1.9 Throwing Good Faith After Bad: The Dummy-Chucker by Arthur Somers Roche (1920)

The concluding "twist" has been important in most stories read here. So I appreciated that "The Dummy Chucker"  is the first story to foreground the role of a confidence man. Ignorant of the intricacies of early 20th century cons, I was unfamiliar with dummy chucking: the process of eating a bit of soap and miming the convulsions that come with epilepsy in an effort to solicit coins of sympathy from individuals walking in the street. The term was most prominent around the turn of the 20th century, from the 1880s through the 1920s. That act of mischief, that play for financial stability, opens Arthur Somers Roche's warm-hearted tale "The Dummy Chucker."

The June 1920 issue of Cosmopolitan, where "The Dummy Chucker" was first published

Though Roche was a prolific writer he might be more famous now as the originator of stories used as source material for a variety of films. Well, except for in Arkansas. In 1921, a year after "The Dummy-Chucker" was published, the state's created a state holiday to celebrate Roche's novel The Day of Faith. In Governor Thomas McRae's words "One wishes that the author-philosopher's simple faith could be translated from the pages of his book into actuality."

The sentimental feelings of people who, when pushed to the brink, just might do right, cuts through "The Dummy Chucker" as well. Set in New York City, Roche details the travails of the unnamed titular character as he works his way through "all Manhattan's bounteous acreage" in the hopes that he might be able to earn some cash from those that "translated their financial thoughts into the pitiful coinage of their birthplaces."

Roche has sympathy for his protagonist and seems to be winking at the reader as well. After all, first major action happens in front of the Concorde theater as audience members shuffle out following a screening of She Loved and Lost. Though a fictional title it gestures to the kind of bathos Roche splashes around in. 

Gov McRae's speech reprinted in the Boston Daily Globe (October 6, 1921)

Many of the stories so far have cataloged the adventure of one man's profession. In "Friends and San Rosario" and "The Run of the Yellow Mail" O. Henry and Spearman detailed the obstacles that emerged in the daily work lives of a banker and an engineer. Whereas these men helped the government run, the illegal basis of the Dummy-Chucker's labor means he is constantly under the threat by police.  And sure enough in the midst of one of his cons he finds himself on the run. As he escapes he jumps into the car of a young man. 

As the two men chat the young man (who like the Dummy-Chucker is never given a name) offers the con-artist a job. After a long back-and-forth filled with asides the proposal is made clear: the Dummy-Chucker is to impersonate a man named Jones. He will enter a restaurant, drink from a flask and pretend to be drunk. For such a performance the young man will pay $100.  

This score seems too good to be true—it is easy work and the Dummy-Chucker gets to imbibe in an era of Prohibition. On top of that he doesn't need to lick any soap. Further, the Dummy-Chucker is not asked to break either of his rules: he does not need to murder nor will he need to kidnap anyone.

What's the catch? The young man is smitten—he longs for the love of Jones's significant other. The young man has learned that Jones died while in Brazil. While Jones' soon to-be-wife is unaware of this, the two had planned to marry when Jones returned to New York City. The only stipulation for the marriage was that Jones, a recovering alcoholic, must refrain from drinking.

The story is a bit convoluted, precisely because Roche refrains from using names. But the young man believes that if the woman learned that Jones had died she would freeze her memory of him into a rose-colored amber of nostalgia and never be able to love again. However, if she were to see Jones drinking, she would be overcome with disgust and never want to be with him.

And so the rich young man, whose vision of the world is defined by an assumption that a woman he loves should love him, hopes to propose and eventually win the unnamed woman's heart. As he explains: "You see, I think it was pity that made her accept Jones in the beginning. I think that she cares for me." This is the con, and this is why the Dummy-Chucker's performance of Jones matters.

This is a short story though: such a simple scheme never could work out. Outfitted in fancy clothes, the Dummy-Chucker begins to admire himself. Having only just left a prison on Blackwell's Island (in 2017 this is Roosevelt Island), the former thief is surprised by how dashing he looks. When he enters the restaurant where the young man and woman are dining he wonders: though "there might be handsomer men present in this hotel… was there any one who wore his clothes better?" Clothes seem to, as that adage from the Middle Ages claims, make the man. Confidence comes easily and with this brief experience of a deeper life comes a haughty sensibility. He becomes, in Roche's words, a "gentleman"

And that gentlemanly status prevents him from carrying out the con. When the Dummy-Chucker sees the man and woman dining, he realizes he has left the flask to drink from in his jacket, now in the coatroom. This brief misstep is enough to rupture the entire plan. Re-thinking what this performance means, Roche's protagonist decides to just leave the restaurant and return to the young man's home.

The night winds down and the man returns home. Livid, he questions the Dummy-Chucker. The twist is set up.

Recalling his rules of engagement, the Dummy Chucker explains that "I told you that I drew the line at murder, didn't I?" He goes on to explain that to impersonate Jones was to participate in "murder of faith in a woman's heart." This kind of Frank Capra conception of chivalry carries no weight for the young man, and he sends the Dummy-Chucker out in a rage.

The tale ends with the con-artist's clothes torn. "Gone was the debonair gentleman of a quarter of an hour ago. Instead, there leered back at him a pasty-faced, underfed vagrant, dressed in the tatters of unambitious, satisfied poverty." What is there left for the trickster to do but return to the bar he loves and fake an epileptic attack outside the Concorde theater after a screening of She Loved and Lost. The cycle continues as the man's life replays itself.

It is easy to see why the governor of Arkansas would celebrate a story like this. This is, in the end, the story of a man driven by principle and good,"simple faith," following maybe some bad faith. (Why does it take the moment of forgetting the flask to trigger his supposedly steadfast anti-murder rules?)

Implicitly Roche connects the wealth of the young man with a sense of entitlement; decked in fancy clothes and wielding $100 like a useless toothpick in a well-cut sandwich, his vision of romance is threatened by the bogus fear of being "friend-zoned." Such a fear itself is predicated on the notion that a woman would necessarily be open and interested in his affection. It is a life predicated on the world being open for the taking.

Filled with whimsy and turning on the actions of a man with a "good heart" it is unsurprising that Roche's stories were so frequently adapted by Hollywood. In this collection, this story follows the form of many before it. Whatever commentary on class undergirds this tale, Roche cares less about the larger questions of imperialism than previous authors. Instead, his narrative details the personal gains, individual offerings, small choices that structure everyday life. What, then, does it mean to understand this one long night in the career of a Dummy-Chucker?

You can read “The Dummy-Chucker,” included in the collection The Best Short Stories of 1920, at Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22091