won’t, will you.” Karen closes her eyes, fighting against the burning she feels against her closed lids. “Goodbye, Frank,” she says softly.
“Bye, Karen.” His voice is low. Wrecked.
She hangs up.
Karen feels emptied out inside, hollow, like the last vestiges of herself that hadn’t been swallowed by grief have now been stolen too. She almost wishes he hadn’t reached out, that he’d let her go instead of reentering her life only to keep himself at the edge of it. She’d been doing fine without him, but now he’s torn the scab off that old wound when she’s already bleeding.
Karen pours herself some more whisky and goes to change. She gets into a pair of sweatpants and a battered, ancient University of Vermont sweatshirt. Grabbing her last blanket and pillow from the air mattress (her bed is packed away in the moving van), she brings them to her window. Opens it up and shoves them out onto her fire escape, then scrambles out after them, bringing the paper cup and the bottle of Jameson with her.
The sun is setting now. Karen sits on the rickety iron, back against the brick of her building, and looks out for a final time at her city. Watches the sky go pink and orange, the hues changing the colors of the buildings on her block, making the windows of high rises in the distance burn and shimmer. Stays there as the sky darkens to a deep purple, then blue, then finally black, and watches as the streetlights come on and cast everything in their yellowish glow. Listens to the noises of New York, the honking of the taxis, chatter from the restaurants and bars below, the muffled sounds of her neighbor’s TV. Someone nearby is practicing an aria, the sweet soprano voice filtering through the mundane noises of the city as it switches from the evening to night shift.
Goodbye, Karen thinks.
She sees him when the sun is truly gone and she’s starting to think about going inside.
He’s just a silhouette on the roof of the building opposite, and she has to squint to be sure. But his stance. Those shoulders, the way he’s standing so still, like he’s waiting for something, like he’ll stand there all night if he has to. There’s no skull that she can see, but she knows. She knows.
Karen raises her paper cup to him in a toast and knocks back the last of her drink.
The silhouette across the street lifts his hand, not quite a wave. But an acknowledgement. The hand stays raised for a moment, hovering, before lowering back down, resting on the ledge.
Karen pours herself another finger of whisky and holds the paper cup in her hands, looking out at the figure across the street. He hasn’t moved, just silently stands there, like some sort of sentinel. She sips at her whisky and watches him.
Watches him watching her.
And that’s how Karen Page spends her last night in New York— on her fire escape, the city a blanket around her, under the protective eyes of the Punisher.
She wakes in the morning on her air mattress, pillow under her head and blanket tucked in around her. Two aspirin on the cardboard box she’s using as a bedside table, next to a glass of water. Karen swallows them down and checks her apartment— it’s empty, the window to the fire escape closed and locked. Like a ghost carried her to bed.
There’s a message on her phone. Opening it, her heart gives a kick in her ribs, like it’s trying to break free of its bodily prison.
<<be seeing you.
And despite herself she really, really hopes it’s true.