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Chapters (23)
  1. Cover
  2. AMERICAN SON
  3. AMERICAN SON
  4. Dedication
  5. Copyright
  6. Contents
  7. AMERICAN SON
  8. PART ONE
  9. Balikbayan
  10. Chapter One
  11. Chapter Two
  12. PART TWO
  13. AMERICAN SON
  14. Chapter One
  15. Chapter Two
  16. Chapter Three
  17. PART THREE
  18. A Dirty Penance
  19. Chapter One
  20. Chapter Two
  21. Chapter Three
  22. Chapter Four
  23. Acknowledgements

As he shakes his head, I look away and nod, and then we walk to the cab. He complains and for a minute I think he speaks of the boys, but then realize he means the old guys who looked away from him inside. They do not understand the urgency of our situation. They have not lived in Los Angeles like him and me. They think they have the luxury. He is the one with the engineering degree. The sorrow. He sadly shakes his head.

I would like to voice agreement with him, but I do not. We sit for a few minutes in the hot, stale air as he contemplates the empty field which spreads out before him. Hot air rises from the hood and blurs the horizon. I would like to roll down the window but do not. He does not seem to notice how quiet I am, or how still my hands are in my lap. Finally he reaches below the wheel and starts the truck and we pull out onto the faded highway then enter the cool shady timber of the woods that lead to Oregon.

V

We pass the state line from California into Oregon. The road sign is so faded and weathered by the sun you can barely tell it was once green. I can hardly make out the faint word Oregon.

With him now focused on the road, I relax and notice more about him. His shirt is damp and dark at his breasts and underarms and also now along his sides. Each time we emerge into a clearing and sunlight peeks below the window’s top edge, it catches his face, which glistens with sweat. Lit like that, his eyes appear amber and warm even when he squints. My father’s were light like that—or I should say they are. He is alive, but I can barely remember him.

We enter fields of light green that glow in the afternoon and meadows of yellow flowers. Once again sprinklers feed crops with spray that billows upward in the shape of silver umbrellas, catching the sunshine. We enter woods again and pass a logging rig, its platform loaded with great timbers cut and stacked. In its wake dry needles scatter and settle upon our windshield. The dirty glass glows in the flickering sunlight. Stone turns on the wipers to push off the dust.