Ortega woke up and gave his head a shake to snap out of the drowsiness. They were still cruising over the US.
He hadn’t expected to doze off, and was quite surprised about managing it. He hadn't slept well however, feeling restless and somewhat agitated once he woke. That sort of restless slumber happened every time he dreamt about Lowell, and this time had not been the exception. There was Lowell reaching out with one hand for support, while the rest of him went under. Swept away by the current.
The plane began its landing procedures.
Ortega had worn his green field uniform. Little did he know that twenty years from then, that would be the uniform to epitomize the Vietnam War and all of its veterans with it.
They were landing.
It touched the ground with a thud and slowed down to manoeuvre.
After a short pause, the speaker announced that the passengers were free to disembark.
Ortega reached up and grabbed his bag from up above and then stood to wait patiently together with everyone else.
He felt hollow.
Almost zombie-like.
His mind kept going-over missions like Black Spot and Point of No Return along with a whole lot more.
He was trying to understand how close he had really come to death and whether or not he’d made the right choice by joining the SOG.
He risked losing his life.
He’d come to close for comfort that time.
Worst of all however, the SOG had cost him Helen.
Ortega waited in a queue with the other passengers as the air hostesses opened the hold door.
He felt small, out of place and alone.
The US had that sort of effect on him.
I feel like I’ve just landed on another planet – he thought to himself.
Right... The US wasn’t the ‘real world’ as they liked to call it. At least it wasn’t for him anymore. Being part of SOG and the war itself had messed with his head well beyond anything he could have imagined.
How did he end up as bad as this?
The fact that the war had that kind of an impact on him was absurd.
I mean, on someone like him, like Skorpio...
He was an SOG veteran and a Samuel ‘The Beast’ Trautman Baker Team leader. He’d lived to tell about various covert operations one of which ‘behind enemy lines’.
A professional killer (Alvarez... - said a voice in his head – You killed Lieutenant Alvarez...).
You strangled him with your bare hands and he was American, not a gook.
He wasn’t even a Vietcong suspect.
Ortega almost tripped walking along the corridor of the plane.
The hold door was finally open and the passengers lined up to get off.
They sky was little dark because it was overcast and windy.
Ortega lifted his jacket collar up and feeling alone and powerless again.
He even felt sad.
As he looked upon the faces in the waiting crowd, he saw her.
She’d come to meet him.
She’d come to meet hum at the airport.
Even if she had dumped him.
Helen was crying her heart out as she covered her mouth in a futile attempt to comfort herself. Not far from her was a crowd of anti-war demonstrators that the police fought to keep away from the doors.
Get away from there, Helen – was the first thought to cross his mind.
As he continued down the stairs, he tried to mind his steps without taking his eyes off of her.
She had come there for him.
Helen.
His Helen.
Ortega felt something cold hit his face.
He touched his cheek and noticed it was wet. It was raining.
Not really.
He was crying too.
If the wind hadn’t been so cold, he wouldn’t have noticed his tears.
Actually, he wasn’t feeling anything.
His eyes were teary – but as luck may have it, the rain helped him keep up appearances. If he really was crying, he sure couldn’t feel it.
He moved his tongue around in his mouth so he could feel the scar he got in boot camp. Feeling around for it had become a tic.
Forgive me Helen.
Forgive me.
Ortega stepped off the stairs and reached for the safety net separating him from the demonstrators and the police.
Helen had her arms up against her chest and was crying profusely, shaking gently as she did, while the rest of his family stood awkwardly by a crowd that was shouting out ‘boooo!’
Fortunately, despite all the protesting, everything seemed to be under control.
I love you, Helen – thought Ortega to himself.
His fingers slid through the net and were immediately met by hers.
“Do you still love me, Helen?” said Ortega the moment they were within speaking distance.
She nodded, staring straight into his eyes as she did, despite the net was still separating them.
“Of course I do,” she added softly.
Ortega walked across the entire terminal and finally through the door which lead directly into the airport. Once inside, he pushed his way through the crowd of demonstrators that, albeit reluctantly, let him pass.
When Ortega and Helen reached one another, at long last, they embraced amid all the demonstrators still protesting.
Locked in each other’s arms for some time, the two of them wept quietly with joy paying no heed to the insults coming from the crowd.
Regardless of the chaos surrounding them, Manuel truly wished for that moment to never end.
***
Ortega was in bed just tossing and turning in discomfort but not from his injuries.
That day he had spoken to his brother.
He seemed to be doing better. Perhaps keeping his distance from Manuel did him good.
The prolonged absence of Manuel Ortega the war-hero had brought him back to life.
Helen looked remarkably well too.
The sparkle in her eyes had changed however, since the first time he’d left for Vietnam. Soon after that, their relationship hadn’t always gone exactly as it should have. At present however, Helen was beaming with self-confidence, as her outlook seemed serious, more adult-like.
Ortega sat up in bed.
He reached for the pack of cigarettes on his bedside table.
He couldn’t sleep.
He was fidgeting nervously, the same way one would after drinking too much coffee, even though he hadn’t.
It was probably because he hadn’t worked out for days.
He was accustomed to doing, and had done every day for the last two years, the kind of physical training you could only define as ferocious. Therefore, in light of the last three days in which not a single push up or other type of physical activity had been done, was paradoxically, killing him. His body couldn’t stand it.
They were driving him crazy. He was sure about it because from the moment he got back his thoughts had worsened, almost reaching a state of delirium.
Right.
When Ortega was back in the US, he always felt a step away from utter madness.
He knew he wasn’t crazy but he also knew he wasn’t fine either.
The spark from his zippo lit up the dark.
Ortega lit himself a cigarette, put down the lighter and took a long drag.
He knew that when he saw his mother the following day, she’d have smelt it on him lingering in the air, but he didn’t give a shit.
Her son had returned home with a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, so telling him what he could and couldn’t do, in his very own home seemed out of place, to say the least.
It was also important to take into account the fact that he’d killed his fair share of people by that point too. Therefore, when all was said and done he was going to smoke when he wanted, where he wanted and as fucking much as he wanted, period.
As such, if she did end up on his nerves, that’s precisely what he’d tell her.
Listen mom, I’ll smoke as much as I fucking feel like, and here’s why. I let go the American POW who was the objective, the very reason we were on that mission in the first place, well, he drowned. I let him drown. I let him drown so I could save my own skin.
We lost Johnny and Carl on that mission too.
Ortega got out of bed and walked towards the window.
His eyes shifted from left and right as he nervously smoked his cigarette. He was going over potential escape routes in case there was a siege.
A car could stop right there, in the middle of the road, use the trees planted alongside the path as cover and open fire on Ortega’s house.
If it did, the best thing to do would probably just let them shoot.
At that point, Ortega would run out the back with his father’s thirty-eight calibre, and hit them from behind.
His old thirty-eight calibre, the one his father kept hidden in a shoebox upstairs.
The same one he used to sneak peaks at, as a child.
Ortega stood there, looking down at the street. He stood and stared. Not even his mind stirred.
He was going crazy.
He hoped it wasn’t a Jorgenson kind of crazy, for God’s sake. Nevertheless, he was losing his mind too.
He knew how to deal with the situation however, since he’d gone mad already.
No kidding.
It must be about a million years ago now. The first time he’d ever come back on leave.
Comparing the long gone past to now had often helped calm him down somehow. All things considered, this was something he'd been through already and had always managed to find a solution
His thoughts drifted to Helen.
He thought of Helen and the Vietnamese girl from Dak To, who was waiting for him to go back to the shop in front of the base.
Most Americans would have preferred the Vietnamese girl to Helen simply because she was younger.
Others would have hated the ‘gook whore’.
The truth was that Ortega had a soft spot for both of them.
Besides, when Ortega had been with the Vietnamese girl he and Helen were no longer together.
It wasn’t the same thing however, and he knew it.
He didn’t feel the same feelings for both of them.
He would die for Helen, whereas he wasn’t ready to do the same for the Vietnamese girl.
Helen was, after such a long time, family by then.
The other girl wasn’t family, but just someone who made him happy.
Love wasn’t only about being happy, at least not for the kind of man Ortega was.
That was therefore, the reason why Helen meant more to him.
That’s why, on that night Ortega choose Helen.