Cover

AMERICAN SON

AMERICAN SON

A Novel

Brian Ascalon Roley

W. W. Norton & Company   New York • London

Dedication

To my parents,
Thomas and Azucena,
and my sister,
Carla, and Gwen

Copyright

Copyright © 2001 by Brian Ascalon Roley

For information about permisson to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roley, Brian Ascalon.
American son: a novel / Brian Ascalon Roley.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-393-32154-8
1. Filipino Americans—Fiction. 2. Mothers and sons—Fiction.
3. California—Fiction. 4. Immigrants—Fiction. 5. Young men—Fiction.
6. Gangsters—Fiction. 7. Brothers—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3568.05333 A84 2001

813'.6—dc21 00-053307

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A 1PU

Contents

Part One

Balikbayan

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Part Two

American Son

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Part Three

A Dirty Penance

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Acknowledgements

AMERICAN SON

PART ONE

Dear Ika,

I am thankful for your letter of March 15th. We appreciate your prayers, and you and your sons will of course be included in our prayers as well. Here in Manila things have been busy. Julita will soon be graduating Ateneo, and we have been renovating the house in preparation for her graduation party. Some of our walls are for the moment no longer standing and last night a typhoon rain battered the plastic tarp the workers had put in place for protection. You can imagine my surprise when I awoke this morning to find the living room flooded! I am certain the weather must be nicer for you in Los Angeles.

It is with concern that I read of your boys’ declining studies. Perhaps Gabe’s biology grade can be dismissed as an aberration—one which must be punished, of course—yet the case of his older brother appears most serious. It came as a surprise to me that Tomas was expelled from Saint Dominic’s, particularly given that he is accused by Father Ryan of committing violent behaviors. I still recall Tomas as the quiet and handsome boy who visited us here in Manila as a child. With his American father’s blood he has the mestizo looks of an actor. No doubt if you had remained in Manila, as I had warned you to, he would have fared well and you would not now have so many worries. Here Tomas would have known what it means to be a Laurel, its responsibilities and expectations. In fact, if he had shown any delinquent propensities I would have certainly spoken severely with him myself, and made communications with his teachers. My circumstances and connections have improved since you left the Philippines, and I believe that I could have averted his expulsion.