The Cop and the Anthem
by O'Henry
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O'Henry's ironic story follows Soapy, a homeless vagabond in New York, who wants to get arrested so he can spend the cold winter comfortably in prison on Blackwell's Island. He makes several attempts to be caught: he tries to enter a luxurious cafe (thrown out for his shabby clothes), smashes a shop window (the cop refuses to believe him), eats a meal at a cheap restaurant without paying (the waiters throw him out, no cop), yells drunken gibberish for 'disorderly conduct' (the cop thinks he is a harmless college celebrant), and steals an umbrella (whose owner had himself picked it up). Every plan fails. Finally, pausing outside an old church, Soapy hears a sweet anthem that recalls his purer past, mother, roses, ambitions, friends, and he resolves to reform his life and find honest work. At that very moment, ironically, a policeman arrests him for loitering, and the magistrate sentences him to 'Three months on the Island'.
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'The Cop and the Anthem' by O'Henry is a story of freedom and confinement told with his trademark humour and 'twist in the tail'. It follows Soapy, a homeless man who ironically longs for prison, and captures the moment his soul begins to change, just as fate closes in.
Soapy's plan for the winter
As winter approaches, Soapy, sleeping on a park bench in Madison Square, decides that his 'winter island', three months in the prison on Blackwell's Island, offers the best shelter, food and company against the cold. Rather than accept charity, he resolves to get himself arrested, and sets out to commit some minor offence that will land him in the hands of the law.
A string of failed attempts
Soapy's efforts comically fail one after another. He tries to enter a luxurious cafe for a fine meal he cannot pay for, but the head-waiter spots his 'tattered trousers and decadent shoes' and turns him out. He smashes a shop window with a stone and waits, but the policeman refuses to believe that the culprit would stay to chat, and chases another man instead.
He eats a hearty meal at a humble restaurant and cheerfully confesses he has no money, hoping to be handed to a cop; instead the waiters simply throw him onto the pavement. He shouts drunken gibberish for 'disorderly conduct', but the officer mistakes him for a harmless college student celebrating a football victory. Finally he steals a man's silk umbrella, only to learn the man had himself picked it up by mistake and lets him keep it. Arrest seems 'an elusive dream'.
The anthem and the change of heart
Disheartened, Soapy drifts toward home, his park bench. On a quiet corner he stops outside an old church, where an organist is practising a Sabbath anthem. The sweet, solemn music, once familiar in the days when his life 'contained such things as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculate thoughts', holds him transfixed.
A sudden, wonderful change comes over his soul. He views with horror the degraded life he has fallen into and resolves to pull himself out of the 'mire', find honest work, a fur importer had once offered him a job, and become somebody again. The anthem sets up 'a revolution in him'.
The ironic ending
Just as Soapy makes this noble resolution, a policeman lays a hand on him and asks what he is doing there. Soapy answers 'Nothin'', but is arrested for loitering. The next morning the magistrate sentences him to exactly what he had earlier craved but could no longer want: 'Three months on the Island.'
The cruel irony of fate is complete, when Soapy tried every trick to be arrested, the law ignored him; the moment he decided to live an honest life, it seized him. The story poignantly shows how circumstance can crush a fragile new resolve.