At around four in the morning, Rambo woke up and went looking for Ortega.
It had been a very long night.
So much had happened since their evening had begun. The first thing had been the murder of Alvarez, then there was how much booze the two of them had drunk and last, but certainly not least, was that he’d just spent the last two hours with a prostitute. That night simply wouldn’t end.
Rambo walked around all the rooms in the brothel. It was almost dawn and everyone was still asleep.
When Rambo found Ortega he was stark naked and fast asleep next to the prostitute he’d chosen for the night.
He was still completely plastered and couldn't even stand up. He’d had too much to drink, even for the likes of someone like him.
When Ortega woke initially, it looked like he’d somehow managed to snap out of everything, but in reality, it didn’t last long at all. In fact, once he saw that Rambo was in better shape than he was, he let himself go completely by becoming slack and Rambo had to practically carry him all the way back to the base.
*
It was dawn by the time they got back and as soon as they reached the military police bar they started taking out their wallets.
“Hey, fucking retard, what the fuck’s the matter with your friend? You can't hang around here like that”
Rambo held out their SOG ID cards. Those cards identified the two of them as secret service members which meant they weren’t subject to any kind of questioning nor could they be in any way searched.
“Oh, Sorry Sir” said the military policeman somewhat embarrassed.
*
When Rambo finally lay down on his camp bed, his arm was hurting again.
Ortega looked at him and said:
“We did it for Trautman”
Rambo looked back at him.
“A personal favour is exactly what he called it. A personal favour for him and him alone and nothing else, Right, Johnny? Will you say it too, please? Tell me we’ll never do anything like that again”
***
Only once Rambo was finally lying safe in his camp bed, surrounded by his sleeping teammates in a sobering silence, did he actually come to terms with what he and Ortega had really done that night.
A sense of anguish overwhelmed him as violently as a cold all-encompassing tidal wave would if you’re just not quite used to the water temperature yet.
He felt tired all of a sudden, tired and old despite being only twenty-two.
It was a different kind of tiredness unlike anything he’d felt before, even though he’d felt so many versions, on so many occasions.
Maybe it was just the alcohol running its course.
He thought back to Alvarez again.
Rambo had helped Ortega without a moment’s hesitation and without worrying about any of the consequences (just like the Army had taught him to do the year before Trautman).
Act first and ask questions later.
And when in doubt, kill.
Rambo had not done anything but his job. He’d watched Ortega’s back during the operation, kept tabs on escape routes and patrolled the area.
The same night however, he’d also held a Vietnamese woman tight and perhaps that had brought on those changes in him. If those kinds of feelings existed, if they actually existed for real, then maybe, just maybe, life may hold even more than he knew. Something more than just hardship, combat or survival.
That feeling went well beyond anything Trautman had ever taught him.
If Rambo kept up that kind of lifestyle much longer though, he would probably die before discovering them.
He had a lot to lose if he stayed in the Special Forces his entire life.
One day he would reach the point of no return, and he wouldn’t know how to lead a regular sort of life ever again.
You’re thinking too much. – He told himself while he lay on his camp-bed, listening to his teammates sleep.
You’re gonna die in Vietnam anyways, exactly like everybody else.
Right. Exactly like the SOG stats said they would.
Rambo then wondered how his friend Jorgenson was, considering he hadn’t heard anything for days. His head was jumping from one thing to another incoherently, that night. He then asked himself who the woman was that had spent the whole night in his arms.
If Rambo told his teammates that he’d spent the all night simply hugging her, they would have mocked him till the cows came home, even if, all things considered, they weren't really assholes when it came to things like that.
Among the Baker team there was far more comradeship than anything else. They helped each other rather than trying to be better than one another.
Anyway, he didn’t even know why he hadn't fucked her like anyone else would have.
Just lying with her that night had felt equivalent to finally taking a break for the first time in years.
He felt more rested than he had for a long time.
He pondered over what kind of life she could possibly lead. He wondered if she’d been forced into doing that kind of job, or had ever been raped, and if she had, how many times.
This made him think about the half-cast issue
He’d heard about half-American and half-Vietnamese kids being beaten, confined, or even segregated.
Rambo contemplated whether she’d ever dreamed about having kids, and if that kid would end up like that.
He then thought about Alvarez's wife and if she wanted to have children once her husband returned from Vietnam. Then letting his mind follow yet another train of thought, this time about Alvarez's last request and that perhaps Rambo should write his wife a short letter explaining what Alvarez had asked him to.
Rambo suddenly understood that his life had become hell on earth.
He sat up in bed wide-awake and full of energy at this point and it was right then and there that the cold, hard truth hit him.
His life was a nightmare.
A perfect and disgusting inferno that was chock-full of death, sobbing women, irrevocable mistakes, painful regrets and too much blood.
If it all wasn’t enough, his God damn fucking arm was hurting again too.
He was going to be up all night, he just knew it.
It's the alcohol – Rambo thought to himself.
You'll be fine tomorrow
Tomorrow you’ll start afresh.
Yet he kept seeing the Vietnamese girl's eyes and Rambo wondered if she would have suffered the same fate as thousands of other Vietnamese girls already had.
Alvarez's eyes then flashed back in his mind as well.
He remembered the look in them while Ortega was strangling him and then when his swollen tongue had come out of his mouth.
Sergeant Alvarez was probably from California if the sound of his accent was anything to go by.
A sudden chill seemed to come over him.
He looked past the camp beds his friends were in and right out the window at the sky which was hardly visible from where he was.
It's the alcohol.
It’s the alcohol playing with your head.
Rambo got back under his covers and shortly thereafter, without even realizing it, he drifted into a restless sleep.