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February 10, 2020 - February 3, 2021
Copyright © 1972 by David Morrell
INTRODUCTION
The juxtaposition made me decide to write a novel in which the Vietnam War literally came home to America.
With America splitting apart because of Vietnam, maybe it was time for a novel that dramatized the philosophical division in our society, that shoved the brutality of the war right under our noses.
I was struck by the difference between the look and the pronunciation of the name of the author I was reading: Rimbaud. An hour later, my wife came home from the grocery store. She mentioned that she’d bought some apples of a type that she’d never heard about before: Rambo.
I wondered what Rambo’s reaction would be if, after risking his life in the service of his country, he were subjected to the insults that those hippies had received.
My intent was to transpose the Vietnam War to America. In contrast, the film’s intent was to make the audience cheer for the underdog.
Sometimes I compare the Rambo books and movies to trains that are similar but headed in different directions. Sometimes I think of Rambo as a son who grew up and out of his father’s control. Sometimes I read or hear Rambo’s name in a newspaper, in a magazine, on the radio, on television—in reference to politicians, financiers, athletes, whomever—used as a noun, an adjective, a verb, whatever—and it takes me a moment before I remind myself that if not for The CBS Evening News, if not for Rimbaud, my wife, and the name of an apple, if not for Philip Klass and my determination to be a fiction
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Rambo. Complicated, troubled, haunted, too often misunderstood. If you’ve heard about him but haven’t met him before, he’s about to surprise you.
PART ONE
1
His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station at the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky.
“No, by God. Not this time. This time I won’t be pushed.”
The cruiser was marked CHIEF OF POLICE, MADISON.
“No need to worry,” Rambo told the policeman. “I won’t try to rob you.” “That’s very funny. In case you missed the sign on the door, I’m the Chief of Police. Teasle. Wilfred Teasle. But then I don’t guess there’s much point in telling you my name.”
And just after a sign that read YOU ARE NOW LEAVING MADISON. DRIVE SAFELY, he pulled off the pavement onto the gravel shoulder. “Take care,” he said. “And keep out of trouble,” Rambo answered. “Isn’t that how it goes?”
Rambo got slowly out of the car. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said and flipped the door shut. “No,” Teasle answered through the open passenger window. “I guess you won’t.”
Teasle is rude, but he's not done anything a cop looking out for his community wouldn't do.
Rambo watched the cruiser disappear down the road between the two cliffs. He sipped the last of his Coke, tossed the bottle in a ditch, and with his sleeping bag slung by its rope around his shoulder, he started back to town.
Rambo is a litter bug looking for a fight.
2
Teasle had an American Legion pin opposite his badge on his shirt. I wonder which war, Rambo thought. You’re just a bit young for the second one.
Teasle was five foot six, maybe seven, and for a smallish man that big pistol ought to have hung awkward, but it didn’t.
“Well, you sure put one over on me, didn’t you?” he said. “I wasn’t trying to.”
3
“Now get it clear,” he said. “I don’t want a kid who looks like you and doesn’t have a job in my town. First thing I know, a bunch of your friends will show up, mooching food, maybe stealing, maybe pushing drugs. As it is, I’ve half a notion to lock you up for the inconvenience you’ve caused me. But the way I see it, a kid like you, he’s entitled to a mistake. It’s like your judgment’s not as developed as an older man’s and I have to make allowances. But you come back again and I’ll fix you so you won’t know whether your asshole’s bored, bunched, or pecked out by crows. Is that plain enough
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“I want to know if you heard me tell you not to come back.” “I heard you,” Rambo said, flipping the door shut.
Christ, he thought. Six months back from the war and still he had the urge to destroy what was left of what he had eaten so he would not leave a trace of where he had been.
“What's it going to be? Which way?” He looked where the road stretched into town, where it stretched away from town, and then he was decided. He grabbed the rope on his sleeping bag, slung it around his shoulder and started hiking into Madison again.
That was another thing the war had given him. He noticed dead things more. Not in horror. Just in curiosity of how they had come to end.
Why not turn around and go? Why come back to this town? It’s nothing special. Because. I have a right to decide for myself whether I’ll stay in it or not. I won’t have somebody decide that for me. But this cop is friendlier than the rest were. More reasonable. Why bug him? Do what he says. Just because somebody smiles when he hands me a bag of shit, that doesn’t mean I have to take it. I don’t give a damn how friendly he is. It’s what he does that matters.
But you do look a little rough, as if you might cause trouble. He has a point. So do I. In fifteen goddamn towns this has happened to me. This is the last. I won’t be fucking shoved anymore. Why not explain that to him, clean yourself up a bit? Or do you want this trouble that’s coming? You’re hungry for some action, is that it? So you can show him your stuff? I don’t have to explain myself to him or anybody else. After what I’ve been through, I have a right without explanation. At least tell him about your medal, what it cost you.
4
The look on the kid’s face. He was honest-to-God planning to come back. Teasle could not get over it.
Teasle opened the cruiser door and stared at the guy a second before he walked over to where the kid was leaning against the wire fence. “How did you get into town without me seeing you?” “Magic.” “Get in the car.” “I don’t think so.” “You think a little more.”
He looked over at the kid, and of course the kid was gone.
5
“Jesus, look at me!” Teasle said. Rambo felt a hand grab on his sleeve. He tugged loose. “Hands off,” he said, peering down at the water. Then he felt the hand grabbing at him again and this time he swung around. “I’m telling you!” he said. “Hands off!”
“You would draw that thing,” Rambo said, watching Teasle’s hand on the pistol. “At first I thought you were different. But now I see I’ve met crazy ones like you before.” “Then you’re one up on me,” Teasle said. “Because I’ve never met anything quite like you before.” He stopped smiling and closed his big hand around the grip of his gun. “Move.”
He watched Teasle’s hand on the holstered pistol, and he thought, You bloody stupid cop, before you pull that gun, I could snap off both your arms and legs at the joints. I could smash your Adam’s apple to sauce and heave you over the rail. Then the fish would really have something to feed on. But not for this, he suddenly told himself, not for this.
It was his turn to smile. “O.K., let’s have another ride,” he said to Teasle. “But I don’t know what the point is. I’m only going to walk back into town again.”
6
You don’t even like this place. It doesn’t even interest you. If Teasle hadn’t picked you up, you would have gone straight through on your own. That doesn’t make a difference.
“Now that’s a sorry sight,” the man by the typewriter said. It never failed to come. “Sure,” Rambo told him. “And now you’re supposed to say, What am I, a girl or a boy. And after that you’re supposed to say, If I’m too poor to get a bath and a haircut, you’ll take up a collection for me.”
Are you absolutely sure you want to go through with this? he asked himself. It’s still not too late to try and talk your way out. Out of what? I haven’t done anything wrong.
“Sit down on the bench, boy,” Teasle said. “Let’s have your name.” “Just call me boy,” Rambo said. The bench was along the right wall. He leaned his sleeping bag against it and sat down extremely straight and rigid.
“I’m known as kid too. You can call me that too if you want.” “You’re right I will,” Teasle said. “I’m at the point where I’m ready to call you any damn thing I feel like.”
7
“How about we try this again. What’s your name?” “None of your business.” Dear God, Teasle thought.
“Let me have your wallet.” “I don’t carry one.” “Let me have your I.D. cards.” “I don’t carry them either.” “No driver’s license, no social security card, no draft card, no birth certificate, no—” “That’s right,” the kid cut him off.
To Marine Corps Master Sergeant Wilfred Logan Teasle. For conspicuous and valiant leadership in the face of overwhelming enemy fire, his citation read. The Chosin Reservoir Campaign. December 6, 1950. That was when he was twenty, and he was not about to let any kid who didn’t look much older mock it.
He pressed the intercom on his desk. “Shingleton, you had a look at this kid when he came through. I want you to radio his description to the state police. Say I’d like him identified the quickest they can. While you’re at it, check if he matches any description we have in the files. He has no job and no money, but he sure looks well fed. I want to know why.” “So you’re determined to push this thing,” the kid said. “That’s wrong. I’m not the one who’s pushing.”
