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'I Can't Wait On God' by Albert French

Pittsburgh author sets tragic tale in Homewood

Sunday, September 06, 1998

By Nathalie op de Beeck

	I Can't Wait On God By Albert French Anchor Books $22.95

Pittsburgh novelist Albert French never invents an innocent character. Embittered by racism and poor economic prospects, his men, women and children are inclined to make grave mistakes that leave them afoul of the law.

Yet French doesn't draw a line between good and evil. His players gamble, steal, cheat and murder, but they always have logical reasons for their misdeeds. And they know it's only a matter of time before they get caught.

In French's first (and still most powerful) novel, "Billy," a 10-year-old black Mississippi boy is put to death for stabbing the white girl who beat him up. "Billy" acknowledges its title character's wrongdoing while raising issues of racial animosity and child violence that are relevant far beyond the 1937 setting.

French's second book, "Holly," chronicles a young white woman's experiences in World War II-era North Carolina. Heartbreak and flawed choices drive the story, which concludes with Holly's doomed love affair with a black man.

Like the previous novels, "I Can't Wait on God" focuses on racial injustice and moral dilemmas. This time, however, the primary setting isn't the South; it's 1950 Pittsburgh. The action originates in Homewood, in the side streets right next to the train tracks. French practices a slangy style that allows readers to imagine an omniscient narrator, a shrewd man sitting on his porch and conjuring the scene in Gus Goins' all-night juke joint:

"Them folks down Gus Goins's ain't heard that train passin. That jukebox playin in that front room ain't lettin them hear no train goin by. Folks that ain't dancin to that jukebox music is sittin in them chairs and listening to it. Bill Lovit's sittin in that front room on one of them foldin chairs in there. He keeps tryin to sit up straight, but that wine he's been drinkin keeps makin him lean off that chair. . ."

French brings almost all his characters through Gus' joint, and calls each person - no matter how peripheral - by a first and last name. It's summertime, and the whole neighborhood seems to be playing poker on the sly or gossiping in humid air heavy with mill smoke. Only after a few chapters do the key roles congeal - or hard-boil, as it were.

Willet Mercer, Homewood's resident femme fatale, lives with Jeremiah Henderson. Willet's sick of Pittsburgh, and she estimates she'll need $300 to leave town. A hustler, Tommy Moses, promises to lend Jeremiah the cash on the condition that Willet prostitutes herself. Although Jeremiah never explains the deal, Willet assumes that Tommy wants sex in exchange for the loan. She goes willingly to his flashy car, but she carries a knife in her purse.

Tommy himself is wary, but not of Willet:

"[H]e ain't goin to have that big money on him without havin his pistol with him, too. He knows Jeremiah Henderson carries him a quick knife, one of them long switchblades. He knows Jeremiah had that blade at Floyd Robinson's throat before the man could see Jeremiah comin at him.... Couldn't have been over nothin past a dollar ."

Consequently, when Willet kills Tommy and empties his pockets, Jeremiah becomes the prime suspect. The couple flees to North Carolina in Tommy's swanky new Buick, their escape made riskier by the stolen car, its Pennsylvania license plate and the color of their skin.

Tommy comes across as a gluttonous sleaze who wears gold rings and bets on pool games at a white bar on Frankstown Avenue. His interests include sex, booze and easy money, not necessarily in that order. However, Jeremiah and Willet are no victims. Jeremiah uses Willet as barter, and Willet herself turns out to be a cold-blooded killer.

Further, Tommy's murder has repercussions beyond the crime scene. Although Tommy's loss is Pittsburgh cops' gain, the crime needs an official solution; the police raid Gus Goins' place when Homewood residents hesitate to rat out Jeremiah and Willet.

French does not spare his characters pain, and he leaves readers shaken but unsurprised by ugly plot twists.

"I Can't Wait on God" unquestionably conveys the double standard applied to blacks and whites who try to evade the law. French does work to balance Willet and Jeremiah's hopeless situation with tales of redemption: Willet makes amends with her family in North Carolina and, back in Pittsburgh, a down-and-out jazzman returns to his music as he's welcomed back into his neighborhood.

Yet there's little room for uplift, nor should there be.

With minor adjustments, this story could belong to any industrial town, in any recent decade. Pittsburghers will be able to trace characters' paths along streets from Wilkinsburg to Homewood to East Liberty, and will recognize businesses like Isaly's and the A&P supermarket, yet the look of Korean War-era Homewood is left vague beyond its landmarks.

At its best, "I Can't Wait on God" recommends French's other fiction. The conversational drawl of the storyteller, the insular black community, the tragedy that interrupts summer's leisure and the whispered gossip are all familiar features of French's work.

Though more melodramatic and less centered than "Billy," this novel shows French's singular ear for dialogue and his harsh, 80-proof brand of 1950s nostalgia.

Nathalie op de Beeck, a Pittsburgh-based writer and editor, reviews books for Publishers Weekly and other publications.