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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