They got ramblin' on their minds

Author: By Nada Elia

Date: SUNDAY, August 9, 1998

Page: C3

Section: Books

The image has found its most poetic expression in folklore, with the myth of the Flying Ibos who took off and returned to Nigeria immediately upon landing on American soil -- a myth popularized, if not always explained (and why should myths be explained?), by African-American artists in both song and writing. Numerous blues-based narratives feature a voyage of sorts, from Robert Johnson's ``Rambling on My Mind'' to Tracy Chapman's ``Fast Car.'' In literature, to name but a few prominent novelists, we have Richard Wright's ``Native Son,'' which opens with a young boy's desire to fly, as well as Paule Marshall's ``Praisesong for the Widow'' and Toni Morrison's ``Song of Solomon,'' which both center around the myth of the enslaved Africans' return to their native land. As these examples indicate, the ``journey'' generally entails promises of a better life, even if it frequently fails to deliver.

Such a promissory journey is the main thread of Albert French's third novel, ``I Can't Wait on God.'' The central characters, Willet Mercer and Jeremiah Henderson, are driving in a fancy car from gritty Pittsburgh to glittery New York, and although they are still on the road as the novel ends, we know they will never see the great Eastern metropolis, because their past and the police are catching up with them.

Told over the course of five days in 1950, the story meanders like an unrushed train, making frequent stops at local stations. Along the way, we get to meet, and know, the back-alley folks of a Pittsburgh neighborhood as they tend to their daily activities -- the lucky few going to regular jobs, the others greeting each other from their porches, helping the old and debilitated, caring for their many loved ones, and discussing the possibility of another war. Korea looms big on the horizon, and World War II is a close and uncomfortable memory. At night, they gather around the jukebox in the back room of a bootlegger's store, drinking, dancing, and gambling to relieve themselves of the frustrations of their fruitless toil. But violence and crime are never far from the lives of the urban poor, and even as Willet and Jeremiah try to leave their past behind, they cannot escape. Willet has killed and, as one neighbor says: ``Law gets them. That law will gets. Can't runs too long from the law.''

``I Can't Wait on God'' is an intricate tour de force, showing how love can be one's greatest enemy, and how selfishness could be a savior. For it is love that prompts Willet to urge Jeremiah to make a detour south to Wilmington, N.C., in order to see the child that, as a young unwed victim of gang rape, she had left in her mother's care. And it is love that makes Jeremiah agree to Willet's request, despite his nagging awareness that their time is very precious, for they are driving the car stolen from the man Willet murdered as he was ``trying her on for size'' before prostituting her to his rich white clientele. Overflowing with his own love and compassion, French does not pass judgment on his characters and, in the end, neither can we.

``I Can't Wait on God'' in some ways continues French's exploration of related themes: a lower-class community's struggles with grief and with the frustrations and criminal behavior that grow out of poverty, racism, lack of opportunity. In all three novels, individual aspirations, even lives, are crushed by greater sociopolitical forces, and we are humbled by the feelings of helplessness and futility that surround them.

And here, as in his previous writing, French's style, free of superlatives, quasi-hypnotic, disarms the reader, letting us gape at a somber reality where every criminal is also a victim. French's language is sparse, starkly realistic, yet rich with vernacular lyricism and cadence that transport the reader to the porches of close-knit neighborhoods, but also into the lively improvised dance clubs where, ever asserting their right to some fleeting moment of pleasure, or mere forgetfulness, those whom ``society'' has chosen to oppress still dance, sing, and live the blues, in between police raids and trips to the drug dealer.

``I Can't Wait on God'' is a blues novel par excellence, resonating with the aches of poor folks, their yearning for change, escape, and impossibly beautiful new beginnings. And as with the overall impression of a blues melody, its effect on the reader is that of overwhelming sadness, which the artist nevertheless tries to modulate with fleeting flights of fancy, incongruous happy notes, giggles, a warm feeling of tender love.

But you need not be a blues aficionada to appreciate French's talent. This, his most poetic novel to date, may well be the one that finally establishes his place alongside such great precursors as Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. And if you haven't read French's earlier novels, ``Billy'' (1993) and ``Holly'' (1995), or ``Patches of Fire,'' his 1997 memoir of his four years as an infantryman in the Marines during the Vietnam War, you will definitely be making one more trip to the bookstore as you reluctantly put down ``I Can't Wait for God.''