American man, vandal? (6)
I believe the answer is:
buster
'vandal?' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'american man' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'american' could be 'us' (United States) and 'us' is present in the answer.
'man' could be 'r' (abbreviation for rook, a chess piece or 'man') and 'r' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for buster that I've seen before include "-- Keaton, comic actor" , "Keaton or Crabbe" , "- - Keaton, silent star" , "Form of address to man" , "-- Keaton, US silent film actor" .)