‘Homer & Langley’

Pack rats on a grand scale, the Collyer brothers made news in 1947 when they were found dead by a policeman who broke into their New York house after neighbors smelled a stench coming from it. The corpses were surrounded by more than 100 tons of rubbish they had collected—newspapers, furniture, 14 pianos, even an intact Model T. From these facts—along with a few factual liberties—E. L. Doctorow has fashioned a moving novel of obsession, filial love, and the darker side of the American Century. As described by the younger brother, Homer, the Collyers seem normal—until they bump up against the world. In this excerpt, they begin hostingtea dances, with disastrous results.

Excerpted from the forthcoming novel HOMER & LANGLEY, due out from Random House this September. © 2009 by E. L. Doctorow.

The item about us in the "what to do, where to go" section of one of the evening papers was the first sign of trouble: something to the effect of a high-class taxi dance on Fifth Avenue where you could rub shoulders with the upper crust. We didn't know how the item got there. Langley said, These newspaper people are illiterate—how can one rub shoulders with an upper crust?

At the very next dance we had to close the doors with people still clamoring to get in. Those we had to turn away sat down on the stoop and milled about on the sidewalk. They were noisy. Naturally there followed complaints from the residences south of us: a letter of articulate disapproval, hand-delivered by someone's butler, and an angry phone call from someone who would not give her name, although there may have been more than one phone call from more than one person. Indignation. Umbrage. The neighborhood going to seed. And of course there was the visitation one day of a policeman, though he seemed not to be acting on the complaints of our neighbors. He had his own amiable view of the problem.

Standing at the open door he brought a cold breeze in with him. He announced in rather formal tones that it was against the law to operate a commercial enterprise out of a residence on Fifth Avenue. Then his whiskeyed voice softened: But seeing as you are respectable folks, he said, I am inclined to overlook the matter for a kindly donation of, say, fifteen percent of the weekly monies to the Police Beneficiaries League.

Langley said he had never heard of the Police Beneficiaries League and asked what its work was.

The cop didn't seem to hear. I leave the accounting to you in good faith, Mr. Coller, and I will come by of a Wednesday morning for the remittance and no questions asked, but with a floor of ten dollars.

Langley said: What do you mean "a floor"?

The cop: Well, sir, it would not be worth my time for anything less.

Langley: I understand that criminal matters in this city do press upon your time, Officer. But you see we don't charge much for our tea dances, they are offered more in the nature of a public service. If we have forty couples of an afternoon it's a lot. Add to that our overhead—refreshments, labor costs—and well, we might think about supporting your Police Beneficiaries League with a bribe or, as you call it, a floor of maybe five dollars a week. And for that we would of course expect you to stand out front every Tuesday and touch your cap.

Well now, Mr. Coller, if it was up to me, I would say to you "done and done." But I have my overhead as well.

And that is … ?

My sergeant over to the precinct.

Ah yes, Langley said to me, now we're getting to it.